Norton Announces Official Field Hearing on Jobs and Contracts at DHS Construction Site in Ward 8

Norton Announces Official Field Hearing on Jobs and Contracts at DHS Construction Site in Ward 8

WASHINGTON, DC - The Office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today announced that she will hold an official subcommittee hearing on June 15 at Matthews Memorial Church, located at 2616 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave., SE., on hiring and small business contracting activities at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) construction site on the West Campus of St. Elizabeths. Norton also released the first of the bi-weekly hiring reports on the new headquarters construction underway at the Ward 8 site.

The report prepared by the General Services Administration (GSA) is a pre-hiring season report, because the major construction work affording the most jobs does not begin until July. The work underway now consists mostly of cranes digging up soil and rocks that are hauled on trucks 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Norton chairs the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management, which has jurisdiction over the GSA project, the largest federal construction project since the Pentagon. To date, six of the 11 apprentices hired at the site are District residents. Norton secured $3 million for pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. GSA also reported that five D.C. residents have been hired from the on-site Opportunities Center that Norton established in order to provide ease of access to the community. However, 20 were rejected because they failed the initial drug test. The Congresswoman makes unannounced visits to the DHS site to inspect hiring and small business contracting results. On April 6, she saw first-hand many small trucking companies at work, including Ward 8 companies. GSA reported that many trucks from D.C. have been used and that Ward 8 has run out of trucks. The DHS project will provide jobs and small business contracts until 2016 as construction progresses to the stages of building and general labor.

"I expect to see good participation by D.C. residents, including journeymen, apprentices and pre-apprentices working on the site," Norton said. She previously announced that GSA is on track to award 40 percent of the contracts to small, local, or disadvantaged businesses, and that GSA has subcontracted with 15 D.C. businesses, including seven based in Ward 8. At her "Access to Capital" small business fair in March, Norton named as 2010 Small Business of the Year Regional Contracting Services, LLC, founded by Beverly Thomas, who has successfully competed for DHS small, disadvantaged contracts.

At the Norton site hearing on June 15, witnesses will include Ward 8 residents and other D.C. workers, Clark Construction representatives, truckers. "So far, so good," Norton said of the pre-hiring season results, "considering that the project is still in its preliminary stages. Let's keep it up."