PRESS STATEMENT
For Immediate Release: Thursday, March 27, 2014Contact: Mr. Gerald Hankerson, President, Washington, Alaska, Oregon State Area Conference NAACP, (206) 249-1786,President.aowsac@gmail.com Dr. Sheley Secrest, Economic Development Chair, Washington State NAACP, (253) 468 1247, seattlenaacpeconomics@gmail.com “Verification of Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) participation was a concern identified in the FHWA November 2013 Finding. Today, the NAACP continues to share that concern. In the past, WSDOT simply took the DBE inclusion numbers at face value with no action to verify the information given. Failure to verify the numbers is what led WSDOT to provide Seattle Tunnel Partners the Diversity and Inclusion Award; and unless they learn from their past mistakes (failing to verify the information), WSDOT will be damned and doomed to repeat them.” Dr. Sheley Secrest. "The NAACP believes WSDOT's failure to verify has caused them to error again. Last week, without showing that WSDOT verified theSeattle Tunnel Partners (STP) inclusion target, a new agreement was entered into which removed the previous finding of breach.WSDOT mistakenly celebrates the changes she's made to her agency; not the changes of STP's discriminatory practices. The ‘strides’ she applauds have done nothing to put the original complainants of the FHWA report back to work. Qualified DBE business owners remain on the sidelines looking for STP contracts.” President Gerald Hankerson.Gerald Hankerson, President; and Dr. Sheley Secrest, Chair of Economic Development of the NAACP AOWSAC are available for interviews on the response. See contact information above.
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