In October, the Metropolitan Council and five African-American organizations will hold a business and employment workshop featuring the Central Corridor LRT Project.

This will be the Met Council’s fifth large community meeting in a year for minority- and women-owned small businesses or job seekers to learn about job opportunities on the biggest public works project in state history. More than 300 people have attended the first four meetings.

The latest session is targeted at African-American business owners and workforce advocates who have an interest in ensuring African-American inclusion in the Central Corridor LRT line’s construction, which will begin in late summer 2010.

The meeting will be held twice on Oct. 14, running from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and again from 6 to 8 p.m., at the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center at 270 N. Kent St. in St. Paul. To register, contact Jackie Becker by email or 651-602-1940 by Oct. 8.

Besides the Met Council, the other sponsors are the Council on Black Minnesotans, Aurora/St. Anthony Neighborhood Development Corp., Selby Area Community Development Corp., African Economic Development Solutions and the St. Paul branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

The two sessions will highlight what the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program is and how firms may become DBE certified, the construction bid packages that will be forthcoming and the range of construction trades that will be used on the project.

“The African-American community has been a staple of the area surrounding the Central Corridor route. As such, it only makes sense that the businesses and workers of that community participate in the construction of the line which will usher in a new phase of development and sense of community for the area,” said Roderic Southall, lead staff on the Central Corridor project for the Met Council’s Office of Diversity. “There are many African American construction-related companies that have already expressed interest in working on the project. They are seeking more information on how and when the construction projects will roll out.”

The Met Council’s Office of Diversity plans to conduct more specialized business and workforce opportunity sessions with various communities in the near future.

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