Maria Saporta, executive editor, is a longtime Atlanta business, civic and urban affairs journalist with a deep knowledge of our city, our region and state. From 2008 to 2020, she wrote weekly columns and news stories for the Atlanta Business Chronicle. Prior to that, she spent 27 years with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, becoming its business columnist in 1991. Maria received her Master’s degree in urban studies from Georgia State and her Bachelor’s degree in journalism from Boston University. Maria was born in Atlanta to European parents and has two young adult children. She launched SaportaReport in February 2009.
My heart sank when Bernice King issued a statement last week that her two brothers wanted to sell their father’s Nobel Peace Prize medal and his traveling Bible. They had gone so far as to file a lawsuit to get possession of those priceless treasures.
One could almost hear a collective groan from Atlanta and beyond. Here we go again. Here are the King children squabbling among themselves, taking each other to court, showing the world that they are unable to resolve their differences.
By Maria Saporta
MARTA was one of three transit agencies built at the same time — BART in San Francisco and METRO in Washington, D.C.
Both BART and METRO today have about 100 miles of rail, but MARTA only has 48 miles — giving fuel to the argument that it is a skeletal system.
But if its up to MARTA General Manager Keith Parker the transit agency will re-enter into an expansion mode as soon as fiscally possible.
“MARTA has only reached half of its potential,” Parker told members of the Rotary Club of Atlanta on Monday. “We are a transit system we feel is poised to do much more, to be like Washington and San Francisco, which are 100-mile transit authorities.”
By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on February 07, 2014
Atlanta-based ToolBank USA — and its nine ToolBanks across the country — is now ready within 72 hours to help any community in the United States struck by disaster.
The Atlanta nonprofit unveiled its new mobile disaster unit on Feb. 6 that it will be able to deploy to any community that has been ravaged by storms or hurricanes or earthquakes or any catastrophe requiring large-scale volunteer response teams working on the ground.
By Maria Saporta
An updated update: Due to weather concerns, the memorial service now is scheduled for Friday, Feb. 14 at 2 p.m. at Second Ponce de Leon Baptist Church. The family will be receiving guests immediately following the service in the Robinson Atrium at the High Museum of Art. In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that donations be made to either Emory University’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center or the High Museum of Art.
Legendary Atlanta businessman J. Mack Robinson passed away Saturday night after a long illness.
Robinson, 90, enjoyed one of the most colorful professional lives of any businessman in Atlanta — experiencing the worlds of banking, insurance, fashion design, media, horse racing and numerous other business sectors.
Throughout his life, Robinson was probably best known as a polite, soft-spoken Southern gentleman who rarely had an unkind word for anyone.
By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on January 31, 2014
Rhodes Hall, the home of the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, needs some love (and money).
The Georgia Trust is launching the public phase of a $1.7 million campaign to fund the green rehabilitation and restoration of Rhodes Hall. It already has secured more than $1.5 million in grants and pledges.
Rhodes Hall is one of the last remaining grand mansions that used to line Peachtree Street at the turn of the last century.
By Maria Saporta
Gov. Nathan Deal used the forum of speaking to the high-level board of the Commerce Club at its Thursday lunch to talk about a “few things we had in the budget designed to stimulate economic development in our state.”
After the closed lunch meeting, Deal spent a few minutes in an interview to talk about what issues were on the minds of some of the top business leaders in Atlanta.
Deal, who had been invited to speak to the Commerce Club board three times in 2013 but ended up having to cancel each time, also outlined his plans for criminal justice reform and education in the state.
After his prepared remarks, business leaders asked the governor about what the state should do to fix the transportation issues that exist in metro Atlanta.
By Maria Saporta
Bernice A. King – the youngest and only living daughter of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. – issued the strongest statement yet against her two brothers — Dexter Scott King and Martin Luther King III — and their desire to sell two of their late father’s prized possessions.
Bernice King, CEO of the Martin Luther King Center for Nonviolent and Social Change, went public Tuesday about how her brothers now want to sell her father’s Nobel Peace Prize medal and his personal Bible.
Once again, the King brothers used a monumental date in order to take an action against their sister. They first filed a suit trying to get her ousted as a CEO of the King Center on Aug. 28, 2013 — the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.
By Maria Saporta
Thanks to their popularity and demand for original and branded entertainment, Turner Broadcasting System’s Animation, Young Adults and Kids Media offerings will be expanding and undergoing strategic changes, the company announced Tuesday morning.
The expansions and strategic changes will impact Adult Swim, the Cartoon Network and the all-cartoon-classics Boomerang.
Stuart Snyder, president and COO of Turner’s AYAKM (Animation, Young Adults and Kids Media), announced the following changes:
By Maria Saporta
A stand-off is intensifying between the west side communities and the Atlanta Falcons over the future alignment of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive around the new football stadium.
