By Maria Saporta
Contributing Writer

David M. Ratcliffe, chairman, president and CEO of the Southern Co., announced Tuesday he will retire Dec. 1, and his successor will be Thomas A. Fanning, currently the company’s chief operating officer.

On Aug. 1, Fanning, 53, will become president of Atlanta-based Southern Co. (NYSE: SO), and then he will become the company’s chairman and CEO on Dec. 1.

“During his nearly 30-year career with Southern Co. and its subsidiaries, Tom has demonstrated the technical and financial capabilities and the strategic vision needed to guide this company during a period of unprecedented capital expansion and growth,” Ratcliffe said in a news release. “Moreover, his leadership and team-building qualities will be crucial assets as he navigates a challenging, evolving energy landscape.”

Ratcliffe has been one of the top civic leaders in the state, having served as chairman of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, the Georgia Research Alliance and the Commerce Club.

Fanning joined the Southern Co. in 1980 as a financial analyst. Since then, he has held officer-level positions in the areas of finance, strategy, international business development and technology.

Prior to becoming executive vice president and COO in 2008, he was Southern Co.’s chief financial officer. Fanning also served as president and CEO of the company’s Florida subsidiary, Gulf Power, and CFO of both Georgia Power and Mississippi Power.

Ratcliffe became CEO of the Southern Co. in 2004, succeeding Allen Franklin. Both Ratcliffe and Franklin had served as president of Southern Co.’s largest subsidiary — Georgia Power — before becoming CEO of the parent company.

The succession pattern this time around is a bit different, partly because Georgia Power CEO Michael Garrett, 60, and Ratcliffe, 61, are so close in age.

Ratcliffe also made several other announcements that give some indication on the future leadership of not only Southern Co., but its subsidiaries.

W. Paul Bowers, 53, currently Southern Co.’s chief financial officer, has been named chief operating officer of Georgia Power. Bowers will oversee that company’s operations, customer service, financial, legal, external affairs and nuclear development functions. He will remain an executive vice president of Southern Co. and continue to serve on the Southern Company management council.

Bowers’ new role places him in position to succeed Garrett, whenever he decides to retire, as Georgia Power’s president and CEO.

Art P. Beattie, 56, has been named executive vice president and chief financial officer of Southern Co., where he will oversee the company’s accounting, finance, tax, investor relations, treasury and risk management functions.

Anthony J. Topazi, 60, has been named executive vice president and chief operating officer of Southern Co., succeeding Fanning. In this role, Topazi will have responsibility for Southern Company Generation, Southern Power and Southern Company Transmission.

Edward Day, VI, 50, will succeed Topazi as president and CEO of Mississippi Power, which provides retail electric service to approximately 200,000 customers across the southeastern region of the state. In addition, the company sells wholesale power to multiple electric power associations and cooperatives in Mississippi.

Southern Co. has 4.4 million customers and more than 42,000 megawatts of generating capacity.

By Maria Saporta

On Saturday, a majestic tree on the front lawn of the H.M. Patterson & Sons – Spring Hill Chapel funeral home was cut down — causing grief to those who usually are there to console.

“My heart is aching,” said John Gallatin, funeral director and location manager for H.M. Patterson. “It was one of the three original trees that had been planted in 1928.”

After his father died in 1923, Fred Patterson inherited the business and decided “to construct a funeral home on a hill, overlooking trees in honor of his father and in tribute to his English-born mother,” according to the funeral home’s website.

The website also states that the building was designed by famous Atlanta architect Philip Shutze who wanted it to resemble an old English manor house. By 1929, three oak trees had been planted on the front lawn.

Gallatin said he doesn’t know what happened to the first of three willow oaks that adorned the property. The second went down in a storm about five years ago.

An arborist came out to trim the limbs of the last remaining oak, and Gallatin was told that it had a root fungus and that it needed to come down.

“I called in three different arborists, and they all said the same thing,” Gallatin said, adding that he went through the various stages of grieving, including denial and then acceptance. “They are like people.”

Finally, the tree was cut down this past weekend.

“I’ve been in mourning ever since,” Gallatin said, adding that two other trees that were dead in the back yard of the home also were cut down.

