POLITICS AND MONEY Lobbying is needed more in Miami than in New York While he said the firm's use of funds in Miami-Dade was proper, he acknowledges that politics helped drive up the bill. Read said he has not hired a single lobbyist in New York, where he is overseeing construction of a light rail system. "There's less political involvement at this project in New York than there was in Miami, " he said. "Miami is generally twice as high as my budget up here." With the same lobbyists working for the firm, the mayor and their own causes, DAC's current manager, Massman, said he sometimes has trouble distinguishing who is making requests for its money. "That's hard to sort out sometimes, " he said. "Sometimes I have to check: Is this request real?" But the records portray more than a company passively complying with requests from politicos and lobbyists. DAC emerges as aggressive in its own right, willing to spend freely to keep critics and competitors at bay. From the start, the contract to become the airport's main consultant - "the mother of all contracts, " in the words of one commissioner - had more than 130 lobbyists pitching for their clients. In 1992, the commission voted to award it to DAC, a partnership of eight major firms, including Bechtel Corp., Spillis Candela & Partners and Day & Zimmermann. The initial contract was for 10 years, with options to renew for up to 20. So far, the company has earned $125 million. This year, DAC's future falls on the desk of Aviation Director Angela Gittens. She says she is happy with the firm's work, but is reviewing the contract details with the help of the county auditor.

LOBBYISTS SIGN ON Payments to trio grow to about $16,000 a month After winning the deal, DAC struck a contract with lobbyists Barreto, Korge and Feinberg. Their role: to keep DAC abreast of political twists, provide rumor control, and help fend off competitors. Payments to the three lobbyists have grown to about $16,000 a month. And DAC is just one of their many clients. Last year, for example, Barreto represented 30 county clients, from local towing companies to AT&T and Verizon. The lobbyists refused to comment. Their invoices give no clue to what they've done for the $1.3 million. The three have not detailed any aspect of their behind-the-scenes services. But memos show one thing: The lobbyists routinely tapped the firm for their own pet causes, from United Way fundraisers to political committees. "The pattern I see is that DAC is a vehicle to channel money to certain lobbyists, who happen to be the biggest fundraisers for the mayor, " said state Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla, who chairs the Senate committee that oversees airports. His brother Miguel ran against Penelas for mayor. The requests to support the Democratic National Committee came from Penelas via Korge, one of the party's biggest fundraisers. An e-mail to DAC's partners notes: "The Mayor's office and Chris Korge have requested that the Joint Venture make a contribution to the subject matter in the amount of $50K." That's $50,000. When Barreto chaired the host committee for the 1995 U.S. Conference of Mayors, he asked DAC for $25,000. The firm could give only $15,000, noting in a memo, "We should be able to tell him simply this is what we have available." The lobbyists flexed their power that year, when a coalition of local architects and engineers complained that DAC was excluding them from a bigger share of the $5 billion airport expansion. At the time, another engineering firm was maneuvering to pick up the contract if DAC got ousted, sources said. But ultimately, DAC's lobbyists helped keep its lucrative work. And two years later, the company hired Lannes, one of the leaders of the coalition that challenged DAC. He has since died. The next big threat emerged in 1998, when whispers surfaced again throughout the tight aviation community that Parsons Aviation, part of an engineering firm with contracts at 30 airports worldwide, was eyeing a challenge to DAC's empire. At the time, DAC was under fire in Herald articles and a county audit for its high fees. DAC acted quickly. By 1999, it added four lobbyists: * Michael Benages, a veteran lobbyist and former campaign strategist for Commissioner Jimmy Morales, who had just launched meetings to look at DAC's profits. Price tag: $3,000 a month. Benages declined to comment. * Dewey Knight III and William Perry, close allies of Penelas and partners in airport retail contracts. Price tag: $2,000 a month. They declined to discuss their lobbying activities for DAC. * Armando Muñoz, a Penelas friend and fundraiser, who joined the team in November 1999. Penelas has appointed him to the county Sister Cities committee, and Muñoz and his wife traveled with the mayor on missions to Spain in 2000 and Uruguay last year. Price tag: $3,000 a month. "I am a marketing expert, " Muñoz said. "I do studies." He is not registered as a lobbyist, nor is he well known around County Hall. He has submitted no studies or memos to the firm in writing. "I submit to them my presence when it's required, " he said. The company would not comment on why it hired each lobbyist, with one exception: It says it got Benages, in part, to lobby The Herald's editorial board. With this dream team intact, DAC weathered the critical articles and the county audit, which had concluded that the company's contract was costing the county too much and should be renegotiated.

DEFENDER OF COMPANY Former construction chief 'championed their cause' Richard Mendez, the airport's construction chief who accepted gifts from DAC while overseeing its spending, helped defend the consulting firm. "He championed their cause by helping them develop a response to the auditor's findings, " said former Aviation Director Gary Dellapa. "He believed the [profit] was not portrayed accurately." When the issue came to debate in Morales' committee meeting, Dellapa said he defended the company and its revenues based on Mendez's advice. With airport staff saying everything was fine, Morales did not pursue the matter further. The consulting firm trimmed its fees slightly, and the issue vanished from public scrutiny. Mendez resigned that month in a cloud of suspicion over other deals that ultimately led to corruption charges he is now fighting. A month later, he began work as a two-year consultant for one of DAC's principal partners, Spillis Candela & Partners. The firm will not say how much it paid him.