February, Black History month, the Legislative Session, many outreach events, expanded Tabor100 offerings and trying to figure out an overflow room for our members when they come to the General Membership meetings (we are welcoming more than 100 for each meeting).We are pleased to have these events all converging at the same time. While we celebrate Black History month, we dedicate every month to ensuring African American and other minority entrepreneurs do well. We now have a person in Olympia during the legislative session watching out for our best interests, and, to put it mildly, we wonder how we survived without one. We appreciate that we now can advocate for good things for our community, but we also recognize that there are forces dedicated to ensuring our opportunities are limited. Thank you to the many businesses, non-profits and individuals who’ve held events at the Tabor100 HUB. We very much appreciate your conducting business here. This year will likely see a record for outreach events at the HUB. Great location, excellent parking and superior meeting facilities make the HUB the place to conduct whatever event you have in mind. Your support helps strengthen your community.

On a more sour note, I’d like to point out the potential for “affirmative action” to be negatively impacted in the near future. Ensuring that members of communities that have been discriminated against receive a boost, is being threatened by a Supreme Court ruling scheduled to be made sometime this summer. While the focus will be on education, some are saying whatever decision is made will also have an impact on contracting. Federal disadvantaged business preferences are allowed through the Disadvantaged Business (DBE) program. Even in states that have banned affirmative action, like Washington, local and state governments have enacted voluntary programs to assist minority businesses in accessing local tax dollars. Much of this is threatened by the US Supreme Court’s impending ruling. I urge you to pay attention to this situation and cannot emphasize how critical it is for you to participate in disparity studies to help document the struggles we face as minority businesses. Until next time, may 2023 bring you prosperity and good health!