Marcia Bansley, founder and executive director of Trees Atlanta, said Patterson’s had received approval from the city’s head arborist, Ainsley Caldwell, to remove the three trees because they were hazardous. In that situation, there is no requirement to replace the trees.

“Even though they had permission to remove the trees, the loss of their beauty makes me sick and takes a lot of the charm away from the building,” Bansley said. “I hope they will replace the very large oak and another one this winter when it is the correct time to replant. The beautiful trees brought a lot of comfort to those whose relatives had funerals at Patterson’s. The building and the trees were an icon for Atlanta citizens, and replanting the trees will help to restore the special charm of the place.”

Gallatin said that a landscaper has been hired to look at what should be done with the land.

“We are going to replant a tree,” he said. “I just don’t know when or where.”

Too many of my contemporaries are dying, years too young.

Debra Halpern Bernes, my high school classmate, passed away last week after fighting cancer for two years. The synagogue was full of family, friends and associates who marveled at how she had been able to keep an infectious upbeat attitude despite her pain.

For those of us who attended Grady High School 40 years ago, it was another one of those unpleasant reunions. After the service, a group of us gathered to outside the Ahavath Achim Synagogue for hugs and even a group photo. Another one of our classmates had left us.

One of the last times we had gathered was in May, 2007 when one of our most notorious classmates — Yolanda King — had passed away, again way too young. That time we gathered at the new Ebenezer Baptist Church for a multi-hour service that touched on all the varied aspects of her life.

Again a sadness, a reconfirmation that the good die young.

Debbie and Yolanda were part of that special combustion that was underway in the late 1960s and early 1970s — when Atlanta was learning to live with integration of its public schools, and deep friendships were being formed that bridged the races, religions and cliques.

Debbie was a cheerleader with a buoyant personality and one of the most popular girls in school. Yolanda gravitated to the arts and theater. I worked on the high school newspaper and was a political activist hoping to change the world.

The diversity at Grady didn’t stop there. The common ground of our campus was not always harmonious or celebrated, but many of us emerged out of that experience knowing that we had shared a special bond that would last for decades.

Debbie and I had not stayed in close touch until 2004 when she was running for a seat on the Georgia Court of Appeals.

For a variety of reasons, Debbie ended up having to three different elections for that same seat in a matter of months — and each time she participated in the debates put on by the Atlanta Press Club and broadcast by Georgia Public Broadcasting.

One of the most amazing moments for me was when one of her opponents, I believe it was Mike Sheffield, began praising Debbie Bernes for being a wonderful person and a competent prosecutor. He sounded as someone who was endorsing Bernes rather than running against her.

Over the years, Debbie and I would run into each other — most often at the Commerce Club, one of our favorite luncheon places. Two years ago, Debbie was diagnosed with an advanced stage of cancer, and yet she kept going to work and keeping her life as normal as possible.

Whenever I saw her, she would smile and say she was fighting as hard as she could to stay alive. Somehow, given her tremendous determination and uplifting attitude, I kept feeling that she would find a way to beat her cancer.

On Sunday, July 18, her husband Gary called Judge Robert Benham, for chief justice for the Georgia Supreme Court, and told him that Debbie wanted to talk to him. Debbie asked if he would speak at her service. She did not sound as someone who would die only two days later.

At the service, Benham also remembered when Debbie told him she had cancer, she quickly deflected the conversation and asked how he was doing.

As I was leaving the synagogue, I ran into Barbara Babbit Kaufman. She told me how her parents and Debbie’s parents had been best friends for decades and how she and Debbie had been roommates in college.

Oddly enough, I had run into Kaufman at another recent funeral — that of Ralph McGill Jr., son of legendary journalist Ralph McGill Sr., and the husband of our close friend Mary Welch.

Kaufman explained that day that she just couldn’t stay through the service.

Just a few weeks before, Kaufman had lost her husband — Richard Kaufman — to cancer, which had only been diagnosed less than two months before he died. He was only 55.

“You just do what you have to do in life,” Kaufman said in a phone conversation this Sunday. “Life goes on and life is for the living.”

Kaufman said that her mother-in-law, who she described as “amazing,” has inspired her to stay strong. Several times, Kaufman said she finds comfort in remembering “there is a time to mourn, and there is a time to dance.”

