Corey lawsuit opens a window into more sketchy airport deals
You win some, you lose some. And then sometimes you learn you’ve been losing a lot more, for a lot longer, than you ever realized.
Atlanta taxpayers lost almost $3 million Monday when a federal jury found that the city in 2002 illegally steered an airport advertising contract to Clear Channel and a friend of former Mayor Maynard Jackson, Barbara Fouch. Those damages — plus some $11 million from Clear Channel and $3 million more from Fouch — were awarded to businessman Billy Corey, who also bid on the contract.
But most damning was the information that came out about the city’s poor oversight of airport contracts generally — a problem that may have cost Atlantans tens of millions of dollars over the years.
The fundamental problem with the airport advertising contract was that, once granted to Fouch and her partners in 1980, it was not opened for bidding again until 2002.
Favoritism wasn’t on display just when Clear Channel and Fouch — who, as a black woman, qualified as the “disadvantaged” business partner that Clear Channel needed in the 2002 bidding process — won what jurors found to be a rigged process. It was on display for more than two decades.
This contract and those for other major concessions at the airport were originally granted for a whopping 15 years; a two-year extension was then given to get Atlanta and the airport past the Olympics.
At that point, in 1997, the city was due a big rise in the rent paid by concessionaires if their contracts rolled over past their expiration date, unless the city formally agreed to keep the previous rates.
Yet, the city didn’t actually make such an agreement or enforce that rental increase against Clear Channel and Fouch. The increase that would have netted Atlanta some $15 million, according to Corey’s lawyers. Clear Channel disputes the claim.
Now, get this: To dispel the notion that Clear Channel and Fouch hadn’t been given undue favorable treatment, attorneys for the city argued in court that the city hadn’t raised the rent, or later demanded back rent, from any airport concessionaires, says Jeff Harris, an attorney for Corey.
“They tried to defend themselves by saying, ‘We weren’t showing favoritism to Clear Channel, we did it with everybody,” Harris says.
If that’s true — and it would require a thorough review of the airport’s dealings — more than a dozen major contracts may have been handled similarly improperly.
The cost?
“All [city officials] had to do was enforce the terms of their contracts” with all of these vendors, Harris says, “and they’d have $100 million more than they have now.”
All of this happened before Mayor Kasim Reed’s watch. But he’s the only one now who can put an end to this foolishness. His cash-strapped city can’t afford to forgo revenue or pay for any more legal losses, if it ever could.
But reversing the city’s stated intention to appeal the Corey ruling, and instead opening a new bidding process for airport advertising, won’t suffice.
As mayor today, Reed owes taxpayers a full accounting of what we’ve lost over the years and how much (or little) transparency exists in the other airport contracts. That, and a rebidding of any contracts that have expired or were also let under dubious circumstances.
Do all that, and Reed would “have the support of all the taxpayers in the city,” says no less an authority than John Sherman, head of the Fulton County Taxpayers Foundation.
At the very least, he would win over a large number of us who voted for Mary Norwood simply because she represented a break from business as usual in Atlanta.
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84 comments Add your comment
j
July 29th, 2010
11:53 am
booger
July 29th, 2010
11:09 am
For all the Halliburton haters. All of the no bid contract investigations were done years ago and in the end the reason Halliburton got the contracts was that they were the only company who could do the work required from day one.
——-
If you are the only game in town a bidding process should be a slam dunk, unless of course you aren’t the only game in town and your former CEO is looking out for your interest.
—-
http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/home.html
j
July 29th, 2010
11:56 am
No More Progressives!
July 29th, 2010
11:51 am
j
July 29th, 2010
11:29 am
Your in-law was being told the rules of doing business with the city. the city did not ask him for money to obtain a contract.
You have no concept of what doing business with SBA 8(a)set-aside is like, do you? Not a bloody clue, methinks.
Link Report this comment
—–
what does your comment have to do with bribery? you are way off topic.
sba only applies to federal government contracts. this is the city of atlanta. get it together.
