[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 22 (Monday, February 22, 2010)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E182-E183]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             CONGRATULATING PORTLAND DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. EARL BLUMENAUER

                               of oregon

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, February 22, 2010

  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the 
Portland Development Commission and the City of Portland, Oregon.
  The Portland Development Commission, the city's urban renewal and 
economic development agency, has been able to exceed their established 
diversity goals in construction contracting for each of the last two 
years.
  The PDC results are promising. In tough economic times and in a city 
with a small minority population PDC has exceeded goals for utilization 
of minority, women-owned and emerging small businesses by at least 15 
percent annually, committing more than 35 percent of the dollars 
committed to state-certified firms.
  Three years ago the PDC executive leadership and Board took bold 
steps by revising the decade-old policies governing business and 
workforce equity and adopting significant policy changes, which 
included: The adoption of the PDC Construction Wage Policy; revision of 
the PDC Business and Workforce Equity Policies; convening a community-
based Workforce Diversity Advisory Committee, whose work resulted in 
PDC's new workforce diversity goals for all PDC construction projects 
and upcoming new contractor requirements; closer working relationships 
with the National Association of Minority Contractors-Oregon, the 
minority chambers of commerce and the Metropolitan Contracting 
Improvement Partnership, which focuses on building contractor capacity; 
a renewed partnership with organized labor that changed the state 
prevailing wage statutes on public-private partnerships; support for 
pre-apprenticeship programs such as Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc., the 
Evening Trades Apprenticeship Program, WorkSystems Inc., Irvington 
Covenant, Portland Youthbuilders and Construction Apprenticeship and 
Workforce Solutions; and providing technical assistance at no cost to 
all minority, women-owned and emerging small businesses bidding on or 
receiving PDC constructs.
  Additionally, I'm pleased to report that the PDC has achieved these 
results in part due to close collaboration with organized labor. These 
jobs are family wage jobs that provide health insurance benefits.
  The PDC is committed to making further progress. They've established 
a Workforce Diversity Strategy Committee that will function

[[Page E183]]

as an oversight group and constantly evaluate results and set 
aggressive goals for diversity in PDC construction projects.
  They've worked with minority business associations to put in place 
technical assistance agreements to focus on building capacity among 
historically underutilized businesses. PDC will implement a prompt 
payment requirement making sure that small contractors get paid quickly 
for their work, and just last month, PDC implemented a Small Contractor 
Loan Insurance program that gives small contractors access to working 
capital through a revolving loan. This will be a huge help to small 
firms that are struggling to attain credit with banks.
  I commend PDC for what they've done, and what they have planned to 
make sure that public construction projects benefit the entire 
community and not just a select few.

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