Supporters of Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs) were told Wednesday by Portland City Council members that whatever happens, high standards for workforce diversity would apply to a major utility-based construction project now rolling into action.

The different sides are still debating an equity plan for city construction projects drafted by Mayor Ted Wheeler, the Community Equity and Inclusion Plan. CBA supporters want the CEIP to closely resemble CBAs, which are considered union-friendly, and others want greater opportunities for minorities who own open-shop firms.

On Wednesday, the council held a procedural hearing related to a $146 million upgrade of the city’s Columbia Boulevard Wastewater Treatment Plant. Heavy work on the project won’t begin for about two years, but CBA advocates who testified were assured by council members the project would feature ambitious targets for gender and racial diversity.

“We’re concerned the city could be missing an opportunity,” said Kelly Haines of the Metropolitan Alliance for Workforce Equity.

Wheeler said Wednesday the sides are “weeks, not months” from agreement on the CEIP. He confirmed the main sticking point has been a threshold of $25 million stipulating projects use the CEIP.

Also at the hearing, the council voted unanimously to use the construction manager-general contractor alternative contracting method for the wastewater treatment plant project. The method, preferred by many builders for complex and/or risky projects, is also said to help firms meet workforce and subcontracting goals.

The debate over equitable contracting was going on long before Wheeler took office in January, but in April, his office released a draft CEIP that had the support of the National Association of Minority Contractors-Oregon, whose membership includes both union and open-shop firms. But the region’s largest construction worker union, the Columbia Pacific Building Trades Council, along with many other nonprofit groups, opposed several conditions of the CEIP, notably a threshold exempting required use of the CEIP on projects valued over $25 million.

Built in 1952, the Columbia Boulevard Wastewater Treatment Plant today serves 600,000 Portlanders, handling an average of 76 million gallons per day. However, as a result of Portland’s , the plant now sees peaks of up to 450 million gallons in a day following heavy rain.

These wide variations require more biological treatment during a rain and increased resiliency, according to BES program manager Muriel Gueissaz-Teufel. The upgrades have been included in planning documents as far back as the 1990s. Beyond that, she said, regulators have mandated the city complete the project by 2024.

The first deadline is Saturday, when the city is required to notify the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality it’s implementing the project.

“The project is really about increasing the quality of treatment at the plant,” Gueissaz-Teufel said. “The EPA is asking that as much flow as possible be sent to biological treatment.”

The project addresses deferred maintenance needs, upgrades of technical systems and rolls in several long-needed capital projects at the treatment plant. It adds 15,000 square feet of storage space and 5,000 square feet of staff space, as well as add two wet-weather clarifiers and replacement of odor control systems. Wastewater clarifiers are large basins that allow for the separation of sediments.

“(Clarifiers) are low-profile structures that are essentially full of water,” Gueissaz-Teufel said.

The existing clarifiers at the treatment plant will remain in place.

Construction costs for the project are budgeted at $89 million. The overall project budget of $146 million includes predesign, design, construction and permitting. Funding comes from sewer ratepayers via the Sewer System Operating Fund.

Mike Jordan, director of the Bureau of Environmental Services, said the will help by providing the contractor more flexibility in scheduling, which for this project will feature complex sequencing and maintenance of operations.

“When you’re talking about $90 million you’re talking about considerable risk, and anything you can do to minimize risk would be supported by the ratepayer,” Jordan said.

Jordan showed the council a picture of equipment at the plant used for biosolids processing jerry-rigged to prevent leaks.

“As you know, big electrical equipment and leaks just don’t mix,” he said.

Contracts for the project will require frequent reporting by involved parties, to groups including the Portland Utility Board, the Citizens Utility Board and the City Council.

Management help sought for treatment plant work

Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services is looking for program management and other support services as it embarks on major projects at its two wastewater treatment plants.

The Columbia Boulevard Wastewater Treatment Plant treats as many as 76 million gallons per day. Design for improvements is expected to begin next year.

The Tryon Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant treats an average of 6.5 million gallons per day. The facility was built in 1964 and expanded in 1976. An improvements program for the plant approved in 2014 includes five projects.

The overall project budget is $89 million. The program to expand secondary treatment in Portland is mandated by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

The winning bidder will work as an extension of BES staff to assist project managers with completion of the two large projects, according to the request for proposals. The initial contract will run for five years with provisions allowing for a five-year extension.

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The city of Portland is close to adopting a comprehensive plan for ensuring its lofty equity goals are employed on all city construction projects, after years of contentious debate.

But Wednesday’s hearing at City Hall showed the fight isn’t over for the new Community Equity and Inclusion Plan (CEIP), which Mayor Ted Wheeler’s office is calling one of the ambitious equity policies ever undertaken in Portland.

