offending?

[AGDLynn]

OUR VIEW

Mayors' kin hijack opportunity

Published on: 04/02/2004 Atlanta Journal Constitution
Do political family connections play a role in awarding airport contracts?


The two firms fighting over a bigger slice of the concessionaire's pie at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport share a troubling bond: Both are run by children of Atlanta mayors.

One firm, owned by Mayor Shirley Franklin's ex-husband, employs her son Cabral as vice president and her daughter Kali as a human resources specialist. The other firm is co-owned by Brooke Jackson Edmond, daughter of the late Maynard Jackson, a former mayor. Each firm already operates retail outlets at the airport.

Now they're pitted against one another as minority partners of two major companies competing to run a duty-free shop for international travelers at Hartsfield-Jackson airport. An evaluation panel unanimously chose the business connected to Edmond's firm.

However, airport General Manager Ben DeCosta overruled the decision, marking the first time he's ever discarded the advice of an evaluation panel in nearly six years on the job. Instead, he picked the bid that includes the Franklin clan, citing concerns about a major lawsuit, since settled, against Edmond's majority partner. "I have to make sure we are doing business with people who are really solid," he says. His ruling was appealed and a hearing is under way this week.

DeCosta says the mayor played no role in his decision. "The mayor will not talk to me about anything involving her family." Franklin has always said that she will never participate in any city business deals that could involve her family, and there's no indication she's ever violated that pledge.

But that airport officials had only two bids to choose between -- and that both involve family members with close ties to the Atlanta political establishment -- is distressing. The airport has long served as a job bank for well-connected black Atlantans, just as state government has provided employment for the relatives of many white lawmakers over the years. Indeed, an executive of one of the largest duty-free operators, who chose not to bid, noted in an interview last year that some companies may have stayed away because Atlanta has "a history of being political."

But the appearance that bids are open only to the well-connected is not the only problem here. The other is that the Franklins and Jacksons should have already graduated from a program designed for disadvantaged minority businesses. The powerful and successful families are no longer fighting to get their foot in the door at the airport. They kicked it down a long time ago.

Now, they ought to get out of the way and stop blocking truly disadvantaged business owners from a shot at big contracts.