Report: Airport contractors often contributed to former mayors

ATLANTA - Friends of former Atlanta mayors Bill Campbell and Maynard Jackson comprise many of the contractors at Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport, where some contracts have not been rebid since 1981, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in Sunday&#39;s early edition. <br> <br> In a review of 100 contracts at Hartsfield, the nation&#39;s second-busiest airport, the newspaper said people associated with at least 80 of them had a relationship with one or both mayors. <br> <br> Many Hartsfield contractors donated to the mayors&#39; political campaigns, with Campbell collecting $270,000 from 85 airport contractors for his 1997 re-election campaign, the paper said. <br> <br> Through an assistant, Jackson declined several interview requests, as did Campbell, the newspaper said. Campbell&#39;s lawyer, Michael Coleman, denied the former mayor had traded contracts for contributions. <br> <br> ``The fact that someone has made a contribution to a candidate or may have known them before should not disqualify them if they are otherwise qualified to do the job,&#39;&#39; Coleman said. He declined to discuss specific contractors. <br> <br> Hartsfield&#39;s indoor advertising contract is a prime example of political patronage, the paper said. <br> <br> The airport last sought bids for managing the more than 300 billboards on its walls in 1981. That contract expired in September 1998, but city officials have extended it 40 times since then on a monthly basis. <br> <br> Last year, Hartsfield received about half $3.6 million of the annual revenue from the billboards. Some large airports receive two-thirds of the advertising revenue. <br> <br> Hartsfield General Manager Benjamin DeCosta and his predecessor, Angela Gittens, told the paper City Hall had blocked their efforts to rebid the billboard contract. <br> <br> They suspect that one reason they were unable to rebid the contract is because its minority contractor is Barbara Fouch, a friend of Jackson and the godmother of one of his children. <br> <br> Fouch, an Atlanta native and Los Angeles public relations practitioner, holds a 30 percent stake in the contract. She declined to be interviewed. Gittens, now the Miami airport director, said her efforts to rebid the billboard contract provoked ``screaming matches&#39;&#39; with Campbell. <br> <br> ``The attitude was, `Why are you picking on her?&#39;&#39;&#39; Gittens recalled. &#39;&#39;`Why would you take this away from her? This is her contract.&#39;&#39;&#39; <br> <br> The airport&#39;s contract with Parking Co. of America to manage parking lots and decks cost the city nearly $300,000 last year. In late 1999, the airport solicited bids and received one from Cincinnati-based Parking Co. for $465,000 per year, a third less than it had charged the airport previously. <br> <br> During the parking bid, members of the family that runs Parking Co. donated $11,100 to Campbell with another $4,000 from others connected to the firm. <br> <br> Susana Chavez of Atlanta, the company&#39;s vice president, said no one linked the contributions to the contract. ``Not at all,&#39;&#39; she said. ``Never.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Campbell waited 14 months after the City Council authorized a new contract before signing it, until the day he left office in January. During the interim, Atlanta paid the company $299,904 in fees under the old contract. <br> <br> DeCosta said he couldn&#39;t explain that delay, calling the parking bid process ``the poster child for how to do it wrong.&#39;&#39; In the interview, DeCosta was circumspect about the role of mayoral campaign contributions in airport contracts. <br> <br> ``It seems that&#39;s something that happens in Atlanta,&#39;&#39; he told the newspaper. ``Maybe it happens everywhere, but I&#39;m more aware of it here. It may be this is the way business gets done in Georgia.&#39;&#39;