3 is 3 too many
July 29th, 2010
12:02 pm
Grand Forks, you defend yourself like a 6 year-old left wing girl.
I am far from a left-winger, but I do believe you get what you pay for… your free speech isn’t a value.
Stay on topic.
No More Progressives!
July 29th, 2010
12:04 pm
“The SBA is committed to ensuring that only eligible participants are reaping the benefits of the 8(a) Business Development (BD) Program.”
http://www.sba.gov/aboutsba/sbaprograms/8abd/index.html
Show me where it says Federal Govt. contracts only.
It doesn’t.
Kyle Wingfield
July 29th, 2010
12:07 pm
For the record, this is what I was referring to, Dirty Dawg:
“Once again, I’m astounded that you, Kyle, would go after your buddies at Clear Channel…I mean since they’re the ones that run the most vile, right-wing, talk crap across the country (OK, in Atlanta that’s WSB, but pretty-much everywhere else.) I would think you’d ‘cut ‘em some slack’. ”
I usually get accused of sycophancy with right-wing talk radio, so that’s why this part of your comment jumped out at me.
No More Progressives!
July 29th, 2010
12:11 pm
“…….only eligible participants……”
I forgot to add that eligible participants means that 1) your skin tone is anything but white, and 2) you come with ovaries as original equipment.
In a civilized society, that’s called discrimination.
Grand Forks
July 29th, 2010
12:14 pm
“I am far from a left-winger, but I do believe you get what you pay for… your free speech isn’t a value.”
Sure thing, mystery meat.
j
July 29th, 2010
12:19 pm
No More Progressives!
July 29th, 2010
12:11 pm
“…….only eligible participants……”
I forgot to add that eligible participants means that 1) your skin tone is anything but white, and 2) you come with ovaries as original equipment.
In a civilized society, that’s called discrimination.
Link Report this comment
—-
Dude you need to stop posting because each time you post you are simply discrediting yourelf.
you forgot handicapped individuals. white women are the biggest beneficiary of affirmative action so what are you griping about?
Is griping your ambition in life?
Did you ever stop to think about why this program was implemented to begin with?
in a civilized society it is called addressing injustice.
No More Progressives!
July 29th, 2010
12:21 pm
Dude you need to stop posting because each time you post you are simply discrediting yourelf.
Credo quia absurdum.
No More Progressives!
July 29th, 2010
12:30 pm
Show me where it says Federal Govt. contracts only.
booger
July 29th, 2010
12:49 pm
j,
My brother in law is not an sob. He in fact did not bid on the Atlanta job because he would have to pay a bribe to a partner which a city official chooze. He is doing very well in private industry, and sleeps better I’m sure than had he gotten involved with the corrupt bidding process.
On Halliburton, I have worked in the middle east. Very few US companies have a presence there on a large scale which is necessary in a war. There was no one else willing to bid who could do the job, so Halliburton got the work. This was investigated by congress several yeaars ago and no wrong doing was found.
Please do not bother to respond if the smartest thing you can come up with is to call someone an sob.
DW
July 29th, 2010
12:52 pm
Hopefully, Mayor Reed can do so without earning the ire of the Jackson family.
scott
July 29th, 2010
12:57 pm
Kyle…you’re chasing windmills here. What you are saying is nothing new to any resident of Atlanta. Its been going on and been universally swept under a rug for decades now. The problem is that nobody really cares enough to do anything about it and there is no real public outrage over it. Maynard Jackson…corrupt as hell, probably, but he got results…big results. I blame most of the ills facing Atlanta now squarely on the shoulders of BILL CAMPBELL. Everything from the mistrust in the legislature, lack of funding for Atlanta projects…you name it. Bill Campbell was the poster child of cronyism and corruption without results…at least good ones. He played the race card ad nauseum, had unqualified poker buddies running the city government, was hostile to State government, and awarded airport contracts to those who contributed to him. This mess currently is his creation. If not for Angela Gittens little would be proven in court. Shirley Franklin started cleaning up his mess, but its a whole lot of mess, and rebuilding of trust, that has to occur. When people are losing jobs and seeing dysfunctional state government, bogus airport contracts are just another thing wrong…we’ve been desensitized I think to the whole idea of corruption
j
July 29th, 2010
12:58 pm
https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=list&tab=list
j
July 29th, 2010
1:11 pm
hey snotty nose, aka booger, you need to crawl back under whatever trailer park you were unleashed from and clean up your act.
chooze? seriously.
