You'd think Richard A. Corbett and the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority would kiss us first. Or at least buy us a drink.
By us, I mean Hillsborough County taxpayers, and I think you know what drinks and kisses are preludes to.
In April, Weekly Planet Staff Writer Francis X. Gilpin reported that Corbett, through a group called Concorde Companies, cut a deal with the Aviation Authority that could cost taxpayers more than $500-million over the next 79 years. That's an estimate by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog group that gave the Federal Aviation Administration a Golden Fleece Award for letting the county Aviation Authority get away with the Corbett deal. They can't tell you the exact cost, and neither can we because Corbett won't turn over documents that could help citizens calculate how much he's making and taxpayers are losing.
The documents concern Corbett's payment for the use of public land adjacent to the airport, where International Plaza now sits, and subleasing arrangements that Corbett (via Concorde Companies) made with another company called Tampa Westshore Associates Ltd., a joint venture he cooked up with a Michigan real estate investment trust.
In a nutshell, with a great deal of help from the Lykes family, Corbett took over a lease on property owned by the Aviation Authority. He borrowed heavily against the lease and defaulted on the loan. He then proceeded to get the term of his lease extended and his rent reduced, after paying for a clearly bogus appraisal that valued the property at far below market rates. That means he was paying the Authority far less than someone without a lot of political pull would have. The losers, measured in tens of millions of dollars, are the taxpayers. After showing the dependability and business acumen of a chipmunk, Corbett got the Authority to extend the deadline for developing the property. Finally, 20 years after acquiring the lease, Corbett managed to put together a deal that resulted in International Plaza. No one knows how much Corbett is charging Tampa Westshore Associates to lease the property for the mall. That information is presumably in a sublease agreement.
Since the land belongs to the public, and a public authority negotiated the original lease, you might reasonably think the lease itself and all the documents relating to the use of the land, including the sublease, would be public record. That's what Gilpin thought when he asked for a document called the Lease Arrangement Agreement (LAA) in December 2000.
What he got in January was a heavily edited portion of the agreement. The Aviation Authority's lawyer said the Authority didn't have a full copy of the LAA.
Hmmmm. A public agency signs over public land worth millions to a private developer with a bad business record and they don't even keep a copy of the agreement? Would you trust these people with your money? No? Too bad, you don't have a choice.
Gilpin also requested a copy of the LAA from Concorde Companies, the group that signed and presumably has custody of the LAA, and Tampa Westshore Associates, the group that signed a subleasing agreement with Concorde. They didn't even bother to respond.
In April, the Planet filed suit against the Aviation Authority, Concorde Companies and Tampa Westshore Associates, asking the court to require the three to let us inspect the LAA and related documents. Instead of siding with the public's right to know, the Aviation Authority sided with Concorde and Tampa Westshore Associates and fought against the suit, moving to dismiss it not once, but twice.
Before those motions, we might have considered the Authority's lack of oversight of the lease just incompetence or maybe negligence, even though the Authority's pattern of indulging Corbett at a considerable loss to its own coffers indicates someone had something to gain. Now it appears the Authority is actively seeking to conceal the terms of the agreements. The question is, what are they hiding? Who exactly is benefiting, how much are they getting and how much is it costing taxpayers?
We may never know. The suit was dismissed in July by Judge Sam Pendino, who said, "not every document affecting public property is public record."
In December, the Planet filed a brief to appeal Pendino's decision. In the brief, Planet attorney David Snyder argues that Pendino is right in the letter the law, but he is out of step with precedents set by Florida courts regarding disclosure of public records, and he ignored specific law governing the Aviation Authority. The Supreme Court of Florida and Courts of Appeal have consistently ruled in favor of granting public access to documents relating to a public agency's official business. And make no mistake: Part of the Aviation Authority's official business is, by law, acquiring, selling or leasing property. The legislation that created the Aviation Authority clearly states, "such lands and … privileges acquired and used by such Authority … shall and are hereby declared to be acquired and used for public and governmental purposes …"
Why should you care about all this? People in charge of public agencies do not always have the public good in mind when they make decisions and take actions. Sometimes the main reason they act responsibly is because they know the public might find out if they don't. That's the reason we have sunshine and public records laws, to make public officials accountable to the public. But those laws are useless if judges interpret them so narrowly that they consistently create large loopholes.
The Aviation Authority is not the first public agency to try to get around the public records law by delegating some operations to a private entity. But courts have ruled that public access follows public function, even when it is performed by a private agency.
Public agencies, including law enforcement, social service and even child protection agencies, are increasingly delegating certain functions to private companies. If Pendino is able to set a new precedent by ruling against full disclosure, other judges will follow his lead. The result will be less accountability and more deals that benefit dealmakers at public expense. Taxpayers will pay the tab, and people whose lives are affected will be out of luck.
It's not just taxpayer money at stake here. Picture this: A private agency contracts with the State of Florida Department of Children and Families to administer a number of foster homes in a particular county. If that agency is not subject to public records law, there will be no way to make sure money goes to caring for children rather than to inflated salaries for administrators; there will be no way to determine the level of care children are receiving; and there will be no way to make sure that people hired to provide direct care to children have undergone proper background checks and training or whether there are even enough people on duty to provide adequate care. As bad as the system is now, it could get worse.
The battle for access to the Lease Arrangement Agreement is clearly a David and Goliath fight. Weekly Planet is a small corporation without a battery of attorneys on retainer and a legion of rich and influential patrons.
In choosing to ignore the Public Records Act and its responsibility to the public and the legislation that created it, the Authority took a gamble that we wouldn't pursue the issue in the courts. They were wrong. We're loading up the slingshot and taking aim.
If we win, it will be a victory for the public's right to keep tabs on the way public officials discharge their duties. If we lose — pucker up — but don't hold your breath, waiting for that kiss.
Editor Susan Edwards can be reached at 813-248-8888 ext. 122 or ed@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Jan 3-9, 2002.