The Madison County Economic Development Authority (MCEDA) recently filed suit against attorney Andy Clark and the firm Scott, Sullivan, Streetman and Fox regarding advice received concerning a 2013 airport study.
The suit alleges that the board was given the go-ahead to hire Warnock and Associates even though an MCEDA board member was also an engineer with the company.
MCEDA filed suit April 11 against Clark, who gave the okay to complete the study while a board member, Calvin Harris, was an employee of Warnock and Associates.
MCEDA’s current attorney maintains that House Bill 1874 prohibits this.
“This case is against those who advised the MCEDA board that it was legally OK to enter into a contract with Warnock engineering for the airport study, when it was not permissible for the board to do that,” MCEDA special counsel Skip Jernigan said. “One of the board members at the time, Calvin Harris, was… an employee of Warnock engineering at the time, and the statute prohibits contracting with any vendor who has an employee that’s a member of the board. It just outright prohibits that.”
Section 17 of House Bill 1874, passed in 1998, states MCEDA “shall not contract with any person who is related to a member of the authority within the third degree or who is the spouse of a member of the authority nor shall the authority contract with a business entity of which a member of the authority is an officer, director, owner, partner or employee, or is a holder of more than six percent of the fair market value, or from which a member of the authority or his relative within the third degree derives more than $1,000 in annual income, or over which a member of the authority or his relative within the third degree exercises control.”
Jernigan cited Scott Sullivan Streetman and Fox law firm as well as attorney Andy Clark as the defendants in the case.
“We made a demand on the former attorneys for MCEDA, who advised about the airport contract regarding the money. We have done that, and we have also received a letter from the state auditor’s office basically saying that the MCEDA board needs to take action to attempt to resolve this matter,” Jernigan said, adding that the state auditor would take legal action against the former attorneys if MCEDA did not.
“What we’re attempting to do is move forward and get some type of resolution,” MCEDA Executive Director Joey Deason said. “The airport study itself was $1.2 million, and the county paid $180,000… MCEDA basically paid $900,000-plus, and that’s what we’re requesting.”
HARRIS HAS BEEN on the MCEDA board for 10 years.
In 2013, MCEDA hired Warnock and Associates to complete the $1.2 million study that would determine potential locations to build a new airport.
The public didn’t learn of the study until 2014, when it was reported by local media.
Former MCEDA Executive Director Tim Coursey previously explained to the Sun why the contract had been awarded in executive session, and why MCEDA decided to give it to Warnock.
“We felt like… we really needed a county engineer who will have more ownership in the study and in seeing that the project is advanced through the other phases of development. In the past (studies), when we just hired the lowest bidder, they came in and did the contract, got the money (and said), ‘We’ll see you later.’ And it didn’t work.”
Prior studies were conducted in 1983 and 2002 but did not result in the construction of a new airport. Coursey called the study conducted by Warnock “extremely detailed.”
“The last thing we wanted to happen was the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) to go, ‘You looked at three or four sites, and we don’t like any of them. Go find more sites.’ ”
