Talk of the Town - Campbell’s tab July 29 2000

Public to be stuck with mayor’s IOUs

Public corruption has rarely been as public as it was last week in Bill Campbell’s Atlanta, where the City Council agreed to give special rent breaks and lease extensions to Campbell cronies with shops and restaurants at Hartsfield International Airport. Eons ago, back in 1995, half-a-dozen prime concessionaires won coveted spots at the airport through an open, competitive bidding process. With Hartsfield hopping and the Olympics on the way, would-be operators figured to make big bucks plying travelers with everything from tacos to trinkets.

Today, the poor, pathetic concessionaires — including such down-and-out strugglers as former Mayor Maynard Jackson, minority construction king Herman Russell and real estate behemoth Host Marriott — claim they aren’t making enough money. Overhead is higher than expected, they cry, revenue lower.

If you didn’t know Atlanta, you might have expected the city to tell this brazen bunch of billion-dollar beggars to put down their platinum-plated tin cups and get lost. After all, no one forced them to do business at Hartsfield. In a free market, enterprises are free to succeed — and free to fail. Capitalism is tricky that way.

But this is Atlanta 2000 — a city now situated in a shadowy, upside-down netherworld where well-heeled, well-connected businessmen assume the opportunities and average taxpayers assume the risks. Here, the market isn’t free, the standard rules of capitalism don’t apply, and the mayor’s pals aren’t allowed to fail.

Bill Campbell is using his public office for private gain, diverting dollars bound for the revenue till and rebating them to his supporters. In this, the mayor and his council co-conspirators — Vern McCarty, Michael Bond, Cleta Winslow, Debi Starnes, Sherry Dorsey, C.T. Martin, Doug Alexander, Jim Maddox and Derrick Boazman — have made a mockery of their fiduciary responsibility to city taxpayers.

Elected officials have a solemn duty to make the most of public assets, both monetary and material. Hartsfield being such an asset, it would be wrong for city officials to cut rent rates unilaterally even if the handful of beneficiaries weren’t pals of the mayor. The people of Atlanta deserve the best return possible on their property; this sordid maneuver would give the best return to Campbell’s buddies.

Paying off political debts with city funds, as the mayor is doing, is the essence of corruption. He may claim that everything is above board, but honorable public servants don’t take piles of campaign money from supporters, then turn around and give piles of city money back to the same folks.

While most crooked politicians have the decency to act under cover of darkness, Campbell need not be so discrete. He can conduct his sinister business in the broad daylight of a City Council meeting and raise only a stray whimper of protest here and there. This general silence says a lot about Campbell’s constituents and the mainstream local press, none of it flattering.

Would there be a decent public outcry if the city had auctioned off, say, a priceless gem, only to slash the selling price five years later as a favor to the winning bidder, a friend of the mayor? Probably not.

The rent reduction plot also makes a farce of the original 1995 bid process. Other potential tenants considered the same numbers and projections before offering to pay less. Going back and trimming the winning bids now is unfair to those who bid and lost the first time around.

Campbell’s airport lease scheme comes up for a second City Council vote on Aug. 6, but opponents concede it would take something extraordinary to stop the measure. As Councilwoman Felicia Moore told the Journal-Constitution, “It’s obvious that [these are Campbell’s] friends, and it’s obvious they’re being taken care of.”

In recent days, Campbell was accused of taking bribes by former city employee Dewey Clark and strip-club owner Michael Childs. A real model citizen, Childs is under federal indictment for arson.

Campbell denied the bribery charges, urging people to consider the source of the allegations. Given the mayor’s glaring corruption in the lease rebate scam, thoughtful observers would also do well to consider the source of the denial.

Contact Luke Boggs at a href=”mailto:lukeboggs@hotmail.com”>lukeboggs@hotmail.com