Always careful when and where he chooses his battles and makes his announcements, last Saturday morning, Comptroller Scott Stringer selected the friendly confines of the National Action Network (NAN) to announce who would be his first chief diversity officer.
“She is Carra Wallace,” Stringer said, “and we are breaking ground with this appointment, and there isn’t a better place to make this announcement than at NAN.
“Carra is thoughtful and fully understands her mission,” Stringer continued.
That mission, Wallace said, “is to make sure that minority- and women-owned businesses get their share of the $16 billion in contracts.”
Both Stringer and Wallace noted that minority and women business enterprises receive only 2.7 percent of the city contracts, and that percentage is down from the previous 5 percent.
Wallace said her first priority is to correct this imbalance and ensure that a level playing field is enforced, and she has a proven track record in this regard, most impressively during her tenure as a managing director of the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, the organization’s leader, said that if Blacks and Latinos had their share of the contracts, they could employ their own youth. “That money comes from our taxpaying dollars,” he added, “so we are not talking about handouts.”
Joining Wallace at NAN was Wendy Garcia, who will be her deputy official.