Coincidentally, Debbie and Richard Kaufman are buried almost next to each other, which also gives Barbara comfort.

While I barely knew Richard, Barbara described him as someone who connected with every one — poor, rich, black, white….

In many ways, that also described Debbie. Both of them had captured the best traits of an open Atlanta.

Inevitably that brought me back to the death of Ralph McGill Jr., 65, followed three weeks later by the death of his son, Ralph McGill III, who was only 42.

Both were the namesakes of one of the greatest leaders in Atlanta’s history — Ralph McGill Sr. — a newspaper editor who was able to help guide our city and our state through some of its most difficult days as we shifted from the Old South towards the New South.

Attending both of those funerals, back-to-back, made me all too aware of what we’ve lost. Can we as a city still lead a region and a state through the discord of our modern times?

Unfortunately, the recent deaths of Yolanda King, Debra Bernes, Richard Kaufman and two generations of McGill, will make it all the harder.

By Guest Columnist ALLISON KELLY, senior vice president of the Georgia Conservancy.

For decades, Georgia’s environmental community has urged the state’s top elected officials to take water issues seriously.

In the 2009 state legislature, water yet again took a back seat to matters deemed more critical, such as the economy, education and immigration.

All that changed last summer, when federal judge Paul Magnuson ruled that metro Atlanta has no legal authority to draw drinking water from Lake Lanier. It was a shot across the bow that catapulted water from the sidelines to center stage among those now running to replace Sonny Perdue for governor.

The three candidates left standing after last week’s primary – Roy Barnes, Nathan Deal and Karen Handel – have all put water issues out front in ways we’ve never seen before in a gubernatorial election.

Consider Roy Barnes, the Democratic nominee for governor. On his campaign website, Barnes puts the focus on getting Georgians back to work. But notice how he does it:

“To make Georgia work, we must focus on water, education and transportation,” he says.

That’s right, water comes first on his list. Elsewhere on the site, Barnes frames the water issue in stark economic terms.

“The availability of abundant, clean water has become as important in Georgia as the availability of other natural resources, such as gas and coal,” Barnes says. “Today, when businesses consider expanding or relocating to Georgia, ‘water’ is at the top of their checklists.”

On the other side of the political aisle stands Nathan Deal, arguably the most conservative of the three remaining candidates. In June, Deal staunchly favored so-called interbasin transfers – moving water from one river basin to another – in order to accommodate Atlanta’s growing water needs.

The Georgia Conservancy and other environmental groups have been extremely wary of this practice. The Conservancy believes the state should consider interbasin transfers only after (1) strong conservation and efficiency measures are in place; (2) an aggressive reduction goal is met, and; (3) a full assessment of the environmental impact is conducted for giving and receiving river basins.

In recent interviews with newspaper reporters in Atlanta and Augusta, however, Deal appears to have changed his tune.

“As governor, I would never support policies that would divert water from any basin for the purpose of sending it downriver into another region. Absolutely not.”

On her campaign website, Karen Handel says Georgia must adopt a statewide water plan and urges the state to pursue aggressive conservation efforts.

While we applaud the candidates for elevating water issues to the fore, they don’t always get it right. Take, for example, proposals to flood thousands of acres in north Georgia to build reservoirs that feed a growing and thirsty Atlanta. We believe that costly new reservoirs should only be built as a last resort, after all conservation, storage and supply alternatives have been addressed.

We’ve come a long way in the past few years. Until recently, most people viewed water as a virtually unlimited resource. No more, thanks to the punishing droughts we have endured throughout the decade, and Judge Magnuson’s ruling.

We’ve already made big strides on the policy front. Earlier this year, the Georgia General Assembly passed a sweeping water conservation law that bans daytime outdoor watering and requires “high-efficiency” toilets, faucets and shower heads in new construction.

Our three candidates for governor may disagree on how to bring more jobs to Georgia or how to fund a quality education for our kids.

But one thing is clear: water stewardship has emerged as a top issue for all three candidates. And that’s a win for Georgia, no matter who is victorious in November.

By Maria Saporta

The bottom line for Georgia — grow your own.

A new study by the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Center for Agribusiness and Economic Development documents how buying Georgia-grown produce contributes to our economy.

If each of the 3.7 million households in Georgia devoted $10 a week to buying produce grown in the state, it would pump $1.9 billion into Georgia’s economy.

