-Thank you for
that very kind and warm introduction.
Oh, I didn't even get an introduction.
God darn it. (laughter)
Well, my name is Bruce Harrell and the mayor of the city.
I have to tell you
how honored I am to spend some time with you
to talk about this executive order.
You're going to hear some some fine speakers.
Very briefly, and we're going to have a great fair today.
This is a mayor's dream to see this kind of work
that we're doing.
So let me go to my notes so I get these fine
bullet points that I'm supposed to go over
and many of you
met me before.
You know,
I like to riff, which always gets me in trouble.
But I only riff, what I'm excited
and I'm clearly excited about what I see
in front of us, this work we're doing.
So, of course, we're here to talk about the executive order
and our intentionality
on working with women and minority owned businesses.
Emphasizing equity.
Looking at what we can do as a city.
Many of you came today.
Today's reverse vendors show to expand your networks,
your relationship capital that becomes critical
in this work that we're doing to make
meaningful connections,
to explore opportunities with our city
and other public agencies for your businesses.
So today I'm issuing a new executive order.
I'm going to talk about a little bit,
a little bit about it from a granular basis,
but it's all about equity for small businesses,
particularly women and minority
owned businesses seeking contracting
and procurement opportunities with the city of Seattle.
Our city departments
will implement critical actions,
very specific actions to advance
contracting equity for supporting your businesses.
And there are many ways we can do that.
We looked at what we were able to do as a city.
We spend over $900 million on goods and services.
That's a lot of dough. That's serious money.
Year after year, we've been consistently
trying to grow our citywide purchasing
and consulting spending with (unintelligible) firms.
Last year, we spent nearly 228 million with WIMBYs
for consulting services in contracting for public work
work projects. But that's not enough.
That's not enough.
And what we want to do is demonstrate
not only to the city, but to this world,
in this country and to the state.
What we can do.
And we're very intentional
about giving you the opportunities.
Now, this is not on my script.
I'm going to get in trouble by saying this.
But when I was a
when I was a young attorney
and that may shock you that either that I was sn attorney, or
I was young.
Either way might be shocking for me to say that.
And I was obviously a person of color
when I would go to clients and pitch my services
and pitch members of my firm who also were African-American
and women, I would say
hire us because we're the best.
We're tenacious.
We had to work with limited resources.
We had to fight through impediments
to get through college and law school.
Are these experiences hire us because we're the best.
And by the way, we hire from people in our community.
We hire voices that are underrepresented.
All I want is an opportunity.
I'm not asking for special treatment.
I'm asking for equal treatment.
I just want to get my foot in the door.
And quite frankly, my phone would ring off the hook.
And I would never blame
anyone for the racism and the unfairness in society.
There's a lot of blame to go around.
I'd say hire my company because we are the best.
And so I advise you as your unpaid lawyer
that you are the best by virtue
of having the common sense to be here today. (applause)
Okay. You are building relationships.
And we will meet you halfway
and you're going to do your part
for making sure you do what needs to be done.
So to put this in perspective, once again,
this executive order is going to do a few things
and I'm just going to hum a few bars
about what we're trying to do,
recognizing the disparities that occur in this industry,
looking at the remnants of what I 200 did,
going through the governor's executive order and how we can
legally and ethically and morally still look at
underrepresented communities
and contract with intentionality.
We realize that we may have legal freedom to be aggressive
in what we're trying to do and still be within the law.
So one of the things I've asked
each of my city departments is to develop
an annual outreach plan, dealing
specific strategies to engage with you, your community.
We want to see that.
We want to open up the data beginning in
in this quarter, quarter four 2023.
Each department will hold regularly meetings
and attend engagement opportunities like this,
connecting Black owned businesses and BIPOC firms
with city departments and project managers, managers
and procurement professionals.
And I'll say specifically why I say Black owned
in some of my closing remarks, because equity is
not just confined to one race
at all.
And so I'm going to close with that.
When people start wondering why we emphasize, particularly
in call out black owned businesses in 2024, I'm asking
your department, Kierstin Grove's department FAS.
I guess it's ultimately my department too, right?
(laughter) It doesn't work as your department works.
