Two Firms Vie for Philadelphia Airport Deal
It is one of the airport's most lucrative and controversial contracts - and it's about to make news again.
A Houston-based firm that four years ago won a $50 million airport deal with help from the mayor's brother is expected to learn this week whether it will lose that work to the local company that had held the contract for the previous 11 years.
The incumbent firm, Philadelphia Airport Services, has submitted a bid of $17.2 million - $2.3 million higher than its only competitor, Elliott-Lewis Corp. of Northeast Philadelphia, according to officials from both companies. The current contract expires Sept. 30.
"We've already made our decision, but it's not final until we get all the paperwork in," city Procurement Commissioner William Gamble said yesterday, referring to administrative tasks remaining.
Though the city is required to accept the lowest, most responsive bid, both companies, in an unusual step, have sought outside help in winning the giant maintenance contract. The work includes everything from repairing elevators at Philadelphia International Airport to cutting the grass to putting up netting to protect birds.
"Everything being equal and kosher, they [Elliott-Lewis] should be awarded the contract," said former city Procurement Commissioner Louis Applebaum, a consultant hired by Elliott-Lewis to review its proposal. But he said company executives were "somewhat concerned that maybe they would not be treated fairly, and that's when they sought me out."
In 2001, Elliott-Lewis unsuccessfully sued the city to stop it from awarding the same maintenance contract to Philadelphia Airport Services. At the time, Elliott-Lewis had held the contract for 11 years. Its bid then, however, was $2 million more than the one submitted by Philadelphia Airport Services - the reverse of the situation today.
"What goes around, comes around," Applebaum said.
While Elliott-Lewis had until then supported Mayor Street - it donated more than $50,000 to his first mayoral campaign - it hasn't given the mayor a dime since.
Meanwhile, Philadelphia Airport Services two weeks ago turned to media consultant Larry Ceisler, of Ceisler Jubelirer.
"This contract has been so controversial over the years and has received so much public attention," Ceisler said, "that the company felt it was better if they had a local presence to deal with the media on the issues."
The contract has been the focus of an FBI investigation, with authorities examining the bid process that led to the Philadelphia Airport Services contract in 2001.
At the time, Philadelphia Airport Services was partnered with a local firm, which employed T. Milton Street, the mayor's brother. Milton Street also was among those who lobbied city officials on Philadelphia Airport Services' behalf.
In the spring of 2003, Philadelphia Airport Services sought to give Notlim Management Services Inc., a company run by Milton Street, a $1.2 million subcontract to manage the airport's baggage conveyer system. Word of the deal triggered public outcry. Though airport officials had approved the deal, Mayor Street killed it.
Last winter, court records revealed that Philadelphia Airport Services had paid Milton Street $30,000 a month in consulting fees since it had won the contract.
In June, Philadelphia Airport Services officials told The Inquirer that Milton Street no longer had any relationship with the company.
Now composed of two joint venture partners, Philadelphia Airport Services includes a subsidiary of a Houston-based company, Linc Facility Services, and a local company, U.S. Facilities. The latter is partly owned by former City Controller Thomas A. Leonard, a major Democratic fund-raiser, and businessman Willie Johnson, one of the mayor's longtime financial backers.
U.S. Facilities and its parent company donated $30,000 to Street's 2003 reelection campaign, records show.
U.S. Facilities is also certified by the city as a minority firm, helping Philadelphia Airport Services to meet minority participation goals, Ceisler said.
Jim Gentile of Elliott-Lewis said his company - which until March was owned by FirstEnergy Corp. of Ohio, one of the nation's largest publicly owned utilities - has no minority partner.
Noting minority subcontractors the company planned to hire, he said, "Our company has exceeded all minority participation goals established within the bid."
Those goals call for participation levels of 25 percent.