Meeting no-shows irritate Stadium Benefits Plan committee

An oversight committee monitoring the Community Benefits Plan for Allegiant Stadium was fuming Thursday when two stadium vendors failed to show up with their hiring plans.

When Allegiant Stadium begins operations in July, a certain number of minority workers must be hired to conform with state requirements.

Details of that hiring were supposed to come to light Thursday at a meeting hosted by the Las Vegas Stadium Community Benefits Plan Oversight Committee. But the people with that information did not show up.

Committee Chairman Ken Evans said it was “unacceptable” that representatives of ASM Global, formerly AEG Facilities, the lead entertainment concessionaire, and Levy Restaurants, the lead food contractor, did not attend the meeting as promised.

Representatives of ASM and Levy could not immediately be reached for comment.

The committee is charged with ensuring that contractors, subcontractors and concessionaires meet minimum hiring goals for minorities, women and Small Business Enterprise-qualified companies at the stadium.

Minority business organization representatives who attended the meeting said efforts to communicate with ASM Global and Levy have been slow so far.

Committee members took turns expressing their disappointment that the contractors weren’t there.

Member Peter Guzman said he was “pissed off” that the concessionaires were no-shows.

But fellow member Don Webb, chief operating officer of StadCo, the Raiders’ stadium construction subsidiary, said he suspected ASM and Levy’s failure to attend the meeting was the result of a breakdown in communication with the vendors, who promised to attend to explain their plans for minority hiring.

Evans said he would call a meeting within a month to invite the concessionnaires to appear before the committee. The group normally meets quarterly and is due to meet again April 23 — a date likely to be changed because it’s the first day of the NFL draft in Las Vegas.

During the stadium’s construction phase, the percentages of minority contractors and subcontractors have well exceeded goals established by Senate Bill 1, the legislation that established $750 million of public funding for stadium construction and a Las Vegas Convention Center expansion.

On Thursday, the committee reported an all-time high of 2,005 people working on the stadium project in multiple shifts. Sixty-two percent are minorities, easily surpassing the goal of 38 percent, and 2 percent are veterans. An estimated 3.8 million worker hours have been put in on the project.

So far, 148 Small Business Enterprise-qualified companies have received contracts for the stadium’s construction, with 44 receiving multiple contracts.

Thirty-one different Women-Minority Business Enterprise firms have been awarded work totaling $65 million, with 77 percent of the companies Nevada-based and 76 percent of the workforce Nevada residents.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on Twitter.