Milton Street lands contract
It's worth $1.2 million a year for maintenance at the airport. He won't be financially liable.
By Nathan Gorenstein
Inquirer Staff Writer
Mayor Street's brother, T. Milton Street Sr., has been given a contract worth more than $1 million a year for equipment maintenance at Philadelphia International Airport.
He also has been given a trained staff to perform the work. And he won't be held financially responsible for the work or how it gets done day by day.
That was the agreement reached between the city managers of the airport and a private firm, Philadelphia Airport Services, that hired Milton Street and that will set the former street vendor up in business.
The work contracted to Street was formerly done by Philadelphia Airport Services. Fourteen of its employees - mechanics and supervisors who do the work - will be transferred to Street's company, Notlim Service Management Co. "Notlim" is "Milton" spelled backward.
Notlim will handle repairs to and maintenance of baggage conveyor systems, passenger-loading bridges that connect terminals to planes, and buses used to move people around the airport. Officials could not say yesterday whether Notlim was responsible for all, or just a portion, of those systems.
Mark Pesce, a spokesman for the city airport, said Philadelphia Airport Services subcontracted the work to Notlim in part to expand minority participation in airport businesses.
According to an April 17, 2003, memo supplied to The Inquirer and confirmed in an interview with the airport's spokesman, "administration and liability" and "financial responsibility" for the mechanical maintenance work will be retained by Philadelphia Airport Services.
Philadelphia Airport Services hired Milton Street as a consultant in 2001, when the firm successfully bid for a $13.6 million-a-year overall airport maintenance contract.
More recently, he was named chief executive officer of Philadelphia Airport Services, according to Barbara Grant, a spokeswoman for Mayor Street.
Grant could not say how long Milton Street had been CEO of the firm, which is a division of Enron Building Services, based in Pittsburgh, according to state records.
Milton Street will step down as CEO to take over the maintenance work, she said. He could not be reached for comment. No one at Philadelphia Airport Services returned repeated calls seeking comment.
Grant said Mayor Street had no role in the decision involving his brother.
Pesce said Philadelphia Airport Services asked airport managers this year for permission to subcontract its equipment maintenance work to Notlim, in part to expand minority participation.
"You have to meet certain goals, and this would help us in meeting those goals," Pesce said. The company's contract with the city requires it to try to give about 25 percent of its work to firms owned by minorities, women or the disabled.
The city has certified Notlim as a disadvantaged, minority-owned company. Milton Street - employed as a street vendor over parts of the last few decades - is the president.
Airport officials approved Philadelphia Airport Service's request to transfer the work in the April 17 memo, and the transition is now taking place, Pesce said.
Asked whether Notlim had any experience maintaining airport equipment, Pesce said, "Not to my knowledge. The experience is with the workforce.
"[Philadelphia Airport Services] will retain full management responsibility," Pesce said. "The employees will remain under direct supervision of [Philadelphia Airport Services, which] will provide day-to-day supervision."
Later, Pesce called back to say he had been informed that the specific conditions required by the airport in the April 17 memo were standard practice for Philadelphia Airport Services. He declined to say which company or airport official informed him of that.
Pesce could not immediately say how many of the 14 workers being transferred to Notlim were black, Hispanic or Asian.
Asked how hiring Notlim could be considered a real expansion of minority business, given the extensive responsibilities remaining with Philadelphia Airport Services, Pesce said, "Notlim is the actual company that employs these individuals to provide the services, and it is a minority-approved company. They have all the qualifications that are necessary from the city."
Grant also defended the award to Street under the minority business program.
"There are many instances right now where you don't have minority firms that are even at the starting point in many industries," she said. "The purpose of [the city's Minority Business Enterprise Council] is to try and promote minority participation."
The previous contract holder, Elliott-Lewis Corp., did the maintenance work for 11 years and disputed the award to Philadelphia Airport Services. It filed an unsuccessful lawsuit to overturn the contract.
In a submission prepared for the Minority Business Enterprise Council, Milton Street included documents that indicated his firm would be paid at least $1.2 million a year.
Various telephone directories have no Philadelphia listing for Notlim, and a call to the contact number that Notlim provided to the city was answered by a recording of a woman who gave an unintelligible first name and told callers to leave a message.
