Endorsements by former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin and former Atlanta City Council President Cathy Woolard of independent candidate Mary Norwood in Tuesday’s Atlanta mayoral runoff election again spotlights corruption that has occurred within outgoing Mayor Kasim Reed’s administration. The endorsers say they especially endorse Norwood’s pledge of a “clean break” from Reed’s city hall as well as from his hand-picked candidate Keisha Bottoms.
The latest Reed embarrassment occurred when he had to place on leave the deputy general manager of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport due to a blatant conflict of interest involving the deputy manager’s wife. Charisse Works, the owner of AirWorks Concessions, does business with Hojeij Branded Foods which has lucrative contracts awarded by the mayor’s procurement office. Husband Cortez Carter never bothered to reveal his spousal connection to big Reed donor Wassim Hojeij. And Bottoms has received at least $17,800 from Hojeij and his employees; mayoral challenger Mary Norwood only got $7,000 (which she donated to charity).
This latest conflict-of-interest at the city-controlled airport – often the target of corruption-related lawsuits and investigations over the years– shows why Norwood supports a moratorium on approval of most contracts that begin services in 2018. She simply wants the next Council and mayor to review them. (Defeated mayoral candidate Ceaser Mitchell, who now endorses Norwood, first called for such a moratorium and accused Reed of rushing to finish contracts that don’t expire or won’t be enacted until next years.
In recent months InsiderAdvantage has been told by reliable sources that the U.S. Attorney’s office and the FBI have widened its probe of the city hall bribery/contracting scandal. It was a subpoena delivered to Atlanta’s law department in February that was the first indication of broadening the scope into pay-to-play bribery for numerous city contracts.
An 11-point demand by the feds required the city to turn over conflict-of-interest disclosures by fired city procurement officer Adam Smith, as well as all documents Smith controlled relating to contracts of $1 million or more since Jan. 1, 2014.
This means that the probe’s focus will continue to explore airport contracting. And remember that Smith was close to Reed, who exercises tight control over the city airport department’s vendor contracting. Remember, too, that Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport – the world’s busiest air terminus– ranks as perhaps the worst in the United States as measured by longtime cronyism and corruption.
