Philadelphia Airport Contract Extended
A company that used to employ the mayor's brother will earn an extra $3 million from an airport contract that was set to expire last Friday but that the city has now decided to extend for three months.
Houston-based Philadelphia Airport Services will continue to fix elevators and escalators, as well as perform other maintenance work, at the city-owned airport through Dec. 31, Procurement Commissioner William Gamble said yesterday.
The delay stems from the city's inability to reach a decision on whether that company - which was the high bidder for a new contract to be awarded - will get to keep the deal, worth more than $50 million for the next four years.
That decision, initially expected to come in late August, will be announced later this week, Gamble said. He also left open the possibility that Philadelphia Airport Services and rival Elliott-Lewis Corp. would be asked to submit new bids.
"There are some issues that have not been resolved yet," Gamble said, declining to discuss details, because he said he did not want to compromise the procurement process.
Gamble called the three-month extension "routine," adding: "This contract is sort of high-profile, so it may appear that it is something that is unusual... . It's just that it's getting attention from the media and [City] Council that other contracts don't get."
That includes attention from Mayor Street's contracts czar, George Burrell, who, Gamble confirmed, met with him a few weeks ago. "We just discussed this contract, every aspect of it, the numbers, the minority participation... . It was basically a briefing," he said.
In the summer, Philadelphia Airport Services submitted a bid of $17.2 million - $2.3 million higher than its competitor, Elliott-Lewis, of Northeast Philadelphia. Elliott-Lewis had performed the work for 11 consecutive years, until the current company underbid it in 2001.
At that time, a firm that had partnered with Philadelphia Airport Services hired T. Milton Street, Sr., the mayor's brother, as a lobbyist to help it secure the work.
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