You guys do what you want,” SEWRPC Executive Director Phil Evenson tells the Environmental Justice Task Force.
The task force, though, as everyone on it knows, has no real power over the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission. All it can do is suggest. Task force member Joette Heckenbach requested that SEWRPC get outside assistance to conduct socio-economic analyses as part of the agency’s studies. Evenson and SEWRPC Deputy Director Ken Yunker don’t like that idea much.
Below the video of SEWRPC’s resistance is part of the affirmative action complaint the NAACP, with the assistance of the ACLU, filed against SEWRPC with the Department of Labor’s Office of Contract Compliance. It lays out nicely how SEWRPC prefers to hire its major consultants — from a rather small list of white people.
Facts Relating to Non-Compliance With Affirmative Action in Use of Professional Service
Subcontractors
39. SEWRPC has hired, and continues to hire, “independent contractors” who provide significant and ongoing professional services, including many of the kinds of services that are or potentially could be performed by SEWRPC employees.
40. Upon information and belief, SEWRPC has routinely identified, hired and retained most or all of these “independent contractors” on a “no bid” basis.
41. Upon information and belief, SEWRPC retains significant control over the performance of work by these “independent contractors.”
42. Upon information and belief, SEWRPC did not comply with affirmative action or disadvantaged business enterprise requirements or policies in hiring these contractors, or otherwise attempt to ensure that the professional services contractors it hired are members of diverse groups.
43. Upon information and belief, SEWRPC has not engaged in any efforts to monitor or otherwise ensure that these professional service subcontractors engage in Affirmative Action.
44. SEWRPC does not identify or report these professional service subcontractors in its EEO reports, and does not maintain demographic data on them.
45. Such “independent contractors” from whom no demographic information is collected, who were not recruited through the methods specified in the AA Plan, and who are not identified in affirmative action reports, include, but are not limited to, the following:
a. Since 1997, SEWRPC has annually contracted with its former executive director, who upon information and belief is a white non-Hispanic person, to provide engineering, planning and surveying services including but not limited to “determination of an annual work program” related to public land surveys; “oversight of Commission staff activities intended to carry out the work program,” and designing and executing other projects assigned by SEWRPC. For 2008, SEWRPC pays its former director $6,500 per month ($78,000 per year) based on the “equivalent of three-quarters time of service,” and provides him with office space, a vehicle, telephone service, and support staff; during some prior years, SEWRPC also paid for its former director’s health insurance.
b. Since 2006, SEWRPC has utilized the services of two designated individuals, who upon information and belief are white non-Hispanic persons, as “personal service contractors” for planning services related to the 30th St. Corridor Redevelopment, and, upon information and belief, has provided them with office space in Milwaukee County. The 30th St. Corridor is in the central city of Milwaukee, an area predominantly populated by persons of color.
c. Since 2007, if not earlier, SEWRPC has entered into an annual contract with the University of Wisconsin Extension for the services of a specifically identified individual, who upon information and belief is a white non-Hispanic person, for public education and outreach, including outreach to communities of color. The contract obligates SEWRPC to pay 100% of this person’s salary and benefits, and milage and expenses.