He wages costly war on city hall ‘royalty’

Businessman Billy Corey got into a fight with city hall. That’s not unusual. What happened next — and is still happening — is.

A self-made millionaire, Corey has spent the past seven years and $5 million of his fortune battling Atlanta city officials and the squadron of high-paid attorneys they have enlisted to beat back his charges that he was unfairly denied a lucrative contract at the airport.

He’s become a one-man crusade against city hall that could change the way the city does business.

“We’re crusading for the regular man,” Corey said during a recent interview at his Atlanta office near the state Capitol. “As it stands now, the ordinary person doesn’t stand a chance.”

A cantankerous 77-year-old who grew up in a hard-scrabble section of Cabbagetown, Corey has enlisted his own firepower. There’s his high-octane lawyer and former state Attorney General, Mike Bowers. And then there’s Corey’s 79-year-old brother Jack, a retired truck driver who drives a billboard-laden truck around Atlanta urging the citizenry to report “corruption” at city hall and the city-run Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

“We drive by city hall and even run it through the airport now and then,” Corey grinned. “Sometimes the airport policemen give us a thumbs up.”

Corey filed a federal lawsuit in 2004 against the city, Mayor Shirley Franklin, Hartsfield-Jackson General Manager Ben DeCosta and several other city officials as well as Clear Channel Outdoors Inc.

The owner of Atlanta-based U.S. Enterprises and its subsidiary, Corey Airport Services, Corey contends he lost a 2002 bid for the advertising concession at Hartsfield-Jackson due to rampant city hall cronyism stretching back to the administration of the late Mayor Maynard Jackson.

City: We acted properly

The advertising contract was awarded to Jackson’s close friend, Barbara Fouch, a millionaire Beverly Hills businesswoman and former Atlantan, whose company is considered a “disadvantaged business enterprise” under city rules because Fouch is African-American.

Fouch, who has had the contract since 1981, is the minority partner for the advertising division of Clear Channel Communications, one of the nation’s largest media-advertising companies. She has a 30 percent interest in Clear Channel’s Hartsfield-Jackson operation.

Fouch did not return repeated telephone calls seeking comment on the lawsuit. City and Clear Channel officials said they cannot discuss pending litigation.

“I don’t want to comment on him or the case,” DeCosta said of Corey. “It’s before a judge, and I don’t want to have an influence on the case by what I say publicly.”

In the past, Franklin has said Corey’s lawsuit is “without merit.” The city’s attorneys — Atlanta has retained outside counsel from Alston & Bird — have argued in court that the advertising contract was properly awarded.

‘Pay for play’ at issue

Bill Bozarth, who heads the consumer-advocacy group Georgia Common Cause, said Corey has run into the dilemma faced by many people with a gripe against big governments. Bozarth said his organization generally agrees with Corey that “inside connections” continue to be a problem with the awarding of Atlanta airport contracts.

“What Billy Corey has come up against is this: You have to be prepared to go to the mat or they [big governments] will outlast you,” Bozarth said. “They have the infinitely deep pockets of the government to back them.”

Bozarth said Corey’s battle with city hall inspired Common Cause to make “pay for play” an issue in the current Atlanta mayoral race. The group wants vendors doing business with the city to sign an affidavit stipulating they have not contributed cash or in-kind services to any candidate for mayor or city council in the previous year.

So far, Corey has won a series of court rulings, including a key decision last year by federal Judge Charles Pannell, who found there is sufficient evidence for the case to go to trial. The city has appealed part of that decision to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Corey has vowed a fight to the finish. His attorneys predict a jury could hear the case within a year or so.

“I’ll probably have it settled by the time I’m 90,” Corey groused. “We’ve bought the ticket. We’re just waiting for the curtains to open and the jury to be seated.”

Had he known the case would consume years of his life and millions from his bank account, Corey said he might have had second thoughts.

“It just sort of snowballed on me,” he said. “If I knew then what I know now, I might have backed off like all these other people.”

A self-made man

Those who know Corey say backing off is not his style. He came from a scrappy, working-class background. His father would collect bruised fruit and vegetables from the A&P where he worked, and Corey and his brothers would peddle them to neighbors. When he was just 8 he got a job delivering prescriptions on a bike. His mother kept a dairy cow and chickens in their backyard.

As a teenager and into his 20s, he worked at a gas station and even met his wife, Janelle, there. By the time he was 30, he had saved enough to build his own service station (he helped erect it on weekends), which became known as “Buddy’s.” It was the beginning of a small empire that has included convenience stores, construction companies, video games, commercial real estate and advertising.

A workaholic — he still works on Saturdays — Corey said he hasn’t seen a movie in 40 years. He doesn’t join civic clubs. He doesn’t play golf.

“If you have a real job, you don’t think about movies or golf courses or tennis courts. It’s just what you get used to. I don’t know anything else but working and worrying.”

A softer side

He comes across as the quintessential grouchy old man. But there are also signs of a softer Billy Corey in his office. There’s a small toy John Deere tractor he keeps near his desk for the young godson of a co-worker who occasionally drops by.

His crowded private space, inside a renovated former Georgia Power Plant adjacent to the Downtown Connector, is festooned with clown paintings by the late comedian Red Skelton, gifts from friends.

“I like to be happy,” he said. “And I liked and admired Red Skelton. All his entertainment was family entertainment, clean entertainment.”

Still, it doesn’t take much to raise his hackles. He won’t say how much he is worth; estimates range from $100 million to $400 million. When a reporter mentions the higher number, Corey comes out swinging.

“You must have Alzheimer’s or something,” he grumbles. “I’m worth a hell of a lot less.”

How much less? Corey won’t say, but his business acumen has won him some serious trinkets of success. He has a private jet he keeps parked at DeKalb-Peachtree Airport, and he lives on a hundred-plus-acre estate near Conyers.

If Corey’s suit does come to trial, it will put the city’s oft-disputed process of awarding lucrative airport contracts in the spotlight. The airport is the busiest in the world, generating millions in annual revenue and pumping billions into the region’s economy.

‘Royals and regulars’

“It’s an oil well for money,” Corey said. The advertising concession alone produces $12 million to $20 million a year in gross revenues, according to legal filings.