It's my department
to develop a tool that the city officers
and departments
can use to engage in race and social justice analysis
for every procurement policy decision to ensure equity
for BIPOC owned firms.
We want to analyze every decision we make.
I will be that granular in this approach.
Quite honestly, I have been doing this work
just for three or four years.
When I was a young lawyer, once again,
I started working with this called the Central City
Economic Development Association.
When I was when I got elected in 2007,
I started a group called Performance
First at the Puget Sound Regional Council
doing this kind of work.
So I've been passionate about this
because I've been in your shoes,
my Japanese grandparents and aunts and uncles,
they owned small businesses, my Black owned
family owned small businesses.
This is why I've been passionate about it,
because I was able to work at some of these places.
So I get it.
FAS will continue to work
with the IT department and other departments
as needed to replace
or upgrade the city's online business
directory to make it a high functioning
and easy to use tool
that connects city offices and departments with firms
that want to do business with the city.
It has to be easy for you to use and understand and access.
That is going to be critical.
FAS will continue to manage the implementation of the
citywide Disparity Study
a large scale study that seeks to evaluate WIMBYs
having equal access to contracting
opportunities and establish
recommendations to enhance contracting and equity.
In other words, you will see what we do.
You will measure us.
You will measure my leadership
and my commitment to this work.
We're not going to run away from that.
We will we will open that for all to see.
FAS shall
publicly post WIMBY spend reports broken down by office
department on a quarterly basis FAS
will also produce an annual
summary of WIMBY utilization by the end of second quarter
each year. In 2024 FAS shall work in sync
with my office to evaluate
the impact of policy changes on the state level
resulting from the state
executive orders 202-01 and 202-02.
In other words,
I realize that you're also trying to get opportunity
with the state, the county, the port.
And I think many of you know that we have
we have to find port commissioners
that are part of our administration
to get that cross relationship in play to for you,
among other things,
for you to make sure that we develop these relationships.
So we want to use my I guess is called a bully pulpit.
I never like that that expression bully pulpit.
Well,
I want to recognize Councilmember Sara Nelson
here.
She's always at these let's gives us
she's going to help us on the council
leading this work as a small business owner.
She gets this stuff and
it's always nice to have you here
in supporting what we're trying to do.
This executive order has a four or five pages to it.
And so I would just sort of skimming.
There's a
just a few other things I want to say
and I want to loop back to the point I made earlier.
We recognize that communities
are impacted by all communities, are
impacted by contracting equity,
including LGBTQ owned businesses, veteran owned
firms, immigrant owned firms, and other small businesses,
small businesses in general.
You are competing in an ecommerce world.
You're competing in the global economy.
We recognize the challenges
I'm directing FAS to continue to explore
ways to advance opportunities for these firms,
using the input of the WIMBY Advisory Committee
and to use our disparity study tool to lift all boats
in this work.
We specifically talk about Black owned businesses
because the data would suggest that
that is an area we need to target.
And we believe by targeting
that particular demographic, all boats rise,
Native American boats rise, women boats rise.
So I would ask you to understand, there is a method
that we're trying to look at.
If we examine where our systems break down
for small businesses and we examine where
some of our biggest holes are.
So to speak, then we all increase.
I also want to recognize
Javier Valdez in the back seat.
I could see you back there, Javier,
who's been doing this work on a statewide basis
as an
elected representative and as a City of Seattle employee.
I could do cut
shout outs all day because I see
many of you have been to this party
of we're trying to take this up,
we're trying to take this level, this work up.
That's what this executive work is all about.
So the last point I want to make is that we
we believe in business development,
technical assistance, workforce development,
contracting equity and FAS,
the Office of Economic Development
in all of our departments.
So what we're
trying to do in my One Seattle model is quite candidly
not work in silos.
There are many organizations
you're going to hear from Tabor
for an example, many organizations
trying to do this kind of work.
I don't want organization to compete with one another.
I want to develop the
the the ecosystem such that, you know, where to go.
That's why
in our Liberty Project for work with the University
of Washington, Seattle University,
Tabor 100, I want to pull together
all that the Northwest,
the business development supplies.
I want to pull everyone together and I want to be like,
I can't say Russell, Russell Wilson anymore.
