Author Archives: Teresa Johnston

By Guest Columnist VALARIE WILSON, board chair of Decatur City Schools and executive director of the BeltLine Partnership

From tea parties to the tone of the President Barack Obama’s recent State of the Union address, populism is in the air. And it is difficult to have a discussion about policy or politics today without someone wondering aloud about whether our democracy is broken.

But as a citizen and public servant, I have to ask, is the problem the system and the powers that be – or is it us?

I am fortunate to have the opportunity to serve the public and the public’s interest as Chair of the Board of Education for the City Schools of Decatur and as Executive Director of the BeltLine Partnership.

By Guest Columnist MIKE “STINGER” GLENN, former Atlanta Hawks basketball player, broadcaster, book collector and lover of history.

My love of books began with my mother, Annye Wilkes Glenn, my first and best teacher. Mom first taught me literacy by reading countless bedtime and daytime stories and feeding my inquisitive and developing mind with intrigue and fascinations.

Mom, who taught elementary school her entire career, was my teacher in the third, fourth, and fifth grades. Mrs. Glenn, as I was instructed to call her at school, mandated reading periods—even in the summertime for her children- and discussions of lessons learned. She would always ask me, “Michael, what lesson did you learn from the book that you read?”

I loved sports books, but I was not allowed to limit

By Guest Columnist JOE BEASLEY, director of human services at Atlanta’s Antioch Baptist Church North

PORT-AU-PRINCE — The stars in heaven over Haiti this week remind me of the strength of hope I have for the people of this island, just as the stars always have reminded me of hope during my 15-plus years as a volunteer servant in this country.

Our small mission to Haiti slept in a host home in Delmas, located between downtown Port-au-Prince and Pationsville. Well, we didn’t actually sleep in the home. Although I could have slept in the same beautifully appointed room where I’ve enjoyed countless comfortable nights over the years, our members decided to sleep on pads under the open sky with our awesome God as our watchman.

This sky and country is familiar to me. My work here

By Guest Columnist DENNIS CREECH,
executive director of the Southface Energy Institute

Did you know that Georgia leads the nation in green affordable housing?

Just last week, Global Green USA released its fifth green building rating summary of state qualified allocation plans (QAP) which guide the annual distribution of federal Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) – a vital program that encourages developers to build affordable housing. And yet again, Georgia ranks at the top of the list, tied for first place with Connecticut!

Because of the outstanding efforts of the Georgia Department of Community Affairs (DCA), which is responsible for establishing the QAP for Georgia, our state has ranked at the top of the Global Green list for the past five years.

By Guest Columnist DICK ANDERSON, director of the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority

(This column is in response to last week’s Maria’s Metro Column: “If we can’t do it right, maybe we should put the brakes on new transportation funding.”)

As the General Assembly takes up again the issue of transportation funding, we begin with a clear path forward in terms of needed investment, strategies that would produce superior returns and a quantified view of growth in our gross domestic product (GDP), jobs and reduction in congestion that will result.

We have made a strong business case for transportation investment. With $65 billion in incremental investment over the next 20 years, the state of Georgia could realize $480 billion in GDP growth and 425,000 new jobs.

From my view, now is the time to press forward. So, I was puzzled by Maria Saporta’s recent suggestion that

By Guest Columnist ARNIE SILVERMAN, owner of Silverman Construction Program Management.

Parks promote. Parks transform. Parks stimulate. Parks sell.

You can see it in Centennial Olympic Park, which transformed a dangerous and derelict part of downtown Atlanta into a vibrant commercial center with a growing tourism and residential sector.

You can see it in Piedmont Park, a focal point for residents from all areas of the city who gather to enjoy its trails, playgrounds and nearby restaurants and shops. Piedmont Park is the back yard for the tens of thousands of new residents who populate Midtown’s high-rises and neighborhoods.

Never has the selling point of parks and other public

By Guest Columnist GEORGE DUSENBURY, executive director of Park Pride

Parks are the best of Atlanta; they are the worst of Atlanta. They are the foundations of community; they are the foundations of crime. They are the catalyst of economic development; they are the catalyst of middle-class flight. They are the epitome of excellence; they are the epitome of mediocrity. They promise everything before us; they promise nothing before us.

