By Chauncey Bailey

Hoping to get slices of the Alameda County contracting pie and also spur community development projects, black contractors and other small business owners met last Saturday at Acts Full Gospel Church.
   It was the fourth in a series of breakfast networking meetings hosted by Bishop Bob Jackson and the Oakland African American Chamber of Commerce.

    The keynote speaker was Aki Nakao, director of the General Services Agency. “We have been doing outreach in the community ... to get more information out about bonding and business practices,” Nakao said.
    He said his office has established a relationship with the Small Business Development Center and officials sent representatives from 14 county agencies to this year’s Black Expo in downtown Oakland.
   “There are five projects in the next four to five months, including the $13 million public library in Castro Valley,” he said. “We are trying to get more [minority- owned] companies to bid [on county projects] and we need feedback from the community.”
    Minorities comprised 17 percent of the workforce for the recently completed $140 million juvenile justice complex in San Leandro.
    Jackson, one of the cofounders of the chamber, urged blacks to join. “We just don’t talk ... we have projects on-going. But we need you help to make it happen.” Jackson detailed the plans for a $130 million development project from 94th and 96th avenues along International Boulevard. There will be a senior citizen complex, condos, apartments and retail space. “I’m buying the first condo,” he said.
    Paul Chambers, a local developer, said that he and Bruce Cox, head of the Black Contractors Association, are calling for “joint ventures” to build what will be called “Souls Restaurant” at 6403 Foothill Blvd., a $1.5 million project that will help spark the formation of other black-owned businesses.
   “We have to create jobs in our community,” said Jackson, who urged developers to follow the example set by the Men of Valor program and hire ex-offenders.
    Jackson also urged business owners to hire men from the job training program at Allen Temple Baptist Church in East Oakland and the West Oaklandbased Cypress Mandela Job Training Program.
    Other meeting attendees and participants included Joe Debro, Frank Tucker of Tucker Technology, Marie Roberts De LaParra of BMB Construction of Alameda (one of the few black female contractors in the Bay Area), Kay Stevens of AMG and a member of the Mayor-elect Ronald Dellums Task Force on Small Business, CPA Ralph Grant, Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley and John Cottrell of Comack Plumbing.
    Jackson held up four pages of names of black contractors and said, “We called them, and most of them had phone numbers that were disconnected ... as our numbers get smaller and smaller, the contracts get larger and larger.”
   “The solution is we have to start demanding business,” said Tucker, who noted that more jobs will curb the homicide rate in Oakland.
    Stevens, a former banker and private school executive, urged blacks to seek jobs in the next phase of the Fox Theater renovation project and to call on her office for expertise.
    In addition, she said, the Alameda County Transportation Improvement Authority will host four community outreach meetings between January and April.