That's for darn sure.
I want to be like Geno Smith,
only like Geno Smith and quarterback
the city could sort of
quarterback the ecosystem because I have to make it easy
for you to get access to technical assistance.
Capital customers so we can start helping one another.
So my mic drop is this.
I also am asking you to help each other.
Help each other.
You can be the greatest sources.
When I was a lawyer again and I did one area of work,
I go to some
some person that did a completely different
kind of work as a lawyer
and I said, look, every time someone asks about this,
I'm going to I'm going to
send him your way and I'll stay in
a relationship and you send in my way.
So your biggest source of referrals
could also be among each other.
You have to be intentional.
And quite frankly, if you're not doing that
and you're
doing this just to line your pockets,
just to make money, that's it.
I have no interest in you.
I'm going to repeat that.
There has to be a greater good that you're trying to do.
I am trying to employ people as the mayor.
I'm trying to get people emotional help.
I'm trying to build networks.
If you are just caring about
if you just care about lining your pockets with money,
this may not be the executive order for you.
I'm very intentional there.
This work that I have to do as mayor is very tough
and I could only do with a community
that believes in each other,
believes in employing people
from underrepresented communities.
I hope you understand that.
And if you don't, I have colleagues
that will understand that because they hear me
saying that I want all of you to enjoy prosperity,
but for the right reasons, which is building community
and thinking about those that came
before you and those that will come after you.
Okay.
So with that,
we're going let's clap on that because I feel pretty good
about that. (applause)
I'm not I'm not afraid to ask for some some applause
when I say something that's applause worthy.
You're going to hear from Kiersten Grove
just a little bit background.
She heads up the FAS
is really leading this workforce.
I believe in her ability, competency and integrity.
She's been with
this particular department for around four years or so.
She's been with the city for over 12 years.
She's a person of high commitment in this area.
I present to you our interim director of FAS,
Kiersten Grove.
-Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
I have the hard job of following you.
I am Kiersten Grove.
I'm the acting director of FAS.
We are the department
which oversees purchasing and contracting for the city,
as well as the city's WIMBY program.
Today’s executive order is the culmination
of our mayor's commitment to equity,
tireless from women and minority owned businesses,
honest examination from city staff on
how to make contracting more equitable
and a valued partnership with members of the Mayor's
WIMBY Advisory Committee.
FAS looks forward to partnering
across the city to implement key priorities in this order.
This includes creating training
for city staff to emphasize the city's
prioritization of WIMBYs.
It includes creating more engagement
opportunities and city staff and WIMBYs, including
ones like today, the Reverse Vendor Trade Show.
And today's order will also hold our city
more accountable.
It will ensure that we're doing everything we can.
Rather, it's
identifying policy changes or changing internal processes
to center equity in our work.
Nearly 700 businesses will come through the doors
today
for the Reverse Vendor Trade Show.
I encourage you all to talk to each other,
to get to know and understand everyone's experience.
Everyone here wants to have a fair
and equitable chance at business with the city.
We all have the same goal.
I'm confident that this order will help us achieve that.
We at FAS
look forward to working alongside
Mayor Harrell and the WIMBY community
and I thank you all for being here. (applause)
-Thank you Kiersten.
Before I bring up the next speaker,
there's two points I failed to make.
Give me all hyped up as this mayor is known to do.
Seattle was one of two cities
in the country to receive a $1 million grant
from the Bloomberg Philanthropies
to transform our city's procurement process
so that it results driven
that it that we drive and make more accessible,
more equitable
This work. Now we we seek this these kinds of funds
and we get these kinds of recognition
because of the work
that I have, city employees and leaders like doing.
One of two cities to receive that.
We had some projects.
We have some projects like our capital access program.
I mentioned the Liberty Project
was the culmination again of the University of Washington
Seattle University doing this kind of work.
Many of you know, (unintelligible),
organization and University of Washington
and the Seattle Restored program where
if I see plywood, plywood downtown on storefronts
is my enemy, that I can put you in there.
And we're doing a lot of real creative work there.
As I restore our downtown.
So we have some things going on.
And quite frankly, we want you to know
all of our opportunities.