It all depends on how they are maintained.

As executive director of Park Pride, Atlanta’s nonprofit park and park advocacy group, I have seen in all corners of metro Atlanta how maintenance can make or

By Guest Columnist E. FRED YALOURIS, director of design for Atlanta BeltLine Inc.

I am often asked about my decision to move to Atlanta without a car, and, if there is time, I like to take the opportunity to bore my listener with the story of how I made this decision.

I had come to Atlanta a month before starting work at the BeltLine to attend a public meeting at City Hall. It was on a beautiful spring day, Saturday afternoon, May 2, 2008. The sun was shining, the outside temperature was 64 degrees, and you could smell the spring blossoms in the air.

It was such a nice afternoon, that, after an excellent public meeting, I decided to walk the nine or ten blocks up Peachtree to my hotel. To my naïve surprise, except

By Guest Columnist LYNNETTE YOUNG, CEO and executive director of Sustainable Atlanta

For the last 18 months, Sustainable Atlanta has engaged leaders and experts from Atlanta’s academic, business, governmental sectors and non-profits to work on updating Atlanta’s current building code to make the city a better place to live, work and play.

Unfortunately, the Atlanta City Council missed a tremendous opportunity by shelving the Atlanta Sustainable Building Ordinance (ASBO) during their last meeting as a Council on December 7, 2009.

By making the decision to not pass this piece of legislation that protects the health and welfare of all Atlantans, they have marred their legacy.

By Guest Columnist LAURA HEERY PROZES, AIA, executive co-chair of the Congress for the New Urbanism 18

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have tracked a virulent virus, spreading since the 1950’s, crossing borders and oceans, with host bodies adapting remarkably to this disease.

Americans have adapted to the imbedded foreign bacteria, unaware of the extent that lives and health are compromised. In fact, we have been living remarkably well with the virus, perhaps similar to how we integrate cancer, diabetes, asthma, hypertension into daily lives.

Symptoms from the virus are mundane, such as obesity, and other symptoms have new names, such as Nature Deficit Disorder. We have prostheses to offset the health and lifestyle limitations, elevators to avoid stairs, cars to our doorsteps.

By Guest Columnist State Sen. DOUG STONER (D-Cobb)

In little over a month, my fellow legislators and I will be returning to Atlanta to begin a new session under the Gold Dome. This will be my eighth session of representing my hometown of Smyrna and South Cobb County, including two in the House of Representatives and six in the Senate.

The coming session appears similar to my first session in 2003. Georgia was just beginning to recover from a recession, and revenues had dropped for 18 straight months. We had nearly exhausted our reserve funds and were facing a $600 million budget shortfall.

How did my fellow legislators, along with Gov. Perdue, confront this budget challenge in 2003? First, the new governor picked the most conservative of the three projected revenue estimates for the coming year. Second, the governor proposed a mixture of budget cuts and

By Guest Columnist HATTIE DORSEY, president of HBDorsey & Associates and former president of Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership (ANDP).

The AJC wrote an article last week about the “disaffected voters” – those who seem to believe that no matter who is elected in the current campaign, their quality of life will continue unchanged, if not ignored.

In mulling over this subject and thinking about last year’s national elections, I thought of Pearl Cleage’s poem, “I Speak Your Name”. My take on why disaffected voters feel the way they do is that they simply do not hear their name in the messages spoken by this year’s candidates.

A critical run-off election will take place on Dec. 1 for the Mayor of Atlanta and the City Council, and, this time, the national media is watching for the outcome. The turnout is again expected to be very low. And in

By Guest Columnist BRUCE GUNTER, founder and president of Progressive Redevelopment Inc.

Lost in the understandable focus on the meltdown in the single-family housing market is the everyday truth that Atlanta has a galling lack of affordable housing for those with very low incomes.

Most of the very affordable housing stock that we do have is rental, and much of it is scattered around the region in apartment complexes in varying degrees of repair. Even as the drop in for-sale housing prices renders single family housing more affordable (a very good thing), quality rental housing remains out of reach for many who live on incomes below $35,000. This is not a minor matter to this part of the population that resides in a city that remains stubbornly poor.

