ORDINANCE AS AMENDED
WHEREAS, the City of Chicago (the "City") is a home rule unit of local government as defined in Section 6(a), Article VII of the 1970 Constitution of the State of Illinois, and, as such, may exercise any power and perform any function pertaining to its government and affairs; and
WHEREAS, the City, through its Department of Procurement Services, (the "Department") is responsible for the contracting of goods and services for the City; and
WHEREAS, pursuant to Section 2-92-650, et seq., (the "Ordinance") ofthe Municipal Code of Chicago ("Code"), the Department has established a Minority-and Women-owned business enterprise construction procurement program (the "M.B.E./W.B.E. program"); and
WHEREAS, the Ordinance, provides in pertinent part that the Ordinance "shall expire on December 31, 2015, unless the city finds that its remedial purposes have not been fully achieved and there is a compelling interest in continuing narrowly tailored remedies to redress discrimination against M.B.E.s or W.B.E.s so that the city will not function as a passive participant in a discriminatory marketplace"; and
WHEREAS, in order to determine whether it is appropriate to allow the Ordinance to expire or instead to continue the narrowly tailored remedies contained therein, a comprehensive review of the relevant data is warranted; and
WHEREAS, the City has retained the noted econometrician Dr. David G. Blanchflower, Bruce V. Rauner Professor of Economics, Dartmouth College, and former Member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England to carry out such a comprehensive review; and
WHEREAS, the City has also commissioned a Credit Market survey on lender discrimination which was conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago; and
WHEREAS, the City has also retained Don O'Bannon, Esq., who conducted a study to explore anecdotal evidence of possible discrimination against minorities and women through the use of a foc...
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