Drama played out
July 29th, 2010
1:27 pm
Question 1: Did the City of Atlanta intentionally violate Corey’s equal protection rights by unequally applying a facially neutral ordinance to select Clear Channel as the most responsive proponent of the airport advertising contract in 2002?
Deliberations: Equal protection, hell! We’ve decided he hasn’t yet paid for all the INEQUALITIES perpetrated on minorities in the past.
Verdict: NO!
[snip]
Question 4: Did Clear Channel conspire with the City of Atlanta to deprive Corey of its equal protection rights?
Deliberations: NO, we’ve already discussed that…Corey hasn’t earned his equal protections yet!!!! It’s gonna require more sacrifice on his part. We’ll get back to him once he has. It’s up to us to decide so he shouldn’t call us, we’ll call him.
Verdict: NO
Question 5: Did Barbara Fouch conspire with the City of Atlanta to deprive Corey of its equal protection rights?
Deliberations: Ms. Fouch had every right to conspire with the City of Atlanta. She’s just trying to get back what was owed her great-grandparents.
Jury’s answer: NO
[snip]
Question 7: Did Corey suffer money damages for lost profits from 2002 to 2007 (the 5 year term of the contract)?
Deliberations: Who cares? He’s got money–he can afford it.
Jury’s answer: NO
Question 8: What is the amount of damages Corey has proven it suffered as a result of the violation of its equal protection rights?
Deliberations: Corey doesn’t know the meaning of the word, suffered.
Jury’s answer: BIG FAT ZERO
Question 9: Do you find that Clear Channel Outdoor, Inc. and/or Barbara Fouch acted willfully and maliciously in the violation of Corey’s equal protection rights or acted intentionally with gross disregard for Corey’s equal protection rights, so as to entitle Corey to punitive damages?
Deliberations: What goes around comes around. He got what he deserved.
Jury’s answer: NO to both
Congratulations to Mr. Corey! The times they are a changing.
No More Progressives!
July 29th, 2010
1:27 pm
Show me where it says Federal Govt. contracts only.
Still waiting.
booger
July 29th, 2010
1:29 pm
j,
unleashed from? seriously
That would be from where you were unleashed.
Terrence
July 29th, 2010
1:44 pm
This belongs over here, Kyle. It’s from Wooten’s “Right Thinking.”
In the DeKalb school board’s race-based law firm decision, one voice deserves commendation. It is that of board member Pamela Speaks, a black female, who refused to be bullied when other board members pushed her to vote race. “We attempted to save the taxpayers $1 million,” she said. “We have those on the board suggest we ignore that fact just so we can have an African-American attorney. I would like them to defend that to taxpayers.”
There is no defense for racial preference when it comes from a diverse pool of taxpaying citizens.
Live and learn.
No More Progressives!
July 29th, 2010
1:52 pm
Terrence
July 29th, 2010
1:44 pm
Terrence:
You should send that to Ben Jealous at the NAACP. Shoot, he might even read it.
j
July 29th, 2010
2:08 pm
Terrence
July 29th, 2010
1:44 pm
This belongs over here, Kyle. It’s from Wooten’s “Right Thinking.”
In the DeKalb school board’s race-based law firm decision, one voice deserves commendation. It is that of board member Pamela Speaks, a black female, who refused to be bullied when other board members pushed her to vote race. “We attempted to save the taxpayers $1 million,” she said. “We have those on the board suggest we ignore that fact just so we can have an African-American attorney. I would like them to defend that to taxpayers.”
