City council president bothered by Mayor Reed's brother's involvement in hiring

ATLANTA - Atlanta city council president Felicia Moore has seen a lot during her years on council. Still, she was shocked to hear an airport executive say Mayor Kasim Reed's brother interviewed him when he was trying to get hired at the Atlanta airport.

“I've never heard this has occurred before, this is the first time I've heard that,” said Moore. “That's certainly inappropriate.”   

The revelations came from a recent city ethics investigation of fired airport deputy general manager Cortez Carter. Last week, the ethics board found evidence Carter failed to disclose his financial and personal interest in his wife's company, Airworks.

Earlier the I-Team uncovered that Airworks was doing business with Atlanta airport vendor, Hojeij Branded Foods in another city.

Monday night, the I-Team broke the story that during the investigation Cortez Carter told ethics investigators that when he applied for the assistant general manager job, he had four interviews including one with "Tracy Reed, brother of former Mayor Kasim Reed"

Carter told investigators Reed was not only present in his interview, but that "Tracy Reed had a key role in the vetting (hiring) process"

“This is the first time I've seen any evidence that there was actually this meeting taking place,” said Moore.   

According to the ethics report, Carter also said two airport vendors joined Tracy Reed in the interview. "Wassim and Carol Hojeij, the owners of Hojeij Branded Foods."

Wassim Hojeij's spokesperson told us Mr. Carter's story is not true.   Hojeij said he knew Cortez Carter from Chicago but had no formal interview, only social contact after Carter was hired.

Felicia Moore says she doesn't know if it was a social or formal meeting, but it doesn't look good either way.

“The worst part is it’s just one other thing coming out how the government was operating during the last administration,” said Moore.

We tried to reach Tracy Reed through a friend of his, and were told Mr. Reed had no comment.