Hahn Donor Gets Nod in Bid for LAX Design Deal
By AMANDA BRONSTAD
Staff Reporter
The staff of Los Angeles World Airports has recommended granting a multi-million dollar consulting contract to a major financial supporter of Mayor James Hahn, whose administration faces ongoing inquiries about “pay-to-play” contracting arrangements.
The design contract, part of Hahn’s $9 billion LAX modernization plan, has an estimated value of $1 million to $2 million per month and would run for an undetermined period. The Board of Airport Commissioners must approve it.
Officials at the airport and DMJM, the L.A.-based architecture, design and engineering firm recommended for the contract, strongly denied there was any connection between the recommendation and political contributions the firm has made to Hahn.
“LAWA staff determined we were best qualified to perform the advanced planning services,” said Alexandra Spencer, a spokeswoman for DMJM and its parent company, AECOM Technology Corp. She said the firm was notified of LAWA’s recommendation on March 10.
LAWA spokeswoman Nancy Castles would not confirm the contract recommendation other than issuing a general statement saying: “While the Board has not yet reviewed or approved this item, in general, city regulations require a thoughtful evaluation of proposals based on the merits of the proposals.”
LAWA’s interim executive director, Kim Day, started her career as an architect at DMJM, where she became a vice president. At DMJM, she was responsible for airport and transportation projects in Ontario, the San Francisco International Airport Master Plan and Universal CityWalk II.
She joined LAWA as deputy executive director responsible for facility and space planning, design, engineering and construction and maintenance in late 1999 from architectural firm Gensler and was named interim executive director in August 2003 after the resignation of Lydia Kennard.
Castles declined comment on Day’s background.
Questions raised
In choosing DMJM, airport staff passed on proposals from URS Corp. and Parsons Brinkerhoff Inc., sources said.
In November, the Business Journal reported that URS and another unnamed city contractor told a senior city official that Airport Commission President Ted Stein asked them to contribute to LA United, the group set up by Hahn to fight San Fernando Valley secession. Stein has denied the allegations.
Officials of URS, which has another $22.4 million consulting contract on the LAX Master Plan, have declined to comment about the conversation with Stein or the recommendation of DMJM.
The URS contract with LAWA, signed in April 2001, was amended in May 2003, with many of the original tasks either postponed or canceled. On Nov. 9, 2003, LAWA issued a request for proposals for a new consulting firm to develop additional design work, including “the programming and planning of individual components of the LAX Master Plan.”
The original URS contract included consulting services for “program management services” for Phase III of the LAX Master Plan and environmental impact report.
In November, Jim Ritchie, deputy executive director of LAWA, who manages the URS contract, said changes to contracts are common in complex projects like the LAX Master Plan.
DMJM has been an active financial supporter of Hahn in the past, and has contributed to his nascent 2005 re-election campaign.
Since 2000, DMJM, its affiliated companies and employees gave $50,000 to LA United and $8,825 to Hahn’s 2001 election campaign, according to the City Ethics Commission. AECOM gave $1,000 last year to Hahn’s re-election effort, which has already amassed a $1.3 million war chest.
HNTB Ltd., DMJM’s proposed subcontractor for the pending design contract, and its employees gave another $100,000 to LA United and about $31,000 to Hahn’s 2001 campaign. HNTB and its employees have together given $4,100 to the mayor’s re-election campaign, according to Ethics Commission data.
The firms are not the only bidders to make contributions.
Parsons and its employees contributed a combined $31,350 to Hahn’s 2001 campaign and LA United. URS and its employees gave $5,300 to the 2001 mayoral campaign, but nothing to LA United.
URS, a publicly held, San Francisco-based facilities design, planning and construction management firm, is one of the primary contractors to the LAX Master Plan. On its Web site, the company states that, “any gift that could create an obligation to the donor or recipient should not be offered, provided or accepted. These principles apply to our transactions everywhere in the world, even where the practice is widely considered ‘a way of doing business.'”
A spokesman for New York-based Parsons declined comment on the LAWA staff recommendation.
Spencer, the DMJM spokeswoman, defended the company’s qualifications and its contributions.
“DMJM and its sister companies within the AECOM group are ranked No. 1 in aviation in the magazine we call the Bible of our industry, Engineering News Record,” she said. “We’re currently working on major airports throughout the U.S. We did support the anti-secession movement, and the reason was we believed it was in the community’s best interest to keep the city intact. We’re businesspeople here, we’re employers here, and we have a vested interest in L.A.’s economic and social well-being.”
Mary Anne Murray Simons, director of communications at Kansas City, Mo.-based HNTB, said her firm was also notified recently by LAWA that it was “determined to have the best qualified team.”
“HNTB has been in business for 90 years providing architectural and engineering planning services across the country, and we’ve been working on major airports for 50 years,” she said.
As to political contributions, she said, “We have employees who live and work in the city of L.A. and have a vested interest in their economic and social well-being.”
Intense scrutiny
But such activities are at the crux of the increasing scrutiny from a number of agencies.
Late last year, City Controller Laura Chick released an audit criticizing LAWA’s contracting procedures, which, in her words, have created an “environment ripe for abuse.”
She stopped short of alleging wrongdoing, but turned the findings over to the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office and other government entities.
The airport audit found that among the contracts that did not have adequate supporting documentation were a $4.9 million consulting services contract to HNTB, a $700,000 design services contract to DMJM for the airport’s Flyaway Bus Terminal at Van Nuys Airport and a $354,000 construction contract to Parsons.
LAWA has criticized the audit’s findings.
Chick declined comment on the latest LAWA staff recommendation.
On March 3, L.A. District Attorney Steve Cooley said for the first time publicly that his office was in the early stages of a grand jury investigation into the city’s awarding of contracts.
The District Attorney has subpoenaed Deputy Mayor Troy Edwards, airport lobbyist Clark Davis and LAWA’s former deputy executive director of economic development, Richard Janisse as part of that investigation.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in L.A. has also issued subpoenas to the heads of all three proprietary departments, the airport, harbor and water and power.
Meanwhile, Hahn, who has defended Edwards and Stein, earlier this month signed an ordinance banning city commissioners from fundraising on behalf of elected city officials. He has also announced a five-point plan of additional measures he said would ensure ethical contracting procedures.
Those measures met with mixed reactions at the City Ethics Commission, which first heard Hahn’s proposal at its March 9 meeting.
LAWA spokeswoman Castle was asked about the DMJM recommendation in light of ongoing concerns of an environment of “pay-to-play,” in which contributions are linked to government contracts. She said: “I was told the mayor’s office is responding to any appearances of impropriety.”
Hahn spokeswoman Shannon Murphy said the mayor had not seen the airport staff’s recommendation and therefore could not comment.
CORRECTION:
The total campaign contributions of
Parsons Brinckerhoff and its employees should have been $8,000. The company did not contribute to LA United.
