Legislators criticize National Harbor deals

Senators say developer didn’t use enough local minority contractors

Muse and state Sen. David Harrington (D-Dist. 47) of Cheverly said they began the push for new contracts after hearing from several local business owners who claimed developer Milton V. Peterson priced them out of lucrative contracts for parking, telephone installation, real estate sales and restaurants at the Potomac River site, which opened last month.

‘‘We need to sit with them and make them know what is expected of them,” said Muse, (D-Dist. 26) of Fort Washington.

Muse’s remarks led the first meeting at Tantallon Country Club for the Prince George’s County Business and Community Coalition, a resurrected group of minority business advocates who said they plan to pressure National Harbor and other major developments planned in Prince George’s to contract with local companies.

‘‘People are saying, ‘Be real happy with what is here. Be real happy that you got a sandwich, that we’ve got some new roads,’” Muse said. ‘‘ ... We built the road that goes up to the gate and we can’t go inside there.”

Although the coalition was established by then-County Executive Wayne K. Curry in 2000, it was dissolved after Peterson hired a private company to make sure at least 20 percent of the project work went to local or minority-owned businesses. County officials made the requirement a sticking point in exchange for government services, such as roads, water and zoning changes.

Most recent reports show that close to 36 percent of work at National Harbor went to either Prince George’s businesses or those owned by minorities, exceeding the county’s 20 percent threshold. But critics say the developers favored white-owned local businesses and steered most other minority work to groups in Virginia and other areas.

‘‘I went to the opening. I went and I looked at every license plate on every limo. Every one was from Virginia,” Muse said. ‘‘That is not acceptable.”

In a report tracking contracts through May 2007, 2.5 percent of contracts went to businesses that were both local and minority-owned, according to critics.

Supporters of National Harbor said the coalition’s accusations are unfounded.

‘‘There’s a lot of misinformation out there,” said Ron Adolph, president of The TAC Cos., a minority-owned consulting company in Fort Washington hired by Peterson to track and ensure minority and local contracting at the site.

The contract the county signed with National Harbor never required businesses to be both local and minority-owned, Adolph and others said.

Officials for Peterson, TAC and Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center, the luxury hotel that is the mixed-use project’s anchor, all said they have had difficulty finding county-based, minority-owned companies that could handle the scale of the contracts at the major development.

‘‘The capacity of these [local companies] is really much smaller than people realize,” said Adolph, who said that many registered minority-owned businesses in the county have small staffs.