Shortly after Robert Lee Clay started handing out leaflets that raised questions about the city?s minority contracting, his phone would ring with the caller delivering the same message.
Someone wanted Clay dead.
Clay?s daughter, Sharon, said, “He didn?t tell me a lot about it because he wouldn?t have wanted me to worry.” No one knew what the threats were about or even if they were real or an exaggeration.
Friends of Clay said he was determined to blow the whistle on what he perceived as unfair practices by the city in handing out minority contracts. It wasn?t that the city was not handing out contracts but who was getting them that bothered Clay.
The leaflets berated Mayor Martin O?Malley?s administration. “Mayor Martin O?Malley has FAILED to support small and minority business enterprises (MBEs). His claims of success are simply untrue,” they read.
Clay?s critics viewed him as a constant political thorn in O?Malley?s side. In 1999, Clay was accused of passing out fliers from an unknown white supremacist group that he claimed supported the mayor ? charges that were never substantiated. O?Malley supporters considered Clay more of a nuisance ? a minor player who they said often lacked facts to support his outrageous allegations. It was no surprise to the O?Malley camp that Clay would lean toward supporting Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan for governor. People close to Clay and the mayor said the two never got along.
A lifelong Democrat who often helped financially support the campaigns of fellow Democrats such as Baltimore City Del. Jill Carter, and even ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in 1994, Clay began to build strong alliances with Gov. Robert Ehrlich.
Ehrlich appointed the activist to the Governor?s Commission on Minority Business Enterprise Reform after a distinguished career in the construction industry, where he earned millions of dollars in contracts under Minority Business Enterprise set-asides, a process that gives qualified minority businesses a percentage of government work.
It was through MBE that Clay landed high-profile jobs such as work on Fort McHenry Tunnel and an expansion of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Va.
Wayne Frazier, executive director of the Maryland/Washington Minority Contractors Association, said Clay was taking his frustration out on O?Malley for personal reasons. “Mr. Clay was not experiencing success under the O?Malley administration, so he complained,” Frazier said.
Why? Frazier put it bluntly: “In Maryland, as elsewhere, to the victor goes the spoils. Robert was not an O?Malley supporter.”
O?Malley?s administration countered that millions of dollars were directed into minority contracts and Clay?s complaints were nothing more than sour grapes.
MBE figures provided by O?Malley spokeswoman Raquel Guillory show that Clay was one of the city Housing Authority?s top contractors. From 2000 to 2005, he received more than $20 million in MBE contracts from the Housing Authority, nearly half of the total $43 million awarded by the department since 2000. During that five-year period, Clay was the largest Housing Authority contractor working for the city ? a fact that Guillory shows contradicts Clay?s allegations that he wasn?t getting his fair share.
O?Malley declined to comment.
Clay was known to complain. He filed multiple lawsuits whenever he thought an injustice was served. He even sued to overturn the results in his failed 1994 Senate bid. He lost in that case, as he did in most of the lawsuits that he filed.
But Robert Harris, vice president of the Maryland Minority Business Association, did not view Clay as a whiner.
“He wasn?t complaining. He just wanted a level playing field for the small guys. Robert was always vocal about that issue ? he didn?t believe it was fair.”
In 2003, Clay disputed an Air Force contract awarded to Platinum One Roofing, accusing the firm in a formal protest of not being “minority owned,” according tocourt records. Clay said the company was “not qualified” as a minority-owned firm, charging that the company was only a “pass through,” according to court records.
But court records show that Clay?s allegation had no standing. However, even though the U.S. Air Force ruled against Clay on both counts, stating that the company did comply with the law, the company?s Web site still shows a management team that has only one black person among its five top executives.
Vernon Smith, senior vice president of Platinum One, said the MBE contracting is more transparent now than in the past. “The day of the pass-through is over; everyone knows who the owners are,” he said. “The monitoring system of the Small Business Association is pretty dog-gone thorough.”
Clay “was just substantially underbid on the job,” Smith said.
Harris said he still remains concerned about whether Clay?s allegations are true. “There are many so-called minority-owned businesses that are just shells ? money is funneled through minority firms,” he said. “And Robert was on to a few of them.”