There is no defense for racial preference when it comes from a diverse pool of taxpaying citizens.
———————————–
who said dekalb is diverse?
that place is like the South Bronx.
Terrence
July 29th, 2010
2:39 pm
j, in other words, blacks are failing DeKalb County by wasting their taxpayer’s money on racial preferences.
Got it.
David S
July 29th, 2010
2:48 pm
Just another reason why government should not perform any service, operate any business, or have control over any industry. Government is nothing but force and monopoly.
Dirty Dawg
July 29th, 2010
3:51 pm
Sorry Kyle. My comment was based on my thinking that the ‘folks’ you were ‘going after’ was Atlanta’s black leadership, not Clear Channel, but I’m not surprised that you would be seen as a ’servile, self-seeking flatterer’ of the Right-wing Scream Machine…after all there’s money to be made with prejudice and bigotry – at least there’s a huge audience for it – particularly here in Georgia.
And ‘booger’, the thing about Haliburton being the only company large enough to handle those big jobs, the question here is as old as the hills, ‘What comes first, the size of the company or the rigged contracts that gave ‘em the money to get that big?’ Of course, the simple fact is, our military was that big and handled much of what a Republican-led Administration turned over to ‘the private sector’ who, in turn, got itself permanently attached to one or more of the US Treasury’s teats and have been sucking it dry ever since – and we all know who was, largely, the ‘attachee’. As for your brother having to pay a ‘bribe’ to his designated ‘minority’ partner. government contracts, at least the Federal ones, have required minority participation – that means a financial stake – from bidders for decades. All Atlanta was doing was extending the practice. I mean, if your brother couldn’t provide a minority partner – doubt if he could call one of his neighbors or co-workers – then they offered to provide him one…sounds like they were bending over backward to give him a shot at the 90% deal he was seeking – seems to me that the minority participation only required a 10% role. Corey had, and has had, minority partners for example.
booger
July 29th, 2010
4:25 pm
Dirty Dawg,
And this is what is better known as bribary. Your comments on Haliburton are hypothetical so not really worth a response.
Dirty Dawg
July 29th, 2010
4:41 pm
Hey ‘booger’…you’re saying that any requirement to include minority partnership as a condition for placing a bid is ‘brib-e-ry’? Seems to me that’s a rather prejudiced viewpoint. Also, nothing ‘hypothetical’ about Haliburton’s growth over the years due to government contracts, or the role that Dick Cheney played making it happen. Plus, I don’t care if you respond or not.
Oh yeah, meant to ask, is your name ‘booger’ supposed to be short for ‘bogeyman’ or are you just a piece of dried nose mucus?
booger
July 29th, 2010
6:00 pm
Dirty,
I’m saying when a list of partners are presented who know nothing about construction, and who really aren’t expected to do anything but take a minimum of 10% of your revenue, it’s bribary. Haliburton’s relative market share in their core businesses remain about the same as they did 10 years ago.
Churchill's MOM
July 30th, 2010
7:55 am
Doesn’t Nathan Deal’s no bid contract and strong arm tactics to keep it remind you of Maynard Jackson and the Atlanta Airport. The common thread between both parties is corruption. Georgia has the choice of electing a HONEST woman or a Corrupt Washington Insider. Get your friends out to vote for a honest woman, Karen Handel.
Dirty Dawg
July 30th, 2010
9:23 am
Booger…in my experience, if you come to the table with your own ‘minority partner’ – and that partner isn’t on the ‘no fly’ or the ‘ten most wanted’ lists or something, and you meet certain other requirements for bidding – by the way, virtually every major company these days – and the government’s had it forever, it seems – has an approved contractor/service provider/printer/ et.al. list that you have to ‘qualify’ for in order to even be in the running. If you’re saying that your brother was given a list of ‘partners’ to choose from and no others would be accepted, that’s not what I have experienced and not what I’ve been told by others that are, and have been, doing business with the airport and City of Atlanta for years.