Dissatisfaction from longtime stakeholders was still present, but given the issue’s rancorous history in Portland, Wheeler’s plan may be close to the finish line.

“I bet a lot of you thought I was going to get up here and say bad things about it,” said James Posey, a contractor and longtime voice in equitable contracting in Portland. “But I’m not.”

Posey and nearly all of the two dozen others who testified said more work on the policy is needed. They asked for accountability for contractors who fail to live up to terms, a fine greater than $2,000 for failure to meet goals, and better data to ensure contractors don’t play with numbers to make a white, male workforce appear more diverse on paper.

Wheeler’s CEIP didn’t arrive at the hearing requiring the union-friendly policy tool known as Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs) on all projects – owners of projects over $25 million that use alternative contract methods are given the choice. This led to many speakers saying they could not support the policy as written.

“I urge you to not support this,” said Connie Ashbrook, executive director emeritus of Oregon Tradeswomen Inc.

The CEIP is intended to standardize equity requirements and keep project owners from having to devise new plans for each project. Currently, several city bureaus have their own plans, as do certain large capital projects. The CEIP was compiled with the help of various bureaus and is intended to provide a consistent approach to equitable contracting.

One issue that’s vexed Portland leaders going back to former mayor Bud Clark in the early 1990s is how to draft a policy like the CEIP that will stand up to legal challenges. City attorneys have warned that CBAs might increase diversity on city projects, but would put the city in a risky position.

The most charged issue in this arena going back to Wheeler’s predecessor, Charlie Hales, has been how to incorporate the signatory component of CBAs. Many people who’ve testified to the council have said this component is crucial to ensuring the engagement of stakeholder groups. These include industry-focused nonprofits like Oregon Tradeswomen, Constructing Hope, Portland Youth Builders, and the Metropolitan Alliance for Workforce Equity.

These groups, along with neighborhood organizations like the East Portland Action Plan, and construction worker unions under the Columbia Pacific Building Trades Council have said the signatory requirement is critical because there needs to be a contractual relationship tying contractors to their promises.

“The problem with (the CEIP) is it doesn’t have any method of delivery for equity in workforce,” Willy Myers, executive director of the council, told the 91ĘÓƵ.

But contractors, including the heads of black-owned open-shop firms, and city project managers have expressed concerns about their obligations and the city’s enforcement ability.

The chief administrative officer under Charlie Hales, Fred Miller, was critical of CBAs. Miller retired at the end of last year. His successor, Tom Rinehart, along with the head of the Office of Equity and Human Rights, Dante James, have taken the lead devising the CEIP for Wheeler.

CBAs were used for two Portland Water Bureau projects, and not without controversy.

They were regarded as successful in achieving diverse worker and owner participation, but an independent report criticized several aspects of how they were used in the pilot projects, including project set-aside money going to things unrelated to the projects. The report, by Framework LLC, also said the CBAs were employed in ways that could provide the appearance of conflict of interest.

Miller said at the time he did not want “pure” CBAs used for the Portland Building reconstruction project, which his bureau was gearing up to take on.

Wheeler’s solution to address this dilemma is a CEIP-supporting document to be signed by contractors selected for city projects – a . It will effectively serve as the signatory document to the CEIP.

The scope of the partnership agreement is narrower than that of the CBAs piloted by the city. But Wheeler thinks it can achieve the right level of stakeholder engagement while keeping separate the contractual relationship between the city and its prime contractor.

The proposed fix is intended to allow both union and open-shop firms to compete for city projects, which for years has been a major sticking point in the conversation around equitable contracting. A number of local businesses belonging to the National Association of Minority Contractors are open shop, and some of their owners say it’s easier to hire from their communities absent unions. And they point out that unions haven’t always lived up to equity goals.

Commissioner Dan Saltzman introduced an amendment requiring CBAs for projects over $25 million. But because Saltzman introduced his amendment at the start of Wednesday’s hearing, no one in the room had prepared to address it. NAMC Oregon Executive Director Nate McCoy said he needed to check with people before publicly agreeing to support the amendment.

McCoy has said he favors an equity plan that allows all NAMC Oregon businesses to participate. He and national NAMC board member and Raimore Construction head Jeff Moreland sounded open to it on Wednesday.

“So, just to be clear,” Wheeler said, “with this amendment, we don’t lose you, Nate, and we get you, Willy?”

Seated at the same table, Myers and McCoy offered signs of assent to Wheeler’s question.

The CEIP would also establish a body – the Community Equity and Inclusion Committee – to oversee the city’s and its contractors’ performance. Not all of the CEIC’s formal duties have been assigned.

James, of the Office of Equity and Human Rights, said at the outset of the discussion that underlying all of Portland’s struggles to achieve diversity in contracting are racism and sexism.