Alice Rolls, executive director of Georgia Organics, said in a statement that the findings of the study are “some of the strongest demonstrations so far of what a small change in consumer behavior could mean for farmers and for the entire state.

Rolls also said that she hopes the study will motivate state leaders to encourage “every day foods for our Southern diets growing in the fields of Georgia.”

Although agribusiness is an important part of Georgia’s economy, Georgians eat less than the national average of locally-grown food. Currently, direct farmer to consumer sales contribute 132 jobs, $4.5 million labor income and $14.4 million in sales.

The study determined that if Georgia produce farmers increased direct farm-to-consumer produce sales to the national average, it would have an overall statewide contribution of 228 jobs, $8.1 million in labor income and $25.8 million in sales.

For example, the average Georgia eats about 30 pounds of fresh lettuce per year, or about 285 million pounds statewide. But the state only grows about 245,000 pounders a year, less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the amount of lettuce that Georgians consume

There are other major gaps in what Georgians eat and what Georgia grows — apples, bell peppers, broccoli, carrots, pecans, tomatoes and watermelon.

According to the 2007 Agricultural Census, Georgia direct sales accounted for .18 percent of their total sales. By comparison, Rhode Island sold 9..5 percent of its agricultural products directly to consumers and Massachusetts sold 8.5 million through direct sales.

Kent Wolf, an agricultural economist who authored the UGA study, said farmers get to keep a larger percentage of their sales when they sell directly to stores, restaurants and consumers.

“Looking at the quantity of foods directly marketed in Georgia,” Wolfe said in statement, “there is a tremendous opportunity there.”

Click here to read the entire study.

By Maria Saporta
Friday, July 16, 2010

It is well known that CARE, the Carter Center and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention all are based in Atlanta. But few people are aware that another major global nonprofit — MAP International — has made Atlanta home.

MAP International was founded in 1954 in Chicago, to help distribute essential medicines and medical supplies to poor countries.

Last year alone, the organization distributed $422 million in supplies and medicines (wholesale value) to 119 countries. It has 95 corporate partners — mainly pharmaceutical companies and medical suppliers — that help provide the products that MAP distributes around the world.

In addition to distributing medical supplies, MAP International also has teams around the world doing community health and training work. It has eight overseas offices — three in Latin America, four in Africa and one in Asia.

In all, it has trained more than 1,200 health promoters in Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, Kenya and the Ivory Coast in the past five years.

Originally, MAP International moved its headquarters and distribution base to be close to both the Savannah and Jacksonville, Fla., container ports in 1985.

“We opened the Atlanta office in 2001 to serve as the global headquarters,” said Michael Nyenhuis, president of MAP International. That gave MAP the opportunity to interface with Atlanta’s corporate community and other global institutions, including the Carter Center, CARE, Emory University and the CDC.

MAP received a grant from the Woodruff Foundation to move its headquarters to Atlanta and it is now located in the Hurt Building downtown. The nonprofit has about 10 people based in Atlanta, about 40 in Brunswick and another 250 in its eight overseas offices.

“We are a hidden little secret,” Nyenhuis said. “We are not good about getting the general public to know who we are.”

But since the economic collapse a couple of years ago, Nyenhuis said, a lot has changed for nonprofits.

“We are looking at different types of alliances,” he said. “We do really quality work in the niches where we work.”

It already had been working in Haiti for decades distributing medical supplies before the earthquake earlier this year. “We put in about $20 million worth of medical supplies in just the first six weeks after the earthquake,” Nyenhuis said.

MAP International has the highest rating from Charity Navigator and a 99 percent efficiency rating from Forbes magazine.

“If we don’t become better known, we are going to face problems that many nonprofits face, and that’s one of survival,” Nyenhuis said.

MAP International did serve as the local agent in the Ivory Coast for the Carter Center’s program to eradicate guinea worm. “There have been no cases of guinea worm for three years in the Ivory Coast,” Nyenhuis said.

Nyenhuis first became aware of MAP’s work when, as a journalist, he visited its operations in Honduras and Ecuador.

He joined MAP in 1995, as its “in-house journalist” and then became president in 2000.

