Council Puts Brakes On Taxi Contracts For Airport
Mired in confusion, unanswered questions, and allegations of corruption, the Charlotte City Council on Monday night delayed a vote to award lucrative contracts to three companies to provide taxi service at Charlotte/Douglas International airport.
It was the second time in as many months that a vote has been scuttled because of concerns with the process used to award the contracts, part of a plan to shrink the number of taxi companies serving the airport from 12 to three.
Last month, City Manager Curt Walton pulled the issue from the council’s agenda after media reports brought to light that owners of King/Royal Cab, one of the companies originally being considered for a contract, were convicted felons. The Kashmary brothers had served time in federal prison for buying 40 fake driver’s licenses.
Last Friday, Walton pulled King Cab from consideration and recommended instead that City Cab be awarded one of the three contracts up for grabs. That decision came under fire at Monday night’s council meeting, which drew a full chamber of cab drivers, cab company owners, and their assorted lawyers, most of whom were critical of the request for proposal (RFP) process used to award the contracts.
Critics of the City Cab selection argued that the company has only been in business seven months and doesn’t have a large enough modernized fleet to meet airport contract standards.
“The city council is being asked to award a contract to a taxi company without any taxis,” said Monroe Whitesides, an attorney representing King Cab. “That’s like FedEx having no trucks, or Bojangles having no chicken.”
Whitesides said King Cab had met every requirement to be eligible for an airport contract, and was being unfairly punished because its owners had been convicted of a crime. That’s a double standard, Whitesides said.
“If King Cab’s owners’ criminal history is a problem, then the other owners with criminal histories should also be stricken,” he told council, adding that he had found two other owners of companies with criminal records that hadn’t been eliminated. The case for City Cab, he said, was just as disturbing.
“City Cab lists 35 owners but I couldn’t find criminal records for 14 of those owners, not because they didn’t have records but because the people could not be found in any database in the United States,” Whitesides said. “There are no addresses and no phone numbers for 14 of these supposed owners.”
After nearly two-and-a-half hours of public comment and council debate, the council voted 6-5 to defer a decision until at least June 13 on awarding the airport contracts, while councilmembers get a chance to review the RFP bids and the rationale the airport taxi selection committee used in making its recommendations.
That process, critics contend, was severely flawed and ripe with corruption and pay-to-play manipulations. They allege that two companies were recommended for an airport contract not based on merit, but because the companies were corporate donors to the Greater Charlotte Hospitality and Tourism Alliance (HTA).
Crown Cab and Taxi USA each gave $5,000 to the alliance and each had been selected for an airport contract. One of the four-member airport selection committee was Tim Newman, CEO of the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority and a board member of the HTA.
“The HTA approached at least two cab companies and told them that if you pay to play, that is make a corporate partner donation of $5,000, you won’t have any trouble at the airport,” said Jeff Davis, an attorney for Universal Cab, which was denied one of the three airport contracts up for grabs.
“The two companies referenced did not pay to play and they weren’t awarded contracts,” Davis said. “Two companies who are corporate partner sponsors at the $5,000 level are being proposed for contracts. Is this a mere coincidence? We think not.”
The proposed changes to airport taxi service, said Frank Hinson, operations director for Charlotte Checker Cab, which was not recommended for an airport contract, are designed to “give an unfair business advantage to corporate partners of an uptown booster organization, and nothing more.”
“When a city reverts to nepotism and the pay-to-play mentality, Charlotte is poorly served,” Hinson said. “Is service at the airport a plum for HTA to dole out to their corporate partners?”
Newman and Mohammad Jenatian, president of the HTA, have both adamantly denied any connection between the alliance and the airport taxi contract selection process. And on Monday night, city attorney Mac McCarley told council that the city felt no one on the airport selection committee had any conflicts of interest.
There were enough questions and concerns swirling around the contract-award process, though, to give a majority of council cause to delay and seek more information.
Councilmember Warren Turner said the selection of taxi vendors for the airport had been “a long and hideous process” that left him with more concerns than answers.
Councilmembers Andy Dulin, Michael Barnes, Jason Burgess, Patsy Kinsey and Warren Cooksey voted against a deferral on awarding the contracts.
Cooksey said he wasn’t convinced anything would change with the process if it were extended, and that cab companies not awarded a contract would still be upset with the outcome. He also noted that any company selected could be stripped of its contract if it wasn’t in compliance with standards.
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