City to release names of airport concessions proposal evaluators

Prior to the mayor's announcement, the city's chief procurement officer, Adam Smith, had been adamantly against releasing the names.

"It is absolutely our standard practice that we never ever release the names of evaluators prior to an evaluation of a proposal or bid," Smith said last month. "We don't want the evaluators pressured by the vendor community. We want to keep the integrity of the process intact."

Reed spokeswoman Sonji Jacobs Dade said that's a "fair concern" raised by Smith and others. But, she said, the administration "decided to move in the direction of transparency."

On Wednesday Smith said, "I am not opposed to releasing the names whatsoever. ... I want to be known for openness and transparency."

"This is a complete turnaround of what we're trying to do, to gain and not only gain but maintain the public confidence in our processes," Smith said. He added the change likely will set a precedent for other procurements by the city.

Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport Manager Louis Miller said Wednesday he was "very supportive of the policy that was in place [previously]. ... Now that they've made the decision to change it, I support the change."

Procurement processes vary around the country, but "it's usually not known who the evaluation committee members are," said Airport Revenue News Chief Executive Pauline Armbrust.

Smith said the city has provisions "to make sure that the evaluators are not lobbied, that there's no contact whatsoever."

However, most of the evaluators are airport employees, so in some cases they can't avoid talking to concessionaires, he acknowledged. "But if an issue comes up about the [request for proposal], that is off limits."