Helene Gayle, president and CEO of CARE, spoke highly of MAP International saying “they are terrific” and “do a lot with a little.”

It is those kind of global partnerships that Nyenhuis and Gayle believe can be expanded among the nonprofits in Atlanta.

“I think we have a great opportunity to increase the visibility of Atlanta as an international city, given the wealth of international organizations,” Gayle said. “However, I’m not sure Atlanta as a city has embraced the vision or that the international organizations have a forum to be more integrated into the city.”

She did say that she’s “enthusiastic” about the possibilities of Georgia State University’s new World Affairs Council.

“I think that might start creating a global forum here in Atlanta that can be a glue for the respective international organizations and businesses,” Gayle said. “We have a lot to build on here.”

Almost $700K for women

Atlanta Women’s Foundation will announce July 21 that it is giving away $668,500 as part of annual grant-making process to organizations in the five-county metro Atlanta area.

The foundation’s grant-making committee is co-chaired by Paula Goodman of Best Buy and Cindy Brazell, a partner with Jones Day.

It is part of the Atlanta Women’s Foundation’s continuing investment of $11 million that it’s made in the last 12 years to organizations that support women and girls.

The foundation is able to make its financial contributions through money raised as part of its annual “Numbers Too Big to Ignore” luncheon, and through private donations.

The next luncheon is scheduled for Oct. 28, and it will feature Malaak Compton-Rock, a dedicated humanitarian who is the wife of comedian Chris Rock.

G-P staying in Ga

Jim Hannan, CEO of Georgia-Pacific, made it clear that the company is not leaving Atlanta. During his talk to the Rotary Club of Atlanta on July 12, Hannan gave an update on how Georgia-Pacific LLC has been doing since the company announced it was being acquired by privately held Koch Industries in December 2005.

Hannan said people keep asking him whether the company is going to remain headquartered in Atlanta.

“Yes,” Hannan said. “Our leadership is in Atlanta. Our board meets in Atlanta, and we are very happy to be here.”

Hannan also said that he hoped “you see us as very engaged in the Atlanta community.” The company, which employs 45,000 workers worldwide, has 7,000 employees in Georgia.

Hannan also spoke highly of metro Atlanta’s “qualified” workforce, and said Georgia-Pacific had “access to the best air travel in the world” thanks to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

But Hannan also added: “The best thing we can do for Atlanta is to continue to be successful.”

By Maria Saporta

The run-offs are here, and the Atlanta Press Club is ready.

The debate committee met Wednesday to map out a series of nine run-off debates between now and Aug. 8, which is two days before the run-off vote. As a reminder, I chair the APC debate committee.

For those of you who are political junkies and/or believe in being an informed voter, here is our line up.

We will hold four debates this Sunday evening between 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., and they will be aired live statewide on Georgia Public Broadcasting, our television/radio partner for the better part of two decades.

The four debates this Sunday will be for the U.S. Congress. We will start with the Republican run-off for the 13th Congressional District (the seat now held by Rep. David Scott (D-Georgia).

Both candidates in that race — Mike Crane and Deborah Honeycutt — have confirmed their presence.

The next race is the Republican contest for the 12th Congressional District — the seat currently held by U.S. Rep. John Barrow (D-Georgia). candidate Carl Smith has confirmed his attendance, but his opponent Ray McKinney is saying he has a conflict. We’re still hoping he’ll find a way to come. If not, he will be represented by an empty podium.

At 7 p.m. Sunday evening, we’ll hold the debate for the Republican race in the 7th Congressional District. That race is to fill the seat being vacated by U.S. Rep. John Linder.

Both candidates in that run-off — Rob Woodall and Jody Hice — have confirmed they’re coming.

Then at 7:30 p.m., we’ll hold the debate for the Republican candidates in the 9th Congressional District, the seat that had been held by Congressman Nathan Deal, who resigned to run for governor. Tom Graves, who has been elected to serve in that post until November, is in a run-off with Lee Hawkins.

We’ll then take off a weekend and return with debates on Friday, Aug. 6. and Sunday, Aug. 8.

The one run-off that we are taping as web-only debate that Friday is the one for Republicans running for the Public Service Commission’s District 2. That’s a run-off between John Douglas and Tim Echols. We do hope that the blogosphere will help us make sure the public get an opportunity to see those two candidates who want a say on our state’s energy policies and rates.