The presidents of the four Atlanta University colleges wrote a letter on Jan. 24 to Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, Atlanta City Council President Ceasar Mitchell and Frank Poe, executive director of the Georgia World Congress Center expressing “deep concern” about the latest plans for the street.
Beverly Tatum, president of Spelman College who serves as chair of the Atlanta University Center Consortium, sent the letter on behalf of her colleagues — the presidents of Morehouse College, Morehouse School of Medicine and Clark Atlanta University as well as the thousands of students that attend their institutions.
By Maria Saporta
In an all-too-rare spirit of bipartisan cooperation, U.S. Senators Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) appeared jointly at the Rotary Club of Atlanta urging for the federal government to convert to a two-year budget cycle.
“We have to change the way we do business in Washington,” said Shaheen, a former governor of New Hampshire who was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2008.
Snow jam 2014 opened a window for us see ourselves through the eyes of how the rest of nation and the world sees us.
And what they saw was an Atlanta that did not have its act together.
What they could not see or understand was why. From the images of cars and trucks on highways that had turned into parking lots they did not see political dividing lines separating the multitude of counties and cities in our region.
By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on January 31, 2014
For the Atlanta Braves to break ground on a new stadium in Cobb County by Jan. 1, 2015, a “Herculean effort” will be required to get all the legal and financial agreements in place.
The Braves, in fact, will have to accomplish in less than a year what is taking the Atlanta Falcons, the Georgia World Congress Center Authority and the city of Atlanta more than two years to put together. And the new Braves stadium is supposed to open ahead of the new Atlanta Falcons stadium in time for the 2017 baseball season.
By Maria Saporta
The Atlanta Press Club is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2014 by looking forward rather than focusing on the past.
The APC’s “Forward at Fifty” initiative will seek to leverage the anniversary year as a way of strengthening the role of journalism in serving the public interest. The year-long series of events will unfold under three themes — “Celebrate, Educate and Engage.” The Cox Media Group will sponsor the APC’s “Forward at Fifty” initiative.
By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on January 24, 2014
Under the leadership of developer Mark Toro, the Livable Communities Council has selected an all-star group of 50 real estate professionals as members.
By Maria Saporta
A sold out audience attended the world premier concert of the National Arab Orchestra at Atlanta’s Symphony Hall Friday night — living up to its billing — “Building Bridges through Music.”
Even Gov. Nathan Deal wrote a letter of welcome to the National Arab Orchestra and the concert attendees that was printed in the evening’s program. “On behalf of the State of Georgia, it is a pleasure to be a part of this special performance,” Deal wrote.
The host of the Atlanta concert was Nue Medical Consulting, a health information technology company based in Lawrenceville. The event helped the National Arab Orchestra in its quest to meet a $100,000 challenge grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Arts Challenge for an inaugural innovative music program to benefit Detroit’s students.
By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on January 24, 2014
The Georgia World Congress Center Authority and the Savannah convention center are exploring a potential partnership that could lead to the GWCCA taking over the management contract of the trade center on Hutchinson Island.
One of Atlanta’s greatest architects — Henri Jova — has passed away.
Jova, 94, died on Jan. 13 in West Palm Beach, Fla. after a short illness, according to his partner of 42 years — David Rinehart. A celebration of his life is planned at the Atlanta Botanical Garden on Thursday, April 3 at 5 pm.
By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on January 17, 2014
The YWCA of Greater Atlanta will close its five-bedroom Cascade House for homeless women and children on Jan. 17 so it can focus its efforts on its other core programs.
The “Women in Transition” homeless program, located at the Cascade House in southwest Atlanta, cost the YWCA nearly $250,000 to operate last year.
By Maria Saporta
The Atlanta Regional Commission, even with a new slate of elected officials as board members, reached another stalemate Wednesday in the election of a citizen board member.
Once again, the deadlock revolved around the election of the citizen member representing District 11 — which mainly covers portions of DeKalb and Fulton counties and a sliver of Cobb County.
That district has been represented by Tad Leithead of Cobb County, who has just finished serving two terms as chair of the Atlanta Regional Commission.
Citizen members are approved by the 23 elected officials on the ARC board — and bylaws call for members to receive at least a majority of the votes — putting the threshold at 12.
In December, the elected officials met to vote between Leithead and Minuard “Mickey” McGuire, an urban planner who had been proposed by Lee May, the interim CEO of DeKalb County.
By Maria Saporta
With opening day exactly four months away, the National Center for Civil and Human Rights is announcing several strategic hires as part of its management team.
“It’s an exciting time for us at the Center,” said Doug Shipman, CEO of the attraction that is under construction on Pemberton Place — the same block that houses the Georgia Aquarium and the World of Coca-Cola.
“Our grand opening is fast approaching, and it’s a great feeling to have a high caliber team of individuals leading us to a successful launch,” Shipman added. “I look forward to the contributions of each of our new additions.”
