Okay. Understanding that silence speaks volumes, why wouldn't you let the legislative body involved in the process of contracting, whether that's 87 5/11/05 - Bill 050133 - Commerce concession contracts or professional service contracts? In this environment, would it not seem sensible to have more light and more openness in the process of determining who gets what contracts and how much money they make? I mean, this is -- again, I'll go back, this is the largest economic engine probably the City has. How many thousand employees, 30?
28,000 employees. Why would not the officials, the Commerce Director, yourself or others, want 15 elected members, elected by the public, to 16 have access or input or knowledge of what's 17 going on down there? What's the harm?
I don't think we've said that we don't want the Council to have access.
We're going to delay things, we're not going to allow you to operate in a business manner, we're going to delay stuff, everybody down there is going to get antsy. The airlines are going to get 88 5/11/05 - Bill 050133 - Commerce all nervous and the vendors are going to get nervous and potential concessionaires get nervous. But if in fact there's an investigation of what goes on down there relative to concessionaires and concession contracting, if there is -- you can't answer the question -- why wouldn't you want this open in an open process? To me, it just seems logical you'd want all this open to protect yourself.
I think we do have an open process, and the only thing that I've responded to in the testimony today is, as I understand, the proposed ordinance has to do with Council needing to approve rates and charges for any agreement that exceeds one year. We think that that could cause -- it would be an onerous burden on both us and the Council to actually achieve that goal.
Well, there's other onerous burdens that the public bears and as we go forward with these revelations, the public has been bearing a pretty onerous burden and will continue to 89 5/11/05 - Bill 050133 - Commerce bear an onerous burden unless this kind of activity is open to the public scrutiny beyond just the approval of the Commerce Director or the Mayor, whoever the mayor is. I mean, there's one elected official who certainly has a right to be involved in it. There's an appointed official, which is appointed by one elected official. I don't think that provides the scrutiny and the openness necessary for the public to be at ease that things are all well down there or anywhere else in the government, for that matter.
As far as I know, everything that we do at Philadelphia International Airport is an open process. It's a public process. All of our records are open to the public. We don't have any non-public processes that I'm aware of.
We have some process that includes an RFP and some that do not. We're not sure which is an RFP and which isn't. We have read articles in the paper where people who have been mentioned who have 90 5/11/05 - Bill 050133 - Commerce contracts down there certainly have political connections, and that doesn't make them bad people, but you got to wonder, the average vendor, whether or not you need political connections to be successful there or to even get there in the first place. All these things create kind of a veiled secrecy or privacy that I don't think is deserving of a public entity like the airport. That's my opinion.
Notwithstanding our opposition to the bill as it's written today, we feel that we're doing everything we possibly can to remove that veil and make the process as open as possible.
I had heard a rumor that during the course of the consideration of the professional service contract for the facilities maintenance at the airport that there was a time when we were ready to throw out the bids and start over. Did that situation ever come -- is that an accurate portrayal?
The facilities 91 5/11/05 - Bill 050133 - Commerce maintenance contract is a procurement bid. It's not a professional services contract.
Had you ever recommended or were going to recommend that that bid be thrown out and start over?
Okay. Fine. All right. That's it, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Thank you, Councilman. Mr. Isdell, there have been several informational requests from Councilman Nutter and Councilman DiCicco to be forwarded to the Chair. I prefer it electronically, if possible. Thank you for your time and testimony. Is there anyone else to testify on behalf of this bill? (No response.)
This bill is being held in Committee at the request of the sponsor. This hearing is recessed until the 92 5/11/05 - Bill 050133 - Commerce call of the Chair.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. (Commerce and Economic Development Committee hearing adjourned at 12:00 p.m.) - - - 93 CERTIFICATE I HEREBY CERTIFY that the proceedings, evidence and objections are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me upon the foregoing matter on May 11, 2005, and that this is a true and correct transcript of same. ______________________________ MICHELE L. MURPHY RPR-Notary Public (The foregoing certification of this transcript does not apply to any reproduction of the same by any means, unless under the direct control and/or supervision of the certifying reporter.)