Originally published Sept. 11, 2019
By Jason Garcia and Beth Kassab
Even before Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took office in January, people were seeking an appointment to the board that runs Orlando International Airport. Though the agency isn’t widely known by name, the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority controls a $4 billion construction budget – and seats on the board in charge of that spending are highly coveted.
Applications had begun trickling in when, two weeks after DeSantis was sworn in, four people applied in five days: A hand doctor, a gym owner, a real-estate investor and a medical malpractice defense lawyer. Fifteen people ultimately applied in all, but those were the four DeSantis picked when he announced his GOAA appointments on Feb. 27.
Six months later, after a power struggle that has been waged from the aviation authority’s chambers inside the Orlando airport terminal to the floor of the Florida Senate in Tallahassee, the four DeSantis appointees are on the verge of taking command. With the help of another DeSantis supporter who was already on the seven-member board, they have nearly succeeded in forcing out the agency’s longtime general counsel and are poised to award new business to people they prefer.
At the same time, DeSantis, like other governors before him, is raising tens of thousands of dollars from people who contract with the aviation authority – contracts that the governor’s appointees can now control.
Earlier this year, about two months after he had installed a new majority on the airport board, DeSantis attended a private fundraising dinner at the 10,000-square-foot lakefront home of Winter Park businessman Eric Holm, according to Holm, who owns about 30 Golden Corrals plus a handful of other restaurants and a hotel.
Holm said the dinner was organized in part by one of the Republican governor’s GOAA appointees. The same day of the fundraiser, according to campaign-finance records, the Republican Party of Florida received $90,000 – all from people or companies that have made money from the aviation authority.
The donors included two architectural firms, plus the chief executive of a third, that are all working on Orlando International Airport’s $2.8 billion south terminal; an engineering firm that has been hired for a variety of projects around both Orlando International and Orlando Executive Airport; two law firms that hold legal contracts with the airport authority; a financial consulting firm that does work for the agency; the company that holds OIA’s largest restaurant concessions contracts; and a business owned by the founder of one of the rental-car companies that operates at the airport.
The Governor’s Office did not respond to a request to interview DeSantis nor did it answer questions submitted in writing.
Gloria Pickar, the co-president of the League of Women Voters of Orange County, said the organization is concerned that the governor and his appointees may be using their leverage over Orlando International Airport for their own political benefit.
"The League of Women Voters of Orange County has grave concerns about what appears to be transpiring at the airport,” Pickar said.
Read the rest of the story here.
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