Three DC Residents & Four DC Small Businesses at Work at DHS Site to be Featured at Roundtable, Thur

Three D.C. Residents and Four D.C. Small Businesses at Work at DHS Headquarters Site to Be Featured at

Norton's Roundtable Hearing, Thursday

WASHINGTON, DC - The Office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) announced today that three D.C. residents with jobs and four D.C. small businesses with contracts at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) headquarters construction site in Ward 8 will be featured at the Norton D.C. Jobs and Small Business Accountability Roundtable Hearing on Thursday, June 30, 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., in the Rayburn House Office Building, room 2167.

General Services Administration (GSA) officials and contractors with primary responsibility for the project will testify, including: GSA Project Executive Shapour Ebadi and Deputy Public Buildings Service Commissioner David Foley, General Contractor Clark Construction Vice President Lincoln Lawrence; D.C. small businesses with work on the site, including the president of Milani Construction, Saeed Milani, the president and CEO of AV Smoot, Shawn Juman, and Merrill Smith, president of Metropolitan Fire Sprinkler, which was Norton's 2011 small business of the year; and several D.C. residents working on the site.

"Monitoring a big project like the DHS headquarters construction with required frequent written reports, meetings and unannounced site visits together make for the best way to ensure D.C. residents and small businesses get a fair share of the work," Norton said. "The contractor and GSA must produce a project that meets the highest federal standards for this high-security site. So far, our records show that they can deliver both quality and fairness for D.C. residents and small businesses," Norton said. "At tomorrow's hearing, witnesses will have to put the facts on the public record and allow us to assess progress and whether there have been any problems."

Because federal law prohibits hiring from a particular state or region, Norton has instead required aggressive outreach on the project to D.C. residents and businesses, and she and her office have closely monitored progress on the project. She also got $3 million in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship training.

Work is expected to continue on the project for several years, providing 38,000 construction-related jobs and 14,000 permanent DHS jobs when the first federal agencies move east of the Anacostia River to the Coast Guard headquarters building now under construction and to other buildings that will be constructed or rehabilitated.

Because this is a Congressional Roundtable Hearing where only Members of Congress may ask questions, Norton asks residents to contact the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, andEmergency Management at (202) 225-9961 to submit questions for Norton to ask during the hearing.