The Senate Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport Operations and Authority Creation Study Committee met for the fourth and final time Thursday, and finally City of Atlanta officials had their chance to argue for why the world’s busiest airport should remain under their purview. The original date for the committee’s recommendation was set for December 1st, but was pushed back due to last month’s special session.
Committee Chair Sen. Burt Jones (R-Jackson) has not been shy about the fact that the many scandals surrounding the airport’s vendor procurement process are “one of the big reasons why we’re here.” As he told IAG, “Would we be having this discussion if not for some of the things that have gone on in previous administrations? Probably not… Let’s point to where we see the issues are and see how we can improve them.”
City officials, including new Hartsfield-Jackson General Manager John Selden, (the fourth GM in four years) admitted that there had been issues with procurement in the past, but that under new leadership that has made transparency a major priority, they should be resolved going forward. He went on to praise the airport’s management, positing that it is run more efficiently than many of its peers across the country.
Chief Procurement Officer David Wilson, whose predecessor Adam Smith is currently in federal prison for his role in a bribery scandal, told those in attendance that the airport was “not going to have integrity problems in my department.” In January he is helping launch an electronic procurement system meant to streamline and make transparent the process that has caused so many headaches over the course of the airport’s history.
Some of said headaches were revisited during the meeting, as a pair of attorneys who represented Corey Airport Advertising were on hand to discuss a 2012 incident where the company was passed over in favor of one co-owned by Barbara Fouch, a close friend of former Mayor Maynard Jackson and the ‘political machine’ that doled out airport contracts. Corey sued the city over the incident, winning $4 million before eventually losing in appeals. Holland and Knight’s Robert Highsmith, an attorney for the City of Atlanta who has helped spearhead the airport’s defense, was quick to rebut that such a situation could not occur today thanks to safeguards put in place in recent years.
So the battle lines are drawn.
On one side are the critics of the airport, (Sen. Jones among them) who think its management needs to be removed from politics as much as possible, and that years of mismanagement with little to no oversight have created a system of corruption that spans decades and is too firmly entrenched to be uprooted without a total systemic overhaul. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” consumer advocate Dale Cardwell told attendees at the last meeting.
Defenders of the current system, including new Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, GM John Selden, and Chief Procurement Officer David Wilson, have argued that they are a new generation of leaders who aren’t dragging along the baggage of past administrations. Following the scandal that rocked City Hall as former Mayor Kasim Reed left office, Bottoms has made transparency a priority, implementing a Transparency Officer and a website that allows the public to peruse the city’s finances.
Further they can point to the success of Hartsfield-Jackson as another reason not to rock the boat. It is, after all, the world’s busiest airport even with the stink of corruption hovering over it for the past 30 years. If that can be cleaned up, as Selden and co. feel confident it can, imagine how high the airport could really fly?
The committee will have just two short weeks to put together its recommendations, which will include whether to push forward with legislation to create a new state-run airport authority. Another option, put forward by committee member Sen. Brandon Beach (R-Alpharetta), would be to create an airport commission to further study the issue. After all, transferring management of an entity that that generates more than $34 billion in direct business revenue to Metro Atlanta annually is no small task.