Interesting that you would say Haliburton’s, ‘relative’, market share ‘in it’s core business’ – please explain just what that core business is, cause it seems that they’re involved in a bit of everything that the government is willing to hire them to do – has remained flat over the past ten years. What’s interesting about it is that in earlier posts you said that they were the only one’s large enough to handle the job(s). Does that mean they were already – under the leadership of Dick (we call him Darth) Cheney – sucking billions out of the Treasury and have simply made more and more? Was their ’share’ already so big that the Government had no choice? Come on now, with the money the US alone has thrown at this ‘privatization/outsourcing thing over those years you could have built a dozen Haliburtons, so somebody must be doing them favors…somebody that’s received boo-coop bucks over the years from Haliburton lobbiests. Don’t try to defend Haliburton – we all know they only have their interests at heart and the customer (us) be damned – ‘electrocutions provided with every shower’ could be their slogan. By the way, have they actually followed through with their announced intent to move their headquarters to Dubai? Probably only have to do that on paper in order to get the ‘tax dodge’, but since you know so much about ‘em, I thought I’d ask.
And, finally, I thought I had given you a enough of a hint as to how you spell ‘bribery’…the fist time perhaps, I assumed it was a typo and/or your spell-check was down, but since you insist on continuing to get it wrong I guess you just know any better.
Michael Steele, Chairman
July 30th, 2010
9:30 am
I’m glad to see Kyle doing the GOP’s work here.
By focusing on the airport run by “those” people, he is keeping everyone’s mind off the poor job that God’s Own Party (GOP) have accomplished here in Georgia for the last 8 years. No progress on transportation, no progress on education, no progress on long-term water planning. See, if a politician makes “progress” someone may call him a “progressive” … can’t have that. Might as well use the “L” world.
So keep up the good work Kyle. Don’t let anyone bring up the enron-style accounting,corruption and incompetence at DOT, don’t focus on how Sonny has made millions on land deals and special tax breaks from the legislature. That would make the sheep, I mean the chosen, stray off the course of gay-bashing and latino-hating. Can’t have that, that’s how elections are won in Georgia.
Oh, and keep blaming the democrats for everything that is wrong in Georgia. Its only been 8 years since they’ve been gone; and keep up the good work by making sure that Obama cannot blame George Bush for the economy or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama has been President for almost two-years, surely, everything is his fault now.
After all, Obama chose to fight those wars, everyone know only an idiot would start a land war in Asia.
Thank your for your support,
Michael Steele, Chairman
Republican National Committee
Horrible Horrace
July 30th, 2010
9:33 am
The City of Atlanta is chock full of incompetent boobs posing as reverends, good guys, caring adults etc. Dont believe a word they udder.
Rename the Airport…Manure Jackson HellHole.
Jan O
July 30th, 2010
9:48 am
Kyle: You are spot on with this one. But will someone answer me why the city is spending soo much money and effort in protecting Clear Channel’s interests? Aren’t they the company bilking taxpayers out of millions?
Big O
July 30th, 2010
4:18 pm
Yea, Yea, Yea….The Airport is an enterprise fund so the award to Corey will be paid from the Airport and not the City. Any review of lost income and any reimbursement will only go to the Airport and not the City. the City only realizes income form licenses and perimts for the Airport all other income is wasted by the Airport for the Airport.
Leonvang
August 3rd, 2010
1:08 pm
Kyle- Nice editorial but verysuperficial. Why no mention about Kassim Reed’s brother (see Lisa Borders campaign statements) -ten years minority contract supervisor for the city. How much money did he raise to get Shirley and Kaseem elected? Why no interview of him for comments and his failure to correct the corruption under his sontrol? Or is the current administration and Shirley Franklin off limits for such in depth analysis? You think between him and Shirley’s family having airport contracts there is no dirt under the rug? when will it end?