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A Waste Management truck empties a recycling bin in July 2024. Fort Worth City Council members voted to remove a minority business requirement from Waste Management’s $479 million trash collection contract in May 2024. (Camilo Diaz | Fort Worth Report)
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Christina Brooks wants Fort Worth residents to know she’s disappointed that the city’s commitment to business equity has appeared to waver. As director of Fort Worth’s diversity and inclusion department, she said the city remains committed to working with minority- and women-owned businesses. 

But, she said, city leaders have work to do to prove that. Now, Brooks and other city leaders are developing a plan to strengthen the city’s relationships with minority-owned businesses. 

The move comes after City Council members voted in May to eliminate a requirement in Waste Management’s $479 million trash collection contract that required the company to work with minority-owned businesses. Council members previously voiced complaints about consistent missed pickups from Knight Waste Services, the Black-owned company that served as Waste Management’s minority vendor. 

“We are concerned that this possibility even played out, and one of the things that I think we can say for sure is that this serves as a case study in how to make sure that we never are put in this position again,” Brooks told the Report. “Our No. 1 priority is that we learn from this and use what we learned quickly. Going forward, this cannot happen again.” 

Business leaders told the Report the city must communicate more efficiently with its partners — including the Black and Hispanic chambers of commerce — to effectively address its business equity goals. 

To start that process, Brooks, along with staff from the city manager’s office and environmental services department, met July 12 with representatives from Waste Management and the Fort Worth Metropolitan Black Chamber of Commerce to discuss the city’s business equity goals and how to improve coordination with business partners. 

So far, members of the group have not shared specific goals for that partnership, calling the private meeting a first step. Michelle Green-Ford, president and CEO of the Fort Worth Metropolitan Black Chamber of Commerce, and Assistant City Manager Valerie Washington described the meeting as “collaborative,” adding that it showed each group’s commitment to equity goals. 

Coordination between the city and its partners to address business equity stemmed from “media coverage and public concerns” surrounding council’s vote on the trash contract, according to a July 16 city statement. More meetings are sure to come, Green-Ford said. 

Michelle Green-Ford is the president of the Fort Worth Metropolitan Black Chamber of Commerce. (Cristian ArguetaSoto | Fort Worth Report)

“One of the most beneficial things to me was the fact that we actually sat down and spent a little bit of time just getting to know the people in the room,” Green-Ford said. “It gave our leadership, which is heavily focused on advocating for small businesses, an opportunity to ask questions.” 

The team from the July 12 meeting is tasked with delivering a 30-60-90 day plan to address supplier diversity goals. There is not a deadline or estimated timeline for the plan’s creation, Brooks said. 

“I don’t think there is a specific date for that because we’re still in conversations around mapping out what those goals would look like for 30 days, 60 days and 90 days,” she said. “But as soon as we have that, I’m sure that that’s something that we’re going to want to share with the community.” 

Hispanic chamber not at meeting, seeks improved communication 

The Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber of Commerce was not part of the July meeting. Anette Landeros, president and CEO of the chamber, said she wasn’t aware that the meeting took place before an Aug. 5 interview with the Report. 

Because the Metropolitan Black Chamber of Commerce initiated the meeting, Landeros said she understands why the Hispanic chamber may not have been invited to the table. However, she wishes she had been looped in on the conversation afterward — a common communication challenge for the city, Landeros said. 

She doesn’t think the city is intentionally leaving its partners out of the conversation, but the lack of communication and collaboration has led to where the business equity goals stand today. 

“I know that everyone’s heart and intent is in the right place, and I know that everyone believes we can do it,” Landeros said. “We just need to refine our approach, our processes (and) our communication and figure out how to really tackle this in a better way because we’re not quite meeting where we want to be right now.”

Anette Landeros, president and CEO of the Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, gives opening remarks at a Women in Leadership panel at Texas Wesleyan University on June 18, 2024. (Alberto Silva Fernandez | Fort Worth Report)

Alex Jimenez, who served as the Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s chairman in the late 1980s, said the city’s struggle to meet its business equity goals is not new. 

He said the city has historically placed more onus on the small businesses subcontracting with the city’s main contractors rather than on the main contractor itself. However, he believes the city would benefit from regular check-ins with their contractors to ensure that minority- and women-owned subcontractors are able to fulfill their portions of city contracts. 

“If they can have civil discussions like that, I think they can get it done,” Jimenez said. “Just imagine if we had been having those kinds of discussions for the last 20 years, I think we’d be a lot further ahead.” 

Fort Worth’s efforts to address business equity goals echo efforts across the state and country. 

In Dallas, a 2020 study conducted by the city’s Office of Business Diversity and a consultant showed a significant disparity between the percentages of available minority- and woman-owned business firms and the extent to which the city contracts them. Of the available firms for the city to partner with from 2014-18, nearly 39% were minority- or women-owned, and less than 30% were used. 

The city of Arlington has surpassed its goals for minority- and women-owned business contracts since the 2022 fiscal year and increased its contract spending goal from 25% to 30%. The improvement comes as the result of city leaders’ “intentional outreach” to the business community following a 2020 report that outlined barriers that minority- and women-owned businesses face in winning city contracts in Arlington. 

Council responds to minority contract issues 

Fort Worth’s May 14 council vote amended the city’s trash contract to allow Waste Management to reduce or terminate its contract with Knight Waste Services, a Black-owned trash collection company that had served as its exclusive minority vendor for more than 20 years. The trash contract previously mandated that Waste Management subcontract with a minimum of 25% minority-owned businesses. 

At the time, both residents and council members Chris Nettles and Jared Williams — the only council members to vote against the amendment — expressed concerns that the vote would set a dangerous precedent for other city contracts with minority business requirements. 