We want you to get a taste of it
if you will be there with us, realizing
what we're trying to do.
We're trying to take it up to a different level.
And along those lines, I want to introduce Dr.
Gillian Marshall, very excited about Dr.
Marshall’s work.
She is the principal of Dynamic
and Innovative Research Solutions,
which is a consulting firm of doing highly skilled research
and their passion about community
opening up data, social justice, innovation
that meets the needs of the clients.
And you are indeed our clients of this city.
So Dr.
Marshall attended
Reverse Vendor Trade Show last year
and through connections she made sure there
she secured a consulting contract
with SPU Seattle Public Utilities to work to increase
contracting equity for WIMBYs.
And again, she's a proud owner of Dynamic and Innovate
Innovative Research Solutions. Dr.
Gillian Marshall, please.
-Good morning, everyone.
Thank you.
Thank you for talking back.
My name is Jillian Marshall and as mayor has said, I'm
the owner of Dynamic and Innovative Research
Solutions, a Washington based minority owned company.
I work with a range of clients from small nonprofits
to government,
helping them gain clarity around research
and program evaluation processes.
Essentially, I help them answer really tough questions.
I'm here today to give a real life example
of how the Reverse Trade Show has worked for me.
So, like many of you, I attended the Reverse Trade
Show last year when it was hosted
by Ollie Garrett, president and CEO of Taber 100
and her team. There, I met Jana Duran,
who is the division manager at Seattle Public Utilities.
And later on I met her colleague, Rachel McCaffrey.
And during our one on one meeting,
I expressed my desire to secure
consulting opportunities with the city.
I shared that I attended several events
hosted by the city, and I even registered
with the Business Directory for the past year.
As you can see, I'm a Black woman
with a small business, highly educated, qualified.
Yet despite this efforts,
I really couldn't understand
why I wasn't making any traction.
I believe Jana and Rachel are both really committed
to this work.
In fact, our conversations culminated
into the development of a survey
to ask other consultants like you and I
about our experience
in engaging with the city around contracting.
You may have received the QR code when you registered,
but there's definitely one at the SPU table, so please,
I encourage you to fill it out.
Some examples of the types of questions
we're being asked on the survey are
How do you learn about bidding
and contracting opportunities with the city?
What types of assistance would be helpful to you?
The executive order that the mayor's about to sign
today is really important and a step forward
in moving us in the right direction.
However, change cannot occur if we don't know
where the gaps are.
So I urge you today
to fill out the survey so we can help the city
improve their process to increase
the WIMBY applicant pool
and increase the number of WIMBYs
be securing contracting opportunities with the city.
This will ensure a more diverse
and inclusive community
for One, Seattle, thank you. (applause)
-So our last speaker, before we do a little Q&A,
if there's any questions, is going to be
Dr. Ollie Garrett.
No, you're not, a doctor. I'm so – Ollie Garrett.
I just messed that up. Ollie was supposed to go before
Dr. Gillian, I screwed that one up.
I do want to say that I'm gonna call David Toledo out
because you do
an outstanding job as a small business owner
and applying very diverse group on call Laura
(unintelligible) out for the intentional work
you're doing making sure that we're recycling money
in the communities and I'm calling you two out
because if you all would have
came closer and gotten these good seats,
I called you out too, so you got to come.
I always tell my three children, stand up,
come upfront and be counted.
Closed mouths don't get fed, as they say.
So in all seriousness, I thank all of you for being here.
I want to recognize you, Ollie Garrett.
His name has been mentioned.
(applause) Look at that.
I just say your name and you get applause, it's
really my honor to introduce my friend
and colleague in this work to support small businesses.
She's president and CEO of PMT Solutions and TABOR 100,
which is an association working
to further economic power, educational excellence
and social equity for African Americans
and the community at large.
She is an at large appointee of the King County
Civil Rights Commission, the co-chair
of the Office of Minority and Women's
Business Enterprises and an appointed board
member of the Washington State Community
Economic Revitalization Board.
And she's the, wait, (loud breath in and out)
she's the Employment Security
Advisory Board and the Washington
Economic Development Finance Authority member.
She's also a member of the WIMBY Advisory Committee.
