Residents got a rare glimpse on how multi-million dollar contracts are privately lobbied and publicly awarded by Orange County Supervisors last week – one that significantly underbid the competition, including the contractor for the past seven years.
Some supervisors openly questioned the tactics used by lobbyists to help ACE Parking land a $60 million contract managing parking and shuttles at John Wayne Airport for the next five years.
ACE, a parking management company that manages airports like Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport, also said they can expand services offered at John Wayne, like parking reservations and EV charging stations for buses over the course of the contract.
LAZ, the contractor for the past seven years that manages parking for over 30 airports throughout the country according to their website, bid their five-year contract at a maximum of $91 million.
But what wasn’t publicly discussed was the months of debate behind closed doors over how the county decided to hire its next parking vendor amidst questions about which companies could deliver on their contracts.
Supervisors Raise Public Concerns Over Private Lobbying
At the April 23 meeting, Supervisor Don Wagner said ACE’s approach was “aggressive and threatening,” adding he felt he was being shoved into a contract with a lot of outstanding questions.
“I want to register the disappointment in this and the underlying ways ACE has worked this board to get this contract,” Wagner said. “It’s been offensive.”
“The attitude I got was not ‘Supervisor Wagner, we want to answer your questions,’” he continued. “It was ‘Supervisor Wagner, we think we have enough votes.’”
Wagner ultimately voted in favor of hiring ACE and declined to comment when asked by Voice of OC what his specific complaints with the lobbyists were.
The only supervisor not to vote in favor of hiring ACE was Doug Chaffee, who abstained. Chaffee did not respond to requests for comment.
But Wagner’s comments on the contractor saw other supervisors open up about how much they spoke with lobbyists for ACE and for LAZ Parking, the company that currently holds the parking contract, as they were making their decision where to send millions of taxpayer dollars.
“I’m not sure what the (Wagner’s) referring to, it wasn’t my experience,” said Supervisor Katrina Foley. “It was aggressive from both of them.”
Todd Priest, one of the most prominent lobbyists in Orange County, represented ACE Parking while LAZ Parking hired multiple lobbyists to represent them – including Craig and Jeanne Reinhardt before later hiring Roger Faubel and George Urch, according to the county’s lobbyist registry.
Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento said he felt the amount of lobbying on the issue was “proportional to the size of the contract,” noting he worked with both staff and those lobbyists to get his questions answered throughout the negotiation process.
“There wasn’t anything to me that was sort of irregular,” Sarmiento said in a Tuesday phone interview. “These were just vendors that had their representatives speak on their behalf as well as the principals who made themselves available, and staff, who were very helpful with our office.”
Airport Staff Favor ACE
While supervisors publicly raised some of their concerns over how the contracting process was handled, there were disagreements that played out for weeks before the five-year, $60 million contract ever made its way to a public vote.
ACE underbid its competitors, saying it could run the airport’s services and expand operations by adding things like charging for EV buses and a parking reservation system for a maximum cost of just over $10 million a year.
LAZ Parking, the current operator, said it would need $16.4 million a year to guarantee no cost overruns based on its experience running the airport for the past seven years.
In their bid, LAZ cited concerns that escalating staffing costs and maintenance would demand more money over time, highlighting that the parking and shuttle service pieces of the contract alone would eat up nearly $12 million in the first year.
LAZ Parking also came out to the supervisor’s meeting last Tuesday to question if ACE could guarantee no cost increases.
“We proposed a budget sufficient to meet the service levels expected by the county,” said Rick Ingram, the company’s vice president of Airport Services at the meeting. “We hope the board recognizes the responsible approach LAZ has taken.”
Ingram declined to comment for this article.
Leading up to the public vote by OC Supervisors, county airport staff elected to move forward with ACE Parking, increasing their bid from $10 million a year to $12 million a year amidst private questions from other vendors over how realistic ACE’s original bid was.
In a statement to Voice of OC, Anna-Sophia Servin, the airport’s spokesperson, said those extra funds were to “add enhancements” to the contract for the “passenger experience.”
Servin declined to answer questions about the lobbying that took place around the contract, adding she was “responsive and forthcoming with data” for the supervisors.
But those adjustments and a host of other questions and concerns from LAZ Parking set off a behind the scenes debate that most county supervisors did not want to speak about.
Supervisors Andrew Do and Doug Chaffee did not respond to requests for comment around the lobbying on the contract, while Wagner declined to talk about it at all.
Supervisors and county staff repeatedly met with lobbyists from both ACE and LAZ Parking, according to county staff and others who had knowledge of the conversation.
Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley said her staff repeatedly spoke with lobbyists while she was out on medical leave and that she also had a one-on-one meeting with airport director Charlene Reynolds to get answers on the questions around the contract.
“My staff continued to have meetings with whoever wanted to meet,” Foley said. “I feel I vetted that issue.”
Supervisor Andrew Do said he put “more work into this item than the rest of the items combined,” and noted that “a lot of questions were asked,” at the county board’s meeting.
Supervisors also repeatedly raised concerns about the costs, warning ACE there would not be any more compensation if they failed to manage the contract appropriately.
Servin noted that if ACE failed to properly execute the contract, the airport would look at switching to the second highest scoring proposal, from a company called SP+.
“We wanted to be sure you can deliver,” Sarmiento said at the April 23 meeting. “We’re showing tremendous faith in your ability to be honest and thoughtful in the way you present it to us.”
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @NBiesiada.