District 6 City Council member Jared Williams attends a City Council meeting held on May 21, 2024. (Camilo Diaz | Fort Worth Report)

Williams, who did not return the Report’s request for comment, said in May that the vote wasn’t just about the Waste Management contract but also about whether the city is willing to address a “long-standing issue” of investments that don’t reflect the city’s diversity. 

“We’re not hitting our goals, and I don’t know who’s to be held accountable for that, but it’s a sad state that we’re in when we can’t hit our (minority business) goals,” Williams said in May.

In the 2023 fiscal year, 17.1% of the city’s available contracts were awarded to minority- and women-owned businesses, according to a November report to City Council. About 1.2% of available contracts were awarded to Black contractors, 2.04% to Asian American contractors, 9.84% to Hispanic contractors and 0.18% to Native American contractors.

Of the 918,915 people living in Fort Worth, 180,439, or 19.64%, are Black, according to 2020 U.S. Census Bureau data; 319,836, or 34.81%, are Hispanic or Latino. There are 47,716 Asian people, or 5.19%, and 7,881 Native American people, or 0.86%. 

City Council member Charlie Lauersdorf, a vocal proponent of eliminating the minority business requirement from the trash contract due to Knight’s issues with missed pickups, said he welcomes staff’s work to bolster business equity. 

His vote of support for terminating the requirement was all about business, he said. He would have loved to keep a minority-owned business on the contract, Lauersdorf added, but not if the business is unable to keep up with the workload. 

“I’m all for helping businesses out, especially historically underutilized businesses or minority-owned businesses or women-owned businesses, but simply because they fall in those categories, that does not dissolve them of their responsibility to fulfill their contractual requirements,” Lauersdorf said. 

District 4 City Council member Charles Lauersdorf (left) and District 3 City Council member Michael Crain listen to public comments during a City Council meeting on Jan. 4, 2024.

City sets broad goals for business equity, promises more action

Green-Ford said the chamber approached the mayor and council after the vote to have a conversation about how to “better partner together to make a difference in terms of participation on contracts like this.” 

“Because we’re partners, we wanted to have a better understanding of what was happening,” Green-Ford said. “There was a lot of concern about what was happening with the changes to the contract and why, so that started the initial dialogue.” 

Landeros said she also hopes to see more efficient communication between the city and its partners in the future. In the past, that communication has been lacking.

Although city leadership meets with the Black chamber and Hispanic chamber on a monthly basis, Landeros said they never discussed the Knight Waste Services contract before the council vote. She found out about the controversy through media coverage. 

“I don’t know why it wasn’t brought to our attention — we meet with them every month,” Landeros said. 

As city staff await a formal plan, the city’s business opportunity division has created a list of broad goals to help guide their strategy moving forward. Although the list shares several strategies for achieving its goals, it does not detail next steps or how progress will be measured. 

Business opportunity division goals

Increase marketplace business equity, veteran, service-disabled veteran firm participation in city contracts.

Build capacity of marketplace business equity, veteran, service-disabled veteran firms to support the local economy.

You can read the city’s full document, including proposed strategies for meeting the goals, here. 

Brooks noted the division’s goal to increase minority-business participation across city contracts. For over 20 years, the cap on how much the city could require companies to contract with minority-owned businesses has sat at 25% without an increase, she said. 

“It is bananas to me that that (percentage) hasn’t moved,” Brooks said. “The city has almost doubled in size and residents, so for that number to stay static is almost an anomaly.” 

The reason behind that number’s stagnation could be attributed to a number of possible factors, she said. It could be that the city isn’t capturing the right data or maybe it’s that minority businesses aren’t able to thrive in Fort Worth, Brooks said. 

Moving forward, staff is going to work to find the answer and increase that percentage, she said. 

Christina Brooks is Fort Worth’s inaugural chief equity officer and director of diversity and inclusion. (Sandra Sadek | Fort Worth Report).

Nohemi Sanchez, interim assistant director of business opportunity, said she wants the city to not only contract with minority businesses but ensure that those contracts are realistic. City staff and council members previously raised concerns that Knight Waste Services didn’t have the resources to complete the percentage of work it was assigned. 

The department’s biggest goal “is to ensure that whatever contracts we have or whatever goals we set are attainable and that these individuals are set up to succeed,” Sanchez said. 

Lauersdorf echoed Sanchez’s concerns, saying he wants staff to set attainable goals for its minority- and women-owned business contracts. Even after the goals are set, the city must be open to re-evaluating them if contractors don’t work out, he said. 

“What we as a city need to make sure that we’re doing is whatever companies are chosen, whether it’s an equity contract or not, they all need to be held to the same standard,” he said. “If we’re going to sign a contract with them and pay them a lot of money, they have to do what they’re contracted to do. And if they can’t fulfill that, we don’t have time for them.” 

The city is in the early stages of developing concrete plans, but Brooks, Washington and Green-Ford said the city intends to be more transparent about its work to improve minority- and women-owned business participation. 

“We, the city of Fort Worth, have an opportunity to be better as we communicate our commitment to business equity,” Washington said. “We need to do a better job communicating and sharing with the community the efforts that are always ongoing in our city.”

Residents should continue holding city leaders accountable by voicing their concerns, Brooks said. 

“We need people in the community to continue to engage and inform us if they see issues,” she said. “We rely on people in the community to come forward and say ‘Hey, we think this might be an issue,’ so that we are constantly not only proactive but responding to the needs of our community in real time.” 

Cecilia Lenzen is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at cecilia.lenzen@fortworthreport.org or @bycecilialenzen. 

At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.