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Antoniello: "No." [He then explained that he left those matters to his intermediary subcontractors.]
Williams' supervisor, Zula Jones, one of the other HRC staffers in attendance, concluded the interrogation, asking Antoniello whether B & F Concrete had a business location outside San Francisco.
"I'm not sure," he said.
When the grilling concluded, Antoniello aired his dismay over the inquiry and expressed clear doubts about the propriety of the proceedings.
"We've done all that is appropriate, and it is a shock to us that we are even being questioned about our good-faith effort," he said, his frustration showing. "Some of these questions are very pointed, and we will cooperate and are cooperating, but we would like some clarification as to what this process is really trying to achieve -- and what the intended outcome is."
Responded Bamba: "There were some significant and critical issues that I felt needed to be addressed." She pledged to deliver her findings swiftly to airport management.
Under Bamba's predecessor, Ed Lee, "the HRC settled its [affirmative action] differences with other departments behind closed doors," says an S.F. lawyer familiar with the commission's practices, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "He understood how to finesse it."
But Bamba marches to a different beat. Though declining to discuss the light-rail contract, citing litigation on the matter, Bamba says she intends to bring more stringent attention to MWB contract compliance: "Consistency and enforcement of the letter of the law," as she puts it.
S.F.'s affirmative action bureaucracy got the message on Nov. 18 when she issued her Mitsubishi bid findings to S.F. Airport Director John Martin. Bamba didn't exactly go ahead and pull the trigger however. Having already gathered damning evidence that B & F Concrete and Metalset weren't legitimate local, independent MWBs, she refrained from immediately decertifying the companies. Instead, in her report to the airport, Bamba recommended rejection of Mitsubishi over a more esoteric matter. Noting that Mitsubishi was lavishing large sums on the two subs -- plus a third certified MWB with an unproven track record, Aladdin Builders -- she took issue with how the dollars would flow under the bid. Essentially, Bamba argued, the three companies were serving as "pass-throughs" or "conduits" for dollars that would actually go to non-minority equipment and materials suppliers. She concluded that the MWB credit claimed by Mitsubishi was therefore inflated.
Just six weeks on the job, Bamba couldn't have liked what she found in the light-rail contract. Were "certified" MWBs of this ilk -- essentially paper entities without a work force that had been created only to take advantage of the system -- the exception or the rule?
For Mitsubishi, the HRC director's report to the airport carried potentially grave consequences. Had she simply disqualified B & F Concrete and Metalset, the revelation presumably could not be used against Mitsubishi (absent evidence the company should have known better).
On the other hand, if Mitsubishi inflated the credit it was due under its subcontracting deals with MWBs -- and consequently was deemed to have fallen short of the affirmative action goal, as Bamba concluded -- then ADtranz would be in position to land the light-rail contract.
All of which was beginning to throw the city's affirmative action regime into turmoil.
Bamba rebuffed a request from the City Attorney's Office, which represents all city agencies, that she withdraw and amend her findings. Meantime, the HRCdirector inquired about the feasibility of hiring private counsel -- apart from the city attorney -- only to be rebuffed herself by City Attorney Louise Renne. The need for separate lawyers arose because Airport Director Martin rejected Bamba's analysis of the contract, and was recommending that Mitsubishi be awarded the deal. Ultimately, it would be left to the city's five-member Airports Commission to choose a side between Mitsubishi and ADtranz, and, consequently, between the City Attorney's Office and the HRC.
On Dec. 23, the Airports Commission met. The third-floor Public Health Department meeting room filled. Mitsubishi and ADtranz officials were joined by their hired devotees: lawyers, lobbyists, and their would-be subcontractors. Having received divided advice on the $136 million bid, the panel confronted a second split. Like the city's lawyers and bureaucrats, the universe of intended beneficiaries of affirmative action was bifurcated.
African-American business owners -- some of them signed onto the ADtranz bid, others who felt snubbed by Mitsubishi -- chose their perches accordingly. Most notable among them was James Jefferson, a business consultant slated by ADtranz to manage the post-installation train system personnel. Across the room, Mitsubishi's subcontractors in attendance were predominantly Latino and Asian-American.
Black trucker Charlie Walker, the first subcontractor to testify, summed up the African-American complaint: "We are still the last hired and the first fired. We still can't get bonded, and we still can't do any of the jobs." Echoed by others, Walker charged that Mitsubishi had never done "any outreach" to blacks through African-American business associations.
In fact, the racial split was a logical consequence of how Mitsubishi and ADtranz had gone about assembling their teams. For instance, Mitsubishi had turned to Rosendin Electric Inc. of San Jose, a first-tier contractor for Mitsubishi, to put together a team of second-tier subs to meet MWB participation goals. Not unsurprisingly, Rosendin -- a highly successful company that was a Hispanic business at the start -- signed on many Latinos. By contrast, Sanders, whose ADtranz office is in Union City, had called on a minority East Bay transit engineering firm for assistance. The company, called Mindseed Corp., happens to be owned by a native San Franciscan who is black. That person, in turn, recommended Jefferson, who among other things is former president of the S.F. Black Chamber of Commerce.
As the airport commissioners listened, however, the essential question before them was jurisdictional. Their counsel, Deputy City Attorney Mara Rosales, had delivered a crucial piece of legal advice behind closed doors before the hearing. It would be the same position she'd set forth fewer than six weeks later in Superior Court to a skeptical Judge Cahill.