I present to you Ollie Garrett. (laughter, applause)
-Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
As he stated, I'm Ollie Garrett,
president of Tabor 100, the state's largest Black
and minority business advocacy organization.
I'm also the CEO of PMT Solutions,
a small business founded in 2008.
It is an honor to stand here at the city's reverse vendor
tradeshow, representing Tabor 100 and expressing
a strong support for Mayor Harrell’s executive order
aimed at advancing equity
in contracting for women and minority businesses.
Tabor 100 represents hundreds
of businesses that are eager to collaborate with the city
in various sectors, including consulting,
construction, supply, goods and services.
We view this executive order as a significant strides
toward achieving genuine equity in contracting.
It not only benefits
our member businesses, but also holds a great promise
to members of our community seeking employment,
particularly in the construction industry,
which represents substantial public
and private investments within our city.
While there are numerous
valuable aspects to the executive order,
let me emphasize a few that we find particularly crucial.
One. The completion and public implementation
of recommendations stemming from the ongoing
disparity study is a vital step forward. Two. The provision
of technical assistance to Black and other minority
business
is essential to preparing them for forthcoming opportunity.
Tabor 100
is pleased to partner with the City of University
with the University of Washington
and Seattle University on the Liberty Project.
Three.
We appreciate that this executive order empowers
the city WIMBY staff with more authority
to ensure that city agencies
engage more with Black and minority businesses,
Act-four. Actively seeking additional ways
to create opportunities
for Black and other minority businesses,
will lead
to innovative methods for including our businesses
and community in the city's prosperity.
Five.
Finally, we applaud this strategic partnership
the city intends to pursue
as a result of this executive order.
It's worth noting that the executive order
acknowledged the unique challenges
that Black owned firms face in accessing city contracts.
This is significant because supporting Black businesses
directly benefits the Black community.
As these firms (unintelligible) from within their own community.
My own firm PMT Solution has experienced
remarkable success and I owe a great deal
of their success to the support of the city.
While the journey may not
may have been challenging in the beginning,
the city has been a partner throughout our growth.
As we move forward.
It is imperative for us to work
together as a community to make this executive order
a resounding success.
I pledge the support of Tabor 100 in this endeavor.
In closing, I would like to express my deep gratitude
to Mayor Harrell for his visionary leadership.
We at Tabor 100 eagerly anticipate
working hand in hand
with the city as we implement this executive order.
Our hope is to return here next year, celebrating the
success achieved through this transformation initiative.
And Tabor 100 has a booth over there
for all of you that are not members of Tabor.
For us to help you navigate through this
executive order and succeed and achieve success.
Thank you. (Applause)
-And all these Tabor meets
on Saturday mornings, you have breakfast, right?
Breakfast free?
-Yes. -Free.
Free breakfast on Saturdays.
And I have attended many of the meetings
and there's great work being done.
We we frequently get elected
representatives there and people
with actual decision making authority there,
which is very important, not just lip service.
I'm going to sign the executive order.
I'm going to say a closing statement or two
in the signing section where they will come back for Q&A.
I think that's my protocol.
How will we know this is working?
We will know it's working that when I see you in 12 months
here, I'll see many of you before then
that we have more Dr.
Gillian Marshalls telling us that it's working.
We reserve the right to have a little bumps along the way.
We're not perfect. Of course we're not perfect, are you?
Of course you're not.
But we need to be perfect in our attempt.
Relentless, opening up the data. Relentless
In trying to get you the opportunities
that you deserve. And you're going to meet me
halfway by making sure you are.
You are hiring people
that come from diverse backgrounds and you're
recycling your money in community events like this.
And we all enjoy all boats rise.
That's the work we're going to do on One Seattle.
So I'm going to sign the executive order.
We're going to clap right now.
I'm going to have a great day, a great summit today. (applause)
Okay, great. (Unintelligible conversation)
Okay.
We're going to take just media questions
only if there are any questions from the media.
I'm not fishing for questions,
but if there are any media questions, we are more than
happy to respond to them.
I'm going to I'm getting that.
That's my favorite thing from the media three, two, One Seattle.
Thank you very much, everyone. Have a great day.
Have a great conference.