Airport Authority: No-Bid Contract Draws Media Attention
Posted by: SB Veritas | 04/28/2008 12:45 PM
The San Bernardino International Airport Authority award of a no-bid contract has led to the publication of an extensive article in the Press-Enterprise this morning. While the story discusses some positive outcomes, the cast of charcaters is like a trip down memory lane for those individuals that remember the San Bernardino County corruption scandals of the late 1990's.
This depiction of events places the entire operation under the microscope of not only local officials, but federal as well.
The political and economic cost for any negative result will be great.
Here is a reprint of the whole story can be viewed here.
This depiction of events places the entire operation under the microscope of not only local officials, but federal as well.
The political and economic cost for any negative result will be great.
Putting Troubles Behind Them
San Bernardino airport officials give no-bid contract for renovation to aviation insider with checkered past
08:55 PM PDT on Sunday, April 27, 2008
By JOSH BROWN
The Press-Enterprise
He spent four years in prison for bankruptcy fraud, oversaw a string of failed aviation ventures, and could be banned from the aviation industry altogether.
Yet, San Bernardino International Airport officials put Scot Spencer in charge of one of the largest redevelopment projects there in years -- a $38 million terminal renovation on schedule for completion this summer. No one else was considered.
The complicated deal has Spencer's company leasing the building while overseeing the project. The airport, in return, will pay him hundreds of thousands of dollars in developer fees.
Scot Spencer walks through the terminal building at San Bernardino International Airport last August. Airport officials hired Spencer to oversee the $38 million terminal renovation after he lured a number of aviation companies to the hangar complex.
"Scot really understands the industry in a way the rest of us don't," said San Bernardino County Supervisor Dennis Hansberger, an airport authority board member.
The airport has been struggling for more than a decade to revitalize itself and bring back the 10,000 jobs that vanished when Norton Air Force Base closed. Officials have tried unsuccessfully for several years to launch passenger service.
They said Spencer represented the fastest way to complete the terminal renovation, a key component in their bid to attract a passenger airline.
Meanwhile, a looming decision by the U.S. Department of Transportation could limit the scope of Spencer's actions at the airport. The department must decide how much involvement he can have in the aviation industry after an administrative law judge in 2005 ordered him banned for operating unlicensed charter flights at the San Bernardino airport.
Spencer said he wasn't able to present his side of story to the judge, and he plans to fight the decision in hopes of purging it from his record.
Here is a reprint of the whole story can be viewed here.
CATEGORY:
Local SB Issues
Has Hansberger forgotten that the former Co Dir of Aiports is on the IVDA staff? So does Spencer really know more? AND since when does a bankrupcy fraud charge and a $38 Million contract go hand in hand. Sounds like another Hansberger way of doing business (and I would like to know just who championed Spencer's contract with the IVDA Board...was it Hansberger?). Spencer has been a questinable businessman at the IVDA for a while...get you head out of the sand people!
PE.com | Inland Southern California | Column - Cassie MacDuff
www.pe.com/columns/cassiemacdu - [Cached]
Published on: 8/27/2005 Last Visited: 8/28/2005
Airport officials know they're taking a calculated risk that Scott Spencer will default again. But they say there are no other takers despite more than a decade of marketing.
Spencer's track record for failed aviation ventures started long before he came to San Bernardino. As a teenager he founded an airline in Texas that quickly failed. Next, he headed a St. Louis carrier but was ousted when he couldn't deliver on his promise to bring money into the struggling company. It soon went bankrupt.
In 1980, he assembled a group of investors to buy Braniff Airlines, which filed for bankruptcy the following year. When Braniff tried to restart in 1990, the U.S. Department of Transportation warned against employing Spencer, calling him "unqualified." But in 1991, Spencer was Braniff's president and the company went under for good.
Federal prosecutors charged Spencer with bankruptcy fraud and he did four years in prison.
When he got out in 2002, he founded Ascend Aviation at the San Bernardino airport. But Ascend didn't have federal clearance to operate as an airline and quickly got in trouble: It couldn't pay its fuel bills and owed a local vendor, Blue's Aviation, $500,000. It is being sued for $291,000 over canceled charter flights, and a subcontractor won a $3.8 million judgment against it last fall.
The government moved to ban Spencer permanently from the aviation industry. Last week a judge imposed the ban. Spencer has 30 days to appeal.
But San Bernardino airport officials still gave Spencer a new lease, rationalizing that cancellation clauses will void it if the ban becomes permanent.
Spencer sold off airplanes to repay $193,000 he owed the airport on the earlier leases. But if he turns things around at San Bernardino International, it will probably surprise even those who took a chance on him.
Fortunately for Norco officials, they won't be faced with a similarly desperate choice.
Great! More corruption in SB County. Brilliant leadership. Let's turn over the economic future of Redlands to the Department of Corrections!