“I want to be clear about this,” he said.

Wheeler’s office on Wednesday forwarded three resolutions relating to the CEIP. They will return to the City Council next month, when votes, including on the new amendments, will be taken.

“We have 30 days to figure this out,” Wheeler said.

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City officials are speaking out against efforts to employ a union-friendly policy tool to meet minority hiring goals on city projects.

Community Benefits Agreements, or CBAs, are contracts tying project developers and stakeholders to goals that support a project-affected community, notably the targeted hiring of women and minorities. But not everyone in Portland’s minority contracting community agrees they’re the best way forward.

CBAs will be the subject of a hearing on Thursday, at 2 p.m., at City Hall to evaluate their effectiveness and whether they should be incorporated into the under-development City Equity and Inclusion Plan, which would apply to all major city projects across all bureaus.

And now Fred Miller, head of the Office of Management and Finance, and Michael Stuhr, head of the Water Bureau, are publicly airing concerns about CBAs, citing issues that emerged during a testing CBAs on two Water Bureau projects.

“While the CBA provided benefits to the projects, the deficiencies identified in this report also had negative impacts on both the Kelly Butte Reservoir and Interstate Maintenance Facility Renovation Projects,” Stuhr wrote to the council in a report dated Sept. 2.

Stuhr wrote that the draft model CBA used on the pilot project should not be applied to future projects, citing outcomes identified in an independent report by consulting firm Framework LLC.

Miller listed issues he sees with CBAs when he wrote to the council in a . They include the appearance of conflict of interest and a $500,000 line item by the contractor for administration of the CBA pilot program.

Additionally, Christine Moody, the city’s chief procurement officer, and her boss, Ken Rust, the city’s chief financial officer, are renouncing a report given to the council last week by a volunteer commission supportive of CBAs – the Equitable Contracting and Purchasing Commission.

Moody defended some of her office’s equity efforts in a memo sent to ECPC Chairman Dante James, head of the Office of Equity and Human Rights. And she met personally with him Tuesday.

“We think the ECPC presentation included some information that was inaccurate and unclear,” she wrote in the letter obtained this week through a records request.

And in an email Tuesday to the city’s elected officials, Rust gave an overview of concerns raised in Moody’s report.

“We wanted to make sure council was aware of it, because the presentation was very confusing,” he told the 91ĘÓƵ today.

Rust said he didn’t want to take a position on CBAs, but felt the procurement office could have corrected errors in the ECPC’s presentation had it had a chance to review it. He suspected the errors were the result of inexperienced staffers transferring complex and incomplete information from one software program to another.

On Sept. 14, nearly a year after ECPC members met for the first time, they painted a dire picture of the city’s efforts to increase inclusion. Graphics showed white males dwarfing all other categories and backward movement in key areas.

“CBAs are a powerful tool for promoting the including of underrepresented people,” said Nicky Nicholson-Klingerman, an O’Neill Electric project administrator who addressed the council last week on behalf of the ECPC.

A coalition supportive of CBAs issued its own postmortem of the pilot project: “The Community Benefits Agreement: A Proven Tool for Advancing Portland’s Commitment to Equity in Contracting and Workforce Diversity.”

ECPC member Maurice Rahming told the council at last week’s hearing that union hiring halls are better able to respond to calls for a diverse workforce than contractors, who currently aren’t being held accountable where diversity is concerned. He said CBAs get better results, as well as detailed data for helping officials understand the depth of the problem.

“If you remove (CBAs) you see almost a non-utilization of women and minorities; the gap is that great,” he said. “The reason you see such a drastic drop in the data last year is because the CBA projects were winding down.”

Nate McCoy of the National Association of Minority Contractors’ Oregon chapter told the 91ĘÓƵ that the data the ECPC used in its presentation didn’t reflect what he’d seen when he worked as a construction manager in the Housing Bureau.

“We didn’t have CBAs and we always hit the numbers,” he said. “The biggest overarching issue is that minority contractors that are smaller still have to compete in a big-boy system that is this low-bid process.”

Two major city projects now in preconstruction – Washington Park Reservoir improvements and the Portland Building reconstruction – have begun and aren’t employing “true” or “pure” CBAs.

This week, city Commissioner Nick Fish told the 91ĘÓƵ he supports a modified form of CBA – a community benefit plan – that features heavy union participation but is also open to minority-owned open-shop firms.

Fish, a former labor lawyer, said the timing for focusing on the CBA issue was “perfect,” with a new mayor taking over in January and several big-ticket city projects on the horizon.

“I think we have to rethink that commission and bring some new faces in,” he said of the ECPC. “I think that will be an opportunity for the new mayor.”

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