Lawyers, city to meet over airport billboards dispute

By Peralte C. Paul

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Lawyers for the Atlanta businessman who said he was unfairly denied an indoor billboard contract at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport are scheduled to meet with city officials today in a pre-trial conference in federal court in Atlanta.

The trial in the civil rights lawsuit filed by Billy Corey against the city is not slated to begin until the summer, but the conference is designed to hammer out some procedural housekeeping, such as how many witnesses each side expects to call to testify.

The legal battle, which dates back to 2003, centers around a lucrative airport indoor billboard advertising contract awarded to Clear Channel Airports.

Corey’s company, Corey Airport Services, bid for the contract, but lost out to Clear Channel, despite his contention the city would have netted more revenue with his proposal.

The suit alleges that city officials rigged the bidding procedure to award the contract to Clear Channel, because its minority partner in the project, Barbara Fouch, was a close friend of the late Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson.

Fouch’s business interests with indoor billboards at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport go back to 1981.

Bidders get credit for including “disadvantaged business enterprises” or DBEs — small companies run by minorities or women — in their proposals to do business with the airport or other city agencies.

Corey Airport Service had a minority partner as part of its bid package, Maureen G. Malone, who now is a Fulton County magistrate judge. Clear Channel teamed up with Fouch.

But the city requires DBEs must be truly independent entities.

Corey’s attorneys contend Fouch’s wasn’t, because she rented office space from the Clear Channel and had no employees in Atlanta.

“She wasn’t really an independent business,” said J. Matthew Maguire Jr., one of Corey’s attorneys. “She was, in some ways, an extension of Clear Channel.”

Had city officials conducted a thorough review of Fouch’s business, that would have raised issues with Clear Channel’s bid, Maguire contends.