Author Archives: David Pendered

A spay and neuter program for animals whose future offspring may otherwise be destined for DeKalb County’s troubled animal shelter will be the beneficiary of a bowling fundraiser scheduled for Sunday afternoon in Stone Mountain.

Proceeds of the event will go toward a sterilization program in a county where more than 5,000 animals a year are euthanized, according to a report issued in February by a county task force.

DeKalb’s a kill rate was about 60 percent of the 8,500 animals handled annually at the county’s shelter, according to the report. DeKalb’s rate is higher than reported in Cobb, Fulton and Gwinnett counties, although those counties handle fewer animals.

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So many big transportation proposals for metro Atlanta are in the cauldron that even some top policy makers have trouble keeping pace.

As GRTA board member John Sibley III said of one region that has two major projects planned and a study underway: “I have a problem seeing what is likely here.”

Sibley got his questions answered about the I-75 and I-575 corridor, in Cobb and Cherokee counties. However, the answers prompted his colleague, Dick Anderson, to wonder aloud about the campaign message for the July 31 sales tax for transportation.
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Whether by choice or chance, state and regional transportation officials have announced a slew of new projects in the four months leading up to the July 31 vote on the proposed 1 percent sales tax for transportation.

The projects range from the regionally significant to locally symbolic – the Northwest Corridor tollway through Cobb and Cherokee counties, and the replacement of the scenic safety fence along the 17th Street Bridge in Midtown.

Two of the larger projects don’t have enough money for construction – the Northwest Corridor and MARTA’s expansion plan in DeKalb County.

However, taken as a whole, the announced projects illustrate the potential power of the government and private sector to reduce the region’s overall traffic congestion and maintain the roadway system. As individual tasks, each project offers the promise of reminding drivers, i.e., voters, how their commute can be improved by having even one of their problem areas addressed – as is promised by advocates for the transportation sales tax.
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Sandy Springs has moved into the public comment phase of a redevelopment study of the Roswell Road corridor that has an interesting objective: Success.

Mayor Eva Galambos rattles off from memory two previous efforts that came to naught, the first of them in 1967. That was 38 years before the community incorporated, and occurred at a time when Sandy Springs wanted to become the retail district that instead went in 1971 to Perimeter Mall. A second study in 2002 fizzled out.

“In neither instance did we know the property owners, and in neither case did we have economic realities as part of the plan,” Galambos said Thursday. “I don’t want anymore plans that are pie-in-the-sky and not realistic.”
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MARTA’s board of directors hopes that no across-the-board fare hikes or service reductions will be required to balance its budget for its next fiscal year, the executive director of the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority told her board Wednesday.

If MARTA’s board can stick to that plan, the only fare hikes that will go into effect this year, on Oct. 7, would be in three areas already slated for increases: Half-fares, up a nickle; One-way mobility pass, up 20 cents; Mobility pass, up $6. Those hikes were approved in 2010 as part of a three-year phased package.

MARTA has scheduled four public hearings on its proposed budget: Two on May 15 (Sandy Springs and Decatur); and two on May 17 (Atlanta City Hall, College Park).
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The Atlanta BeltLine is in the final phase of choosing advisors to create plans to implement the BeltLine vision and to win support from state and federal officials.

The BeltLine is seeking two separate teams. One team is to devise a strategic plan that will guide the project’s development over the coming two decades. The other team will devise and execute a government affairs plan that is to include legislative and policy goals at the state and federal levels.

Teams are to be chosen and at work by early July, though consultants who want to be considered still have time to apply. The hiring of consultants to create a formal plan for funding and development is a milestone in the tenure of Brian Leary, president and CEO of Atlanta BeltLine, Inc.
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Three separate proposals for major apartment developments in Atlanta indicate that landowners are setting the stage for a hoped-for recovery in the housing market.

There is no indication that construction is set to begin anytime soon, or whether the units are aimed at the rental or owner market. But the very idea of expending the effort and expense of asking the city government to approve additional dense housing developments is a testament to the belief that major investors will return to back big deals in Atlanta.

The Atlanta City Council today is slated to start the formal consideration of requests that would allow for the following three developments:
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Atlanta is sitting on at least $68 million in cash, plus more than $200 million in borrowing capacity, in a program designed to foster development in blighted neighborhoods.

The cash and available debt evidently has accrued as a result of the bust in real estate development. With so few projects brought forward by the private market, the city’s program to help them – a program fueled by property taxes – has laid fallow. Few parks, sidewalks, roads or sewers have been created or even upgraded with the special fund during the downturn, even as its coffers swelled.

Mayor Kasim Reed’s administration intends to revise the program as part of its first effort to devise a citywide economic development plan. The city’s previous comprehensive economic development plan expired at the end of 2009 when its chief sponsor, former Mayor Shirley Franklin, left office.
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The troubled concessions contracts at Atlanta’s airport caused the Atlanta City Council to convene in a special meeting Monday and conduct most of it behind closed doors.

After meeting in executive session with Mayor Kasim Reed, the city attorney, and at least one other official, the council emerged into public and voted to not intervene in the airport concessions contracts. The council had considered asking that current vendors remain in place for up to 90 days.

At issue is a letter Reed’s administration received April 26 from the Federal Aviation Authority. The FAA contends some vendors hired for the airport concessions program do not qualify as disadvantaged businesses, the category under which they were selected.
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A gold medal won in the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta has helped raise a reported $1 million for disaffected children in Ukraine.

The medal was sold by a Ukranian boxer in late March as part of his effort to raise money for a program he sponsors for children. The medal was immediately returned to Wladimir Klitschko, Ukraine’s world heavyweight champion, by a buyer who was not identified, according to a number of published reports.

This story about Atlanta’s link to the Olympics legacy is one of several that are beginning to gain attention as the world prepares for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, which are to begin July 27 and end Aug. 12.
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