Then at 7 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 6, we will hold two live debates broadcast statewide on GPB. The first race will be for the Democratic contest for Secretary of State between Gail Buckner and Georganna Sinkfield.

At 7:30, we will hold the Republican run-off for Insurance Commissioner between Ralph Hudgens and Maria Sheffield.

Sunday, Aug. 8 will be our big night of the run-off series.

We will start out with a debate between the two Republicans still in the race for governor — Karen Handel and Nathan Deal. Both of those candidates already have confirmed their presence.

We will end our run-off debates with the Republican Attorney General race. Sam Olens and Preston Smith are facing each other in that run-off.

So as you can tell, we’ve been busy. We hope you’ll take the time to watch. And in case you missed our 22 primary debates, you can view them online by going to the www.atlantapressclub.org website.

By Maria Saporta
Friday, July 16, 2010

Southface, ahead of its time for several decades, now is hitting its stride as the Atlanta region and the nation invest in green buildings that are as energy- efficient as possible.

In the past couple of years, the Southface Energy Institute has seen its budget increase by $1.5 million to $5.5 million, thanks to federal stimulus funds and private donations.

At the same time, the staff of Southface has had a significant increase to its current level of 70 employees.

That’s a long way from when Southface began 32 years ago as an all-volunteer organization promoting the use of solar energy. The organization’s first and only executive director, Dennis Creech, first drew a salary of $200 a month.

Over the years, Southface has become a local and national leader of green-building practices. And in the past couple of years, Southface’s skills and services have been in great demand as federal and local governments have been encouraging greater energy efficiencies through new public policies and financial incentives.

Due to the tremendous growth, Southface is hiring its first-ever chief operating officer, Michael Halicki, a senior associate with the Ahmann public relations firm who has worked with several environmental organizations during his career.

In the past several years, Southface also has been building up its senior management to respond to a growing demand for its services.

Those include Gray Kelly, director of sustainable development and communities; Sydney Roberts, director of Southface home services; Judy Knight, director of marketing and public relations; Angie Hunter, director of development; Laura Capps, director of residential green building services; Brandon Jones, director of commercial building services; and Robert Reed, director of sustainable communities design.

Creech said that when Halicki comes on board at the end of August, it is going to help Southface get to the next level. Halicki will help manage the internal operations of Southface and be the connective tissue between the various facets of the organization.

“We’ve got national programs now, and we have regional programs,” Creech said. “I do a lot of travel now. And the nice thing about Michael is that’s he’s a well-respected leader in the environmental community with a lot of experience in the public policy area.”

Halicki, who has a master’s degree in public administration with a special emphasis on nonprofit management, has worked for the Clean Air Campaign, the Georgia Conservancy and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. He also has worked with Southface on its Sustainable Atlanta Roundtable and on other projects.

“I couldn’t have designed a better opportunity,” Halicki said. “It was the exact right job for me at this stage of my career, and the organization is only becoming more relevant to the issues going on.”

Southface is a major reason why Atlanta has emerged as a leader in the development of LEED-certified buildings. LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, rates construction projects based on the level of their green buildings practices.

Creech said Southface also has created the Southeast Weatherization and Energy Efficiency Training Center, which in the past six months has trained more than 500 people for jobs in home weatherization, green building and energy auditing.

Also, for the past 11 years, Southface has had a partnership with the Greater Atlanta Homebuilders Association in building energy-efficient EarthCraft homes.

“We have certified 10,000 homes in 11 years,” Creech said of the multi-state effort. “We did eight homes the first year, so the growth curve has been pretty steep. We do lots of training.”

Creech said much of Southface’s success can be attributed to its partnerships with corporations, associations and foundations. Southface can be more effective when it works with industries and the private sector, Creech said calling the organization a “market-driven nonprofit.”

Looking back on his career, Creech, 60, recalled that Southface’s origins were as a solar coalition wanting to create an annual “Sun Day.” In the late 1970s, Creech also was working on an environmental future conference focused on climate change.

“There are no new ideas,” Creech said laughingly. Southface evolved about 30 years ago after the organization bought a dilapidated home on Memorial Drive, which it renovated to demonstrate green-building practices.

