"Cleveland Councilman Claims Airport Chief Skirted Contracting Law"

Friday, March 30, 2007

Cleveland Councilman Claims Airport Chief Skirted Contracting Law 
By Susan Vinella 
The Cleveland (OH) Plain Dealer 


Cleveland's airport chief was accused Wednesday of intentionally skirting
City Council to complete work on a new taxi pickup area, a violation of city
law.

The work, which includes a new wrought-iron fence, lights, sliding glass
doors, curbs and road repair, is a significant improvement that requires
council approval, Councilman Kevin Kelley said at a meeting of his Aviation
and Transportation Committee.

Airport Director Ricky Smith disagreed.

"It's routine work that we do every day," he told Kelley, noting that a city
attorney advised him he could proceed without council approval.

But the attorney, Jack Arnold, told the committee that he was unaware of all
the improvements Smith had planned. Arnold said that had he known the scope
of the work, he would have advised Smith to obtain council approval.

"To the extent of what I understand has been done," Arnold said, "I would
have considered it a public improvement."

Smith said he completed the work on a former employee parking lot near the
terminal at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport with money from
maintenance contracts that council already had approved. He said he did not
know how much was spent or who did the work, but he promised to get that
information to Kelley soon.

Kelley told Smith that he must follow Cleveland laws, which say public
improvements of $10,000 or more must come to council.

"You can't be thinking of creative ways to avoid council," Kelley said.

Last month, Smith acknowledged proceeding with $500,000 worth of other
projects without council approval. One project involved $61,000 worth of
improvements to another parking lot at Hopkins.

At the time, he apologized and blamed the lapse on miscommunication between
an attorney and staff member and pressure to get the work done quickly. He
said he set up a review committee to ensure the problem wouldn't happen
again.

But in an interview after Wednesday's meeting, Smith said he didn't think
the $61,000 in improvements to convert a former employee lot into a public
lot required council approval. He said he belatedly sought council approval
only to "err on the side of caution."

"Where I'm from, if you restripe a parking lot and you put up a ticket
spitter, that's not a public improvement," said Smith, who was named head of
Hopkins in June after serving as chief operating officer at
Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

BWI operates as a regional airport, and officials there do not need council
approval to complete parking lot projects.

A spokeswoman said Mayor Frank Jackson had no comment on Kelley's response.

But in a letter to the business community last week, Jackson acknowledged
"some glitches" since Smith came on board. Jackson said he and Smith are
committed to "working in partnership with City Council and being careful to
take all measures to be both responsible and transparent."

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