The Atlanta official in charge of overseeing the city’s minority contracting programs abruptly quit the other day. InsiderAdvantage is told by city hall officials that the resignation is related to the continuing federal corruption investigation and paralysis within the city’s airport and overall procurement system. And, as this is written, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has declined to comment on why Larry Scott resigned.
Scott had been the city’s director of contract compliance since 2014, hand-picked by former Mayor Kasim Reed, who has been the subject of several federal subpoenas in the probe.
Emmy Award-winning journalist-turned-consumer investigator Dale Cardwell is not surprised by this latest development involving Scott, described by city hall insiders as a Reed puppet. Cardwell has already testified to a state Senate committee probing airport corruption. During that testimony, he cited his open records requests in October 2018 to study what companies are awarded contracts and get payment through Atlanta’s Equal Business Opportunity program.
“City officials tout its EBO as one of the country’s model minority and female-owned business creation platforms,” he notes, “and one of the key reasons the city should maintain control of Hartsfield-Jackson International.” Cardwell and his team report “the city does not prepare reports for the Council, mayor or the general public that provide an easy roadmap to see what companies get paid and how the money is distributed.”
A Cardwell press release underscores:
“Cardwell’s review shows that in fiscal year 2016- 2017, 3,794 companies were pre-qualified to compete for contracts with the city. 304 EBO companies received some level of payment, or only 8.1%. Cardwell’s review also found 70% of the dollars paid through the program ($125,803,722.15) went to just 43 companies or 1.1% of companies certified to compete for a contract. Furthermore, the city does not create or does not produce reports for the public showing whether the EBO program is fostering growth for individual companies year to year. We invite Georgians to examine these numbers to determine how the city is performing.”
The Cardwell report and supporting documentation, which he hopes will be studied by the governor and state lawmakers considering legislation removing the airport from Atlanta mayoral control, can be found at airportcorruption.com.
