Even before Allen Lew switches from baseball stadium guru to school modernization czar, he's being asked to play the race card. No one admits this, of course.

But some, including D.C. Council members, are pushing to ensure that local, small, disadvantaged business enterprises (LSDBEs) receive the lion's share of the multibillion budget for school renovations.

For those unfamiliar with the District's race-laced lexicon, LSDBE traditionally has meant minority - mostly African-American. In awarding contracts, the government provides preference points to businesses certified as LSDBE, giving those companies the edge over other bidders.

Keeping dollars inside the city is a worthy goal - except that too often inferior or mediocre companies are hired and District residents pay the price.

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Consider the Temple Group: From fiscal 2003 to the present, the company raked in more than $136 million. Temple provided construction services to several agencies, including the departments of transportation, health, property management and the library.

Its most consistent client has been the Department of Parks and Recreation. Temple has renovated seven centers, receiving $119 million from the DPR, according to the chief financial officer.

The Chevy Chase Citizens Association can talk about the quality of Temple's work: "[It's] horrible and it has cost the taxpayers double or triple for most projects," says Nancy Wilson, who has tracked renovations at the Chevy Chase Community Center.

Roland Barnes, a vice president at Temple, did not return telephone calls to the company. The Temple Group and the Jair Lynch Companies, both LSDBEs that have performed construction services for DPR, are being investigated by the city's inspector general.

Wilson says the Chevy Chase Center received an expensive and beautiful dance floor.

"Temple did something to the roof and it rained on the floor. It had to be replaced, which the contractor did not do properly.

"Every time it rained the building would flood," Wilson continues. "The flooding got progressively worse. We found out that Temple never connected drainage pipes."
Then there was the sinking basketball court; Temple is refusing to fix that problem citing expired warranty. In other words, it wants to be paid again to fix its own poor work.
Last month, the air conditioner wasn't working. More recently, the landscape design had to be trashed; Temple allowed the architect to produce something that exceeded the approved budget, Wilson says.

There have been problems at most Temple-constructed centers including Trinidad, Banneker and Turkey Thicket. Nearly everything it touches has been imperfect.

"Why doesn't D.C. cancel the contract immediately?" asks Ted Gest with CC Citizens Association.

The answer can found in the brouhaha over the racial composition of Mayor Adrian Fenty's Cabinet and the constant push by elected officials of an anachronistic public policy that advocates contracts for LSDBEs like Temple - without benefit of evaluations of their previous work.

Sadly, in the District, race trumps everything - common sense, objectivity and merit.

Jonetta Rose Barras is the political analyst for WAMU and the D.C. Politics Hour with Kojo and jonetta.