As a region, our housing priorities must be to first stem the tide of foreclosures, setting the stage for a return to

By Guest Columnist MICHAEL WALLS, chairman of MARTA’s board of directors

For more than three decades, metro Atlanta has awakened every morning secure in the knowledge that MARTA trains, buses and para-transit vehicles were up and running.

Day after day after day, year after year, MARTA has provided safe, reliable and affordable transportation to millions of people who have come to depend on the critical services we provide. As chairman of the MARTA Board of Directors, I can’t tell you how proud I am of the fact that we carry 500,000 passengers daily.

Lately, however, some sadly misinformed detractors of mass transit in general, and MARTA in particular, have questioned the vital importance of the service to our customers and to the broader community. For those

By Guest Columnist MIKE KLEIN, former CNN & Georgia Public Broadcasting executive whose online column is written at www.mikekleinonline.com.

This past Sunday morning we jumped into the minivan and took off down the road toward one of those large discount stores that sells everything for less. The young man standing outside our neighborhood entrance held aloft his sign that said “Will do any Work. Family Depends on Me.”

He is a reminder that unemployment is personal. It matters little that 90 percent of the working eligible population has a job if you are in the 10 percent that needs a job. Even those numbers are artificial. Americans who exhaust jobless benefits no longer appear in government reports. Hundreds of thousands try to cover living expenses with multiple part-time positions. Some quit looking.

By Guest Columnist ANNE OSTHOLTHOFF, founder and CEO of ArtsNOW/Creating Pride.

We want our young people to think critically, creatively and demonstrate an ability to solve problems and communicate effectively in today’s workplace. To achieve that goal, then all school leaders should take note, assess their priorities and make sure the arts are central to their school improvement plans for student success.

The reasons are twofold: First, educational research in school reform proves over and over again that students who are engaged in the arts outperform students who are not. Secondly, it is a relatively low-cost first step for school administrators and faculty in helping teachers provide engaging work in the classroom that captures the attention of students.

By Guest Columnist SPENCE ROSENFELD, founder and president of Arborguard Tree Specialists

Maybe I was particularly vulnerable to the irresistable nature of trees. From a very young age I just had to climb them. Later I built a treehouse and lived among the branches of a giant Black Cherry for most of my High School summers. In college I decided my career would be to work with people and trees.

Finally, I took the bold step of starting a special kind of tree care business designed to bring people and trees close together. Looking back now at nearly 60 years of age, I feel like one of the most fortunate people in the

By Guest Columnist JOHN AHMANN, executive director of the Atlanta Committee for Progress and owner of a public policy communications firm.

With the transition of the City of Atlanta’s Mayor and City Council just around the corner, what can we expect to find as our newly elected leaders turn their focus from running for office to running the City?

These new leaders will walk in the door armed with not only accurate information about the City’s cash flows and projected revenues and expenses for the coming fiscal year, but for the first time, financial projections for the next five years. Catching up with technology investments the private sector made years ago, the City recently completed the launch of an enterprise resource planning system. Akin to the quantum leap

By Guest Columnist MADELYN R. ADAMS, executive director of the East Lake Foundation

This week, golf fans all over the nation will focus their attention on Atlanta. Our own East Lake Golf Club will once again host THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola, the season-ending tournament for the PGA TOUR’s top 30 players.

While television viewers watch the world’s best golfers compete, they may also catch a glimpse of the neighborhood surrounding the historic golf club. They might notice East Lake’s new housing options, gleaming charter school and award-winning public golf course. What they may not know, though, is that there’s a lot more to East Lake than new buildings and green fairways.

Not all that long ago, the stories coming out of East

By Guest Columnist AUDREY PETERMAN, president and co-founder of Earthwise Productions Inc., a consulting and publishing company. For 13 years, Audrey and her husband, Frank, have published the travel and environmental periodical: “Pickup & Go.”

“There is so much that can, and must be accomplished when we know what is happening to our environment and its direct impact on each of our lives. No one person, group or organization can bring about complete awareness and comprehensive change alone. . .”

That statement was made in 2006 in a letter sent to me, and my husband Frank by the Rev. Gerald Durley, a prominent Atlanta pastor.

Rev. Durley was explaining what inspired him to become “a missionary for the environment” after seeing