Author Archives: David Pendered

By David Pendered

Some of the wind seemed to have gone out of the sails of Occupy Atlanta by Sunday afternoon.

The crowd was smaller than that of Sunday a week ago. Those who were at Troy Davis Park, nee Woodruff Park, seemed a bit like the crowd who’d arrived at a hot party after it had peaked.

Mayor Kasim Reed may have contributed to the lackluster feeling. Reed has provided the group wide privilege at the city’s iconic park in the heart of the central business district. On Sunday, the mayor forbade an unpermitted concert and it was summarily cancelled.

By David Pendered

Atlanta remains on schedule to open proposals from companies seeking contracts for airport concessions next week.

Meanwhile, the city on Friday requested additional clarification on a saportareport.com story that appeared Oct. 18 about the concessions bid process.

Atlanta is conducting what it says is the largest airport concessions procurement process in North American history. The city is seeking private companies to manage all of the 125 food and beverage sites at the airport, plus 27 retail shops.

By David Pendered

This story has been updated.

Renee Glover will be gone from the Atlanta Housing Authority as fast as the lawyers can reach a deal, following a vote Wednesday by the AHA board of commissioners.

The AHA board elected Dan Halpern as chairman. Halpern, appointed to the board by Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, has been a persistent critic of Glover’s management of the city’s housing authority.

The board adopted new procedures that require the board to vote on all firings; new contracts valued at $10,000 or more; and contract extensions of $10,000 or more.

By David Pendered

Gov. Deal’s task force to reform transit governance seems to be serious about getting something done.

The panel met in public for the first time Tuesday. One bi-partisan message that emerged clearly is that the committee intends to comply with Deal’s order that legislation establishing an entity to oversee regional transit in metro Atlanta be presented to the state Legislation in January.

Another clear message also emerged, this one delivered to transit operators – tell us what you want now; don’t wait until after we’ve written a bill and then tell us how to tweak it to suit.

By David Pendered

Atlanta’s chief finance officer is out, just 16 months after Mayor Kasim Reed nominated her with glowing remarks.

The departure of CFO Joya C. De Foor was announced to members of the Atlanta City Council in an email Monday evening. The email was signed by Reed’s chief of staff, Candace Byrd.

Peter Aman, Atlanta’s COO, said late Tuesday that he could not speak on the situation because it is a personnel matter.

By David Pendered

Atlanta’s clarification: See below

Botched paperwork by two corporations fueled the decision by Atlanta to rebid the entire concessions package at the airport, said to be the largest airport concessions procurement in North American history.

The new bids are due next week – on Oct. 25 and Oct. 26. Atlanta cancelled its airport procurement program Sept. 2 and required every company to submit new bids, regardless of whether their proposals were flawed.

One of the two companies is trying to break into Atlanta’s airport: Delaware North, one of the nation’s larger vendors. The other company is Great Atlanta Concessions, a new joint venture involving one of the country’s biggest Hispanic franchisees, and a company controlled by an Atlanta businessman with diverse interests including service on a board with former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young.

By David Pendered

No one thought they could do it.

Reaching concensus on a plan to build roads and transit across 10 counties in metro Atlanta was just too tough a task.

In the end, a retired Georgia Tech band director got 21 elected officials to play the same song. The region now has a 10-year plan to spend $6.14 billion to improve mobility. Voters next year will decide its fate.

By David Pendered

Occupy Atlanta showed no evidence of shutting down Sunday afternoon.

The group has until the adjournment of the Atlanta City Council meeting on Monday, according to an executive order Mayor Kasim said in an Oct. 12 statement that he signed. A copy of the executive order was not evident on the city’s website.

Here are photos and videos of some sights and sounds of the Occupy Atlanta event.

By David Pendered

Thursday was a day for celebration.

The elected officials who served on the Atlanta Regional Transportation Roundtable savored the moment after casting their final vote to create a $6.14 billion program to improve the region’s roadways and transit. Thursday was not the day to dwell on the task of convincing voters to agree to pay for the plan through a 1 percent sales tax.

“We’re not going to get bogged down in any of those issues,” Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said in response to a reporter’s three-pronged question: Whether to move the sales tax vote from July to November; the duration of the tax; and who will govern the region’s transit.

Here, in their own words, is a snapshot of Thursday’s celebration.

By David Pendered

The Georgia Chamber of Commerce has hired a seasoned transportation advocate to serve as executive director of a chamber affiliate that will focus on long-term transportation strategy – including passage of the transportation sales tax.

Doug Callaway will lead the Georgia Transportation Alliance. The state chamber formed GTA in April to promote a new effort to improve the mobility of freight and people through Georgia.

Callaway now serves as president of Floridians for Better Transportation. He joined FBT in 2003, following his work with Carter & Burgess, a national engineering consulting and management firm.

By David Pendered

In the end, there is no magic bullet that promises to kill traffic congestion, no gee-whiz technological solution to end gridlock in metro Atlanta.

The region’s transportation options will look a lot like they do today, even if the region embarks upon a 10-year, $6.14 billion construction program that would be funded by a proposed 1 percent sales tax collected in 10 counties.

If voters approve the tax next year, MARTA is to build its long-awaited rail line to Emory University; Cobb County is to provide express bus service linking north Cobb County and Midtown Atlanta; and Atlanta will install transit along the BeltLine. Scores of roadways and interchanges are to be improved in hopes of hastening traffic.

