=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SF Gate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=3D/chronicle/archive/2002/05= /15/BA219418.DTL ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday, May 15, 2002 (SF Chronicle) SFO allows consultants lavish perks/Lavish perks for SFO runway consultants Rachel Gordon, Chronicle Staff Writer San Francisco -- Consultants hired by San Francisco International Airport to work on the proposed runway expansion project traveled first class and business class, ate at nice restaurants and spent the night at a luxury hotel -- all on the public's dime. City expense reports provided to The Chronicle Tuesday show a behind-the- scenes peek at some of the costs associated with the San Francisco airport's ambitious and politically charged plan to expand runways into the bay -- a project that backers say will reduce the delays for which the airport is notorious. Karen Skelton, a former aide in the Clinton administration, was brought = on as a private consultant to co-manage the Airfield Development Bureau -- the agency overseeing the runway project. Skelton has billed the airport nearly $500,000, at $275 an hour, since coming aboard in the summer of 2000. Some of the money went for work-related expenses that included a round-trip, first-class ticket between San Francisco and Washington, D.C., last spri= ng for meetings with federal aviation officials, members of Congress and their staffs. The airline ticket cost $3,948. Tack on another $550 for a one-night stay at the St. Regis Hotel in the nation's capital, city records show. Skelton had working lunches and dinners at such restaurants as Frank Fat= 's in Sacramento and in San Francisco at Jardiniere, the Hayes Street Grill and Garibaldi's on Presidio. A working dinner in February 2001 at Qi, a now-closed, high-end restaurant at SFO, cost $876. Documents show that Skelton, a partner of the Dewey Square Group, a Washington lobbying and consulting firm, also flew coach, stayed in budget hotels and ate at less-expensive restaurants on other occasions. Attempts to reach Skelton for comment on the expenses she billed to the airport were unsuccessful. Kandace Bender, a spokeswoman for the airport project, said that when she traveled to Washington with Skelton one time they flew economy class. Bender said she stayed at the Days Inn hotel for $75 a night and Skelton stayed with friends at no cost to the city. Another consultant, George Eads, flew between San Francisco and Washington, D.C., twice last year on business class at $2,134 a pop, according to receipts and invoices filed with the airport. Airport Director John Martin, who said he personally signs off on travel expenses, said Tuesday that he was unaware that people working on the project were flying first class and business class. He said city policy is to "obtain the lowest possible airfares." The issue of the expenses came up at a City Hall hearing Tuesday on the airport's budget. Supervisor Aaron Peskin interrogated Skelton and airport officials on the consultants' costs. "We're buying a gold-plated Cadillac when a Ford Taurus might do," Peskin said. He is pushing for an independent audit of the airport, once a cash cow f= or the city that hit financial turbulence with the dot-com bust and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The double-whammy pushed SFO from the fifth-busiest airport in the nation to the 10th. Martin said airport travel is slowly picking up and should be back to normal in two more years. Since April 1999, the airport has spent more than $70 million on the runway expansion project. The money was used for environmental and planning studies and related expenses, legal counsel, public affairs and government relations work, and administrative overhead. With most of the studies completed or nearly done, airport officials recommend cutting the Airfield Development Bureau's budget 71 percent in the coming fiscal year, to $11.2 million. Skelton said the goal is to complete the environmental impact report by year's end. At this stage, business and labor groups support the project. Environmentalists are trying to sink it. E-mail Rachel Gordon at rgordon@sfchronicle.com.=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2002 SF Chronicle