“We have always been a technical and assistance provider,” Creech said. “We are science-based, solution-based. We understand that the market is a force for change.”

And Creech, who said part of his desire is to be able to have a cold beer in the summer, said the goal is to make sure there is an adequate supply of clean energy for the future by keeping jobs in the United States.

“We want to be more effective and figure out how Southface can have the best-in-class building science program,” Creech said. “We are not the same organization we were three years ago, much less 30 years ago. Michael can help us with our next change that we know is coming.”

By Maria Saporta

Twenty-two debates later.

One of the many hats I wear is chair of the Atlanta Press Club debate committee, a position I’ve held for so long (about 18 years) that I’ve kind of lost track of time.

The Atlanta Press Club partnership with Georgia Public Broadcasting goes back to the days when the studio was on Stewart Avenue (yes, before Stewart Avenue became Metropolitan Parkway).

The relationship and partnership has grown over the years, and now I’m proud to see that the Atlanta Press Club/GPB political debates have emerged as the pre-eminent ones in our state.

That point hit home for me last night when we hosted the two key primary debates — one for the Democratic race for governor and the other the Republican race for governor.

But what makes our series stand out is that we put on debates of races that most other organizations ignore — the State School Superintendent, Attorney General, Secretary of State, Insurance Commissioner, Public Service Commission as well as numerous contested congressional races.

For this primary debate season, we ended up putting on 22 political debates that showed the broad array of opinions and positions among those seeking to represent us.

And while it always feels really good to wrap up such a debate series, I couldn’t help feeling disappointed that several key candidates decided to not participate in our forums. Just to be clear, the thoughts I’m sharing with you are mine, and I’m not speaking for the APC debate committee.

The most egregious one was in the Republican debate for governor. Front-runner Karen Handel decided not to attend after she had pledged not to appear on any panel that included opponent Ray McBerry, who had been accused of (but not convicted of) an inappropriate relationship with a teenager.

By making such a pledge, Handel denied Georgia voters the opportunity of seeing how she can handle (excuse the wording) tough questions from journalists as well as her opponents in a live, televised setting.

Her absence certainly did not go unnoticed. Former front-runner John Oxendine, who serves as the state’s Insurance Commissioner, used his one question to ask former U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal: “Why do you think Karen Handel is unfit to be the next governor of the State of Georgia?”

To that, Deal questioned Handel’s conservative beliefs and then went on to say: “It’s important also for us to nominate somebody who will actually show up to televised debates such as this.”

I couldn’t agree more.

During our primary series, we had three incumbent congressmen choose to not show up to our debates: U.S. Rep. John Barrow (D- 12th Congressional District), U.S. Rep. David Scott (D-13th Congressional District), and U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-4th Congressional District).

(In all fairness, all three of those congressmen and Handel have participated in our debates in other races).

This follows the disappointing decision two years ago when U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-5th Congressional District) chose not to participate in a debate when he faced two challengers.

Our policy is that when we decide to hold a debate, we invite every one on the ballot. If someone chooses to decline our invitation, then that person is represented by an empty podium. We also give candidates who do appear the opportunity to ask questions of the empty podium.

In an era where information and communication have become so fractured, our televised debates are one of the few opportunities where every one in Georgia has the ability to assess those seeking to represent us.

In order to work, our democratic society needs voters to be informed on their choices of people running for public office. The operative word here is “public” as in public servants.

When candidates make a politically-calculated choice to not appear at debates, they can only be called “politicians” rather than “public servants.”

It’s a matter of principle. If someone is running for public office, the first rule should be to face the public, the press as well as one’s opponents. It may not always be pleasant, but it’s one of the few opportunities that voters have to see how candidates think on their feet.

The good news is that there will be more opportunities for candidates to participate in our debates.

On Wednesday afternoon, the APC debate committee will meet to begin planning our run-off debates, which will begin on Sunday, July 25 with others on Friday, Aug. 6 and Sunday, Aug. 8.

We hope all the candidates will participate, and we hope you’ll tune in.

You can view all our primary debates on the www.atlantapressclub.org website.

At this past week’s Regional Transit Committee meeting, the Atlanta Regional Commission’s David Emory made an interesting presentation.

