Airport ad contract trial to begin Tuesday
Opening statements are scheduled Tuesday in a longrunning federal lawsuit claiming the city of Atlanta rigged an indoor advertising contract to benefit a businesswoman with deep ties to Atlanta City Hall.
The trial, expected to last three weeks, culminates an eight-year battle between Atlanta entreprenuer Billy Corey and the city, which awarded the contract for indoor advertising at the city-owned Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport to Clear Channel and its minority partner, Barbara Fouch.
In the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, Corey charges his company, Corey Airport Services, unfairly lost its bid because of Fouch’s friendship with the late Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson.
Corey, a self-made millionaire, filed the lawsuit in 2004, naming then-Mayor Shirley Franklin, then-airport General Manager Ben DeCosta, a number of other city officials and Clear Channel as defendants.
The suit also alleges the city didn’t net as much money from advertising revenue with Clear Channel as it would have had his firm been selected.
Central to Corey’s case is Fouch, a former model and widow of Los Angeles Dodgers star John Roseboro. Fouch’s business interests at Hartsfield-Jackson date to 1981. Corey’s key contention is she got the contract because of her friendship with Jackson.
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, now a Fulton County magistrate judge.
The city requires DBEs must be truly independent entities, and Corey’s lawyers have said Fouch wasn’t because she rented office space from Clear Channel and had no employees in Atlanta.
Ex-Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, who expects to be called to testify, issued a statement:“I am confident that those involved with the airport advertising procurement during my administration acted properly, lawfully, and with the utmost integrity throughout the process and that the process was inherently fair,” it said.
John Kennedy, a Hartsfield-Jackson spokesman, declined comment. Corey’s lawyers also declined comment.
It’s not the first time contracts at Harstfield-Jackson -- and how they’re awarded from Atlanta City Hall -- have been the subject of controversy and scrutiny.
An Atlanta Journal-Constitution 2002 investigation of awarded airport contracts found those campaign contributors and close friends to Jackson and former Mayor Bill Campbell received the lion’s share of successful bids because of their personal connections to City Hall.
