Allan Appel Photo
Angel Fernandez-Chavero.
The city plans to send an inspector out into the field for the first time in a year and half to monitor the hiring of women and minorities on construction projects — with some new digital tools that will ultimately make results visible to the public.
That promise was made at City Hall Wednesday night at the monthly meeting of the Board of Commissioners of the the city’s Commission on Equal Opportunities.
CEO Interim Director Angel Fernandez-Chavero took over the troubled agency in the fall of 2016 after Mayor Toni Harp fired longtime director Nichole Jefferson. That firing led to more than a year of legal challenges and charges that the agency’s important work was being ignored.
The CEO is charged with monitoring contractors on government-funded construction projects with goals of having at least 25 percent minorities (black and Hispanic) and 6.9 percent female workers on the job.
During her tenure, Jefferson had three or four site inspectors, technically known as utilization monitors, out in the field to check whether contractors were complying with the law.
Fernandez-Chavero has until now had no staffers to do that. His new staffer, “assuming the person accepts,” will start on March 26, Ferandez-Chavero said.
He said he personally made a few site visits, and didn’t find any violations. He said he has otherwise relied on online data provided by contractors.
He reported that for calendar year 2017 through the evolving online system, he monitored 52 projects, which spent a total $44 million. Those projects hired a workforce composed of 51.3 percent minorities and 5.49 percent female, he said. During that period, he reported about ten complaints from people, largely about his not sending inspectors to sites.
In an interview after the commissioners’ meeting, he said that when he looked into those situations, he uncovered no significant violations.
The law requires that contractors “exert maximum effort” to reach the hiring goals Fernandez-Chavero said. So even though the companies he monitored didn’t hit the goal for hiring female workers, they convinced him that they had made a “maximum effort,” such as through advertising and outreach.
When he took over the job, Fernandez-Chavero was an office of one. He has since hired an assistant, Yesenia Cruz, who has been on the job for three months, although she does not go into the field.
Acting Chair Gwen Newton.
When he took over the department with a mandate to develop systems, Fernandez-Chavero promised to institute a web-based, project tracking system for contractor compliance. He said he made a management decision to get the CEO house in order through developing web-based systems first, as opposed to sending inspectors immediately out.
“You can take a machete and chop a jungle down, but the jungle grows back. I prefer to build a road,” he said.
Some of it was on display for commissioners at the meeting: Online payrolls and lists of employees by gender and race, along with notes, correspondence, and various forms submitted by project. He said he has been able to send a weekly automated email summary of activity.
The system allows for the electronic submission of, among many other documents, certified payroll and workforce participation data. (The state had given the city the option to implement the system in 2015.) Fernandez-Chavero said that the system will ultimately permit anyone to see the status of CEO managed projects from a computer or even their smartphone.
Angel Fernandez-Chavero with new assistant Cruz.
He reported to his commissioners that while the new web-based system, which he has largely designed himself, is not yet available on the CEO’s site for the general public, that is the goal. It will be accessible to the new hire, technically a “utilization monitor.”
The news of the new hire pleased the commissioners.
Gwen Newton, the acting chair of the CEO board, asked if the payrolls and other evidentiary materials that Fernandez-Chavero was showing on the screen revealed any discrepancies.
“No, not yet, in this period,” he replied.
“The new utilization monitor will have a tablet, like this one,” he added, indicating his own slim, shining HP, so the data will be immediately accessible to him as he visits sites.
“Before, we had four or five very busy [monitors] in the city. Is this new one enough to cover all the action out there?” asked Commissioner Alan Felder.
“Probably not. I doubt one utilization monitor is enough. My plan is to find ways for us to grow, but this digitization is a huge help,” Fernandez-Chavero replied.
“What you’re doing is not eyes on,” complained longtime Commissioner Ruth Henderson. “There’s nothing better than getting on the site.”
Fernandez-Chavero didn’t disagree. He said that he would like to have more monitors, although the city’s cash-strapped finances makes that possibility less than certain. He continued to make his case that the technology will make the monitors, whether only one or more, more effective.
“This gives us additional tools to catch people. All this stuff will be as real time as possible. We’ll be able to do trend analysis in real time,” he said.
“There have and will be times when people are unhappy with this office because we will not address immediate wrongs,. But the best solutions are systemic solutions that, when correctly implemented, minimize the possibility of those wrongs,” he concluded.
In other commission business Edith Rawls was elected vice chair and Monica Arroyo secretary.