After Kansas City Council Intervention, KCI Concrete Contract Rebid
Woman-owned firm would have been part of JV initially endorsed by contractor, but St. Joseph, Mo., competitor brought in more small, local, minority-owned firms
The eventual winner of a $72-million concrete contract for the $1.5-billion Kansas City International Airport project said that more minority contractors are benefiting from it being awarded the contract, even though the Federal Aviation Administration last month admonished the city's aviation department for not keeping better records of minority and women-owned business enterprise compliance.
The protest and decision reflect many of the tensions surrounding efforts to award contracts to minority, women and small companies, and how those intermix with tensions over local influence and out-of-town employers.