A total of eight light rail projects are included in the Concept 3 plan. They would cost about $8 billion to build, and they would have an annual operating cost of $200 million.

Coincidentally, if metro Atlanta voters pass a regional sales tax for transportation, it would raise about $8 billion over 10 years.

I couldn’t help myself. I began to think about how wonderful it would be if the Atlanta region would spend most, if not all, of the new sales tax revenue on transit projects.

The eight light rail projects in the Concept 3 Plan actually would be a good starting point.

The first project was building the 22-mile loop for the Atlanta Beltline, now being planned by MARTA and Atlanta Beltline Inc.

The second light rail project was the Clifton Corridor light rail line that would connect MARTA’s North lines with the East line and Emory University and the Centers for Disease Control along the way.

The third project would be building light rail along the I-20 East corridor, a line that could extend to Rockdale County.

The fourth project would be to build light rail along the top end of I-285 between I-75 and I-85 (a transit specific study for the corridor is supposed to be done in 2012).

The fifth light rail project would be along the Northeast corridor going from Doraville, Norcross to the Gwinnett Village and the Gwinnett Area. That feasibility study is supposed to be completed later this year.

The sixth project would be to have a light rail line along the Northwest corridor in Cobb County, going along U.S. 41 from the Cumberland Mall area up to Town Center.

The seventh proposed line would be a fixed rail line along the Georgia 400 corridor — either extending the existing MARTA heavy rail line or building a light rail line towards the northern parts of Fulton County.

The eighth (and last) light rail project in the Concept 3 Plan is the Atlanta streetcar project that would go from downtown to Buckhead, and connect the tourist attractions around Centennial Olympic Park with the King Center.

The Regional Transit Committee, now chaired by Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, passed a resolution this past Thursday to endorse establishing a permanent transit governing body for the Atlanta region.

The resolution was part of a “quad party” agreement between the Atlanta Regional Commission, the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority, the Georgia Department of Transportation and MARTA.

Never before has there been such a level of consensus among all the 10 ARC counties and all the major transportation-related entities in the state and the region. And that can only be a welcome development for the region.

But then on Friday morning, metro Atlanta leaders launched a campaign to build a “big tent coalition” to support a regional sales tax for transportation. They unveiled a plan to raise millions of dollars for the campaign to convince people to vote in favor of the sales tax.

Metro leaders brought in representatives from the cities of Phoenix, Denver and Salt Lake City to talk about how they were able to put together winning campaigns for their transportation sales tax initiatives.

In showing TV spots on their marketing campaigns, the themes were the same. We can’t pave our way out of congestion. If we want to accommodate new residents to our region, we must invest in transportation options.

Every one of those campaigns showcased light rail projects in their separate communities. And the various representatives spoke about how important it was to listen to voters before presenting a list of projects.

In Denver, leaders realized that voters were far more likely to pass a transportation sales tax if most of the dollars were to be invested in transit and rail.

The representatives from Salt Lake City, Denver and Phoenix said it was critically important to sell the sales tax as a quality of life campaign. In Utah, part of the effort included explaining to voters that no transportation projects pay for themselves, including transit.

Lane Beattie, president and CEO of the Salt Lake City Chamber of Commerce, said it was all about economics and how Utah would be able to handle all its growth. Because the city has been building 70 miles of light rail, there is now $4 billion in development underway with national companies moving to Salt Lake City.

Peggy Bilsten, who worked on getting the sales tax passed in Phoenix, said the city’s “Transit 2000” campaign ended up building a 22-mile segment of light rail connecting three different cities.

“We have transit-oriented development that would blow your mind,” Bilsten said. “We got $600 million from the federal government.”

Maria Garcia, who worked on the Denver effort, did make a back-handed comment. “The longer you guys take to get your act together, the better it will be for us,” she said.

That reminded me of what the U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood told Georgians when he was in Atlanta nearly a year ago. He said Georgia would get left behind in transportation funding if it didn’t get its act together on transit and rail.

The region can decide whether the referendum of 2012 will be a game-changer and help pay for transit once and for all, or whether it will be more of the same — spending the region’s limited dollars on roads and bridges.

For the first time in decades, the Atlanta region has an opportunity to invest substantial dollars in transit, be able to leverage federal funds and to encourage transit-friendly developments.

Let’s not blow it.