Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, March 21, 1994                   TAG: 9403210026
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CANDIDATES DISAGREE ON `NOSE COUNT' AT HOTEL ROANOKE

This time, the issue is how well minorities are represented among the contractors and subcontractors on the Hotel Roanoke project.

Wyatt, the Democratic candidate,says if elected she'll don a hard hat, visit the site and "count noses" to make sure minorities are well-represented.

But Voit, the Republican nominee, accuses Wyatt of taking a "super-aggressive" attitude on affirmative action that will encourage "a vigorous quota system" and scare away potential employers from the valley.

The issue surfaced last week in a forum before the Peoples' Voters League, in which one voter asked the council candidates what they would do to ensure that minorities get high-wage jobs at the Hotel Roanoke project.

In response, Wyatt said she was skeptical whether the project developers are living up to their word to make sure minorities are well-represented.

"As a council, we have to look beyond what we see on a piece of paper, and go out and count noses, and see what color they are, and see what gender they are, and see if they are citizens of Roanoke," Wyatt told the Peoples' Voters League. "I pledge to you, if I'm on council, I'll do that."

Elaborating later on her remarks, Wyatt said her vow to "count noses" wasn't just a figure of speech. "Would I put on a hard hat" and tour the construction site to do a head count? Wyatt asked. "You betcha."

She said she was "concerned that there is sometimes tokenism," in which project developers will call attention to a minority or female contractor,"but when it comes to who's doing the subcontracting,all of a sudden you find out the subcontractors are from out of town" and there are no minority or female subcontractors represented.

Wyatt said she didn't know how far the city could go in requiring developers on city projects to hire a specific number of certain types of workers.

However, she said, "if we legally can, yes, we should . . . I believe in the process of affirmative action."

Although the city's focus on the hotel project has been to promote the use of minority-owned and female-owned firms, it's the local labor question that has most animated Roanoke labor unions.

They protested the use of out-of-town workers on another prominent city-backed project - the First Union Tower - and unsuccessfully pressed the city to require that Roanoke contractors, who presumably would hire Roanoke workers, be hired on the hotel.

Those unions provided much of Wyatt's support in the recent Democratic primary, and Wyatt emphasized that as a council member she would press the city to direct work on city projects to local contractors and local workers.

"I think this is our town," Wyatt said. "I certainly think when we spend our money, it behooves us to keep it here and not fuel the economy of a different city."

Asked about Wyatt's comments, Voit minced few words - but he focused on her remarks about minority contractors, not local labor.

Voit said Roanoke city government had already done a good job of making sure minority-owned contractors were invited to bid on the Hotel Roanoke project.

But he blasted Wyatt's vow to "count noses."

"It just seems the local government would be piling on," he said. "The Democrats say they want to attract business and industry and lay out the red carpet. You can't turn right around and say you're going to be a pit bull on affirmative action. I'm not suggesting, `Ignore the law,' but she wants to take a super-aggressive attitude."

Such a stance, Voit warned, "would be viewed as confrontational" by potential employers looking candidate at moving into the valley.

"To have a person on City Council with that kind of liberal agenda just scares business and industry," Voit said. "We can't have one person on City Council running around counting noses and shutting down construction sites, shutting down economic development projects, if they don't like the color of the noses."

Wyatt declined to respond to Voit's charges. "I will not speak ill of another candidate," she said. "If he wants to name-call, that's up to him."

But her intent, Wyatt stressed, is to promote business by making sure city projects hire local companies and local workers. "I'm sure he took what I said out of context. I'm talking about [helping] Roanoke businesses and Roanoke contractors, instead of running them out of business."

Keywords:
POLITICS