By David Pendered

When Atlanta reaches for money to help build the BeltLine transit system along North Avenue, the city intends to turn to one of its boldest methods for jumpstarting development.

Atlanta plans to use revenues from its tax allocation districts to help pay for the transit system. Atlanta is one of the few local governments in Georgia that embrace this financing method, which is used widely across the country.

The TAD money could help cover BeltLine costs that exceed the $602 million Atlanta is earmarked to receive from the proposed 10-county transportation sales tax, if voters approve the tax next year. Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said local funds, and perhaps other alternative sources of money, will bridge a funding gap.

By David Pendered

The question of how to pay for transit remains a central stumbling block facing metro Atlanta leaders as they assemble a transportation package they can put on a ballot next year.

As the issue now is framed, the question is whether to pay up to $80 million into GRTA bus service by shifting money from the amount earmarked to help pay for other transit programs: MARTA; Atlanta’s BeltLine; and two future transit routes – one to Cumberland Mall and one toward Emory University.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed urged the Atlanta Region Transportation Roundtable to delay any decision. He called on members to deliberate the prospect of getting the state to pay into GRTA.

By David Pendered

Proposals to reduce funding for the Atlanta BeltLine, the Ga. 400/I-285 area, and transit lines to Emory University and Cumberland Mall are up for discussion at Thursday’s meeting of the Atlanta Region Transportation Roundtable.

These reductions are among more than $730 million in amendments proposed to the $6.14 billion draft project list the roundtable adopted last month. Almost $12 out of every $100 dollars in the draft list would be redirected, if the amendments are adopted into the referendum for the 1 percent transportation sales tax.

The proposed commuter rail line from Atlanta toward Macon also is back in play. Clayton County proposes to keep it alive with $20 million that would be trimmed from plans to develop Tara Boulevard into a major roadway.

By David Pendered

Emory University and its environs would benefit from the single largest transit investment that’s planned in the proposed 1 percent sales tax for transportation.

The route called the “Clifton Road Corridor” is earmarked to receive $700 million in sales tax funding. The new line would stretch 4.3 miles from MARTA’s Lindbergh Station to a proposed station at the junction of two CSX rail lines, near the corner of North Decatur and Clairmont roads.

The route would serve Emory, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a $250 million mixed use development started last summer by Cousins Properties and Gables Residential.

By David Pendered

Metro Atlanta does not have a clear picture of what sort of entity may be created to govern more than $3 billion in proposed transit investments that will be on the ballot in next year’s vote on a 1 percent transportation sales tax.

Cobb County Chairman Tim Lee cited the lack of clarity in governance as a reason Cobb wants to shift some funding from a proposed rail line, which would link MARTA’s Arts Center Station in Midtown with the Cumberland Mall area, to improving Windy Hill Road and establishing bus service from north Cobb to Midtown.

If any clarity is to come, it isn’t likely to arrive before the waning days of the 2012 state legislative session. State lawmakers could well take the entire session, possibly into April, to haggle over and adopt whatever recommendation comes from Gov. Nathan Deal’s Transit Governance Task Force.

By David Pendered

More than 40 homes and businesses across metro Atlanta will open their doors Saturday to display their solar energy devices.

The self-guided tour will provide a rare, up-close glimpse of the technology that is expected to contribute to the nation’s response to providing energy through renewable resources.

The Georgia Solar Energy Association sponsored a preview tour Friday, giving about 25 persons a sneak peak at the technology that ranges from rooftop devices at a downtown residential condo building to the solar powered vehicle chargers at Atlantic Station.

This story has been updated

By David Pendered

The role of local politics in regional transportation planning emerged Wednesday at the Atlanta Regional Roundtable, which is devising a project list that would be paid for with a proposed 1 percent sales tax.

Three major amendments were formally introduced, and each involves transit. A fourth amendment involving Atlanta’s BeltLine would complete an East-West connection through the city, along North Avenue, linking two proposed segments of the BeltLine with a streetcar.

Here are the highlights of proposals involving Atlanta, Clayton, Cobb and DeKalb counties. The roundtable is to consider them at its meeting Oct. 6:

By David Pendered

The final round of planning for Atlanta’s downtown Gulch is to begin in earnest before the end of the year.

The state is moving forward with its effort to redevelop the Gulch, even though a presumed anchor tenant – commuter rail between Atlanta and Macon – is not now earmarked in the draft list of projects for the proposed 1 cent transportation sales tax voters will consider next year. The Atlanta Regional Roundtable is to approve a final list by Oct. 15.

The state’s idea for the Gulch is to have the private sector lead the redevelopment of 119 acres that have defied renewal efforts for decades. A contract with a development team is to be signed as early as the end of this week, said David Spear, a spokesman of the state Department of Transportation.

By David Pendered

Metro Atlanta, and the remainder of Georgia, appears to be on schedule with the first phase of the state’s historic transportation sales tax referendum.

Lots of final details have to be worked out, not the least of which is whether the date of the vote should be changed from next year’s primary to the general election. The state Legislature is likely to consider that shift at its session that begins in January.

But the tough first step of the transportation effort looks like it will end without any train wrecks by Oct. 15. Local political leaders have been able to come together well enough to create lists of projects. Networks of campaign consultants and fundraisers to lobby voters to approve the sales tax have been created.