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.
Former Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. would have been proud to have Dr. Helene Gayle receive this year’s Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Progress and Service from Georgia Tech’s Ivan Allen College.
That’s what members of the Allen family said on March 12 after hearing Dr. Gayle, president and CEO of Atlanta-based CARE USA, speak at a lunch in her honor.
The historic Crum & Forster building lives on.
The city of Atlanta’s Board of Zoning Adjustment denied an appeal from the Georgia Tech Foundation, in its quest to get a demolition permit.
The Bureau of Planning had denied Georgia Tech’s request for a demolition permit last year, and that decision was appealed by the foundation.
The BZA board voted 3-0 today to uphold the planning bureau’s decision to deny a demolition
The United States must actively change must of its behavior to reduce carbon emissions, but those changes actually could contribute to a much healthier economy and planet.
Bracken Hendricks, a senior fellow with the Center for American Progress, was the keynote speaker at Southface’s annual Visionary Dinner on March 11 at the Georgia Aquarium.
Hendricks has been focusing on the issues of climate change, energy independence,
Okay. Here’s the plan.
Former Gov. Roy Barnes and Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond, considered the two strongest Democrats in the state, would run as a ticket. Barnes would run for governor. And Thurmond would run for Lt. Governor.
The question is whether this plan is a Democratic Party pipedream or an actual strategy for Democrats to regain control of the state capitol.
On paper, the plan has merit.
Georgia Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond told Atlanta Kiwanis today that the United States is “witnessing a restructuring of the 20th Century economy” — a restructuring that has led to 12.6 million Americans and 416,000 Georgians becoming unemployed.
Thurmond calls this time “the Great Recession” and in his mind, this period provides an opportunity for American workers.
“We can rebuild, re-educate, retrain tens of thousands of Americans,” Thurmond said.
Back in 2003, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin convened the top CEOs in the city to help her steer the city’s future.
The Atlanta Committee for Progress has been meeting ever since taking on such issues as Brand Atlanta, the BeltLine, the Peachtree Corridor, the Atlanta Education Fund, Grady Hospital and the city’s finances.
Most often the Atlanta Committee for Progress will launch an initiative, which will either be spun off into its own effort or assigned to an existing
Striving for great architecture has been hit and miss in Atlanta. Take the mediocre 17th Street bridge, a far cry from the alternative fanciful design by world-renowned architect Santiago Calatrava.
Former Gov. Roy Barnes has gotten pretty good at deflecting “the question.”
He’s enjoying his thriving law practice in Marietta, and he loves spending time with his five grandchildren. So why would he want to enter the 2010 governor’s race?
But when Barnes is asked about the current state of affairs at the state capitol, his political passion quickly bubbles to the surface.
The board of the historic Commerce Club appears ready to merge with another downtown business club — the One Ninety One Club.
“We are moving forward,” said David Ratcliffe, chairman of the Commerce Club board and CEO of the Southern Co. “We reviewed a term sheet, which includes most of the details of the deal. Now we have to translate the term sheet to a written contract. And we will vote up or down next month.”
The Commerce Club and the One Ninety One Club
When the Commerce Club board meets on Thursday, it will be presented with an outline of a proposed term sheet to merge with the One Ninety One Club.
But the board will be given a month to review those terms before being asked whether to approve the merger with the One Ninety One Club, according to David Ratcliffe, CEO of the Southern Co. who is chairman of the Commerce Club board.
Merger discussions have been underway since last
People do care.
About 300 Atlantans attended the first of two nights of presentations of potential designs for the Center for Civil and Human Rights.
Three architectural teams unveiled their designs over three hours Tuesday evening (the remaining two will make their presentations tonight) at the American Cancer Society’s headquarters building.
In an email exchange after the meeting, Doug Shipman, executive director, was obviously
At Atlanta Kiwanis Tuesday, Louise Allen Moore recounted her tenure of nearly four years as CEO of Ivan Allen Workspace.
In December, Moore sold her stake in the company, bringing to an end one of the country’s oldest remaining family businesses. She was the fourth generation of the Allen family to run the business before selling her 51 percent interest to Allsteel, a furniture manufacturer.
In her talk at Kiwanis, Moore traced back the roots of the company to her great-grandfather,
One of the Atlanta Rotary Club’s key philanthropic initiatives has been the Safe Water and AIDs Project in Western Kenya.
The Atlanta Rotary has been a leader among 10 different organizations in helping provide safe water, personal hygene products and micro loans to about 600,000 people living near Lake Victoria in Western Kenya.
Rotarian Blaine Kelley said the project’s entire budget is about $5 million, and a third of those dollars have been raised from Atlanta Rotary.
The United States has made progress, in fits and starts, in trying to become more energy independent. But much of that progress has not been sustained over the years.
That’s the view of Jay Hakes, an energy expert who is director of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and author of the book: “Energy Independence.”
Hakes spoke before Atlanta Rotary today when he provided an historical overview of how different
MARTA needs help.
The largest public transit agency in Georgia may have to dramatically cut service and raise fees and fares in July unless the state legislature votes to give MARTA more flexibility on how it spends its own money.
MARTA’s needs can’t be forgotten in all the legislative
In a hastily-called, open-ended press briefing, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin Thursday was particularly reflective.
She answered numerous questions about public safety — police and fire — as well as possible future budget cuts. But in between the questions, she sprinkled some of her views of politics as well as her life lessons.
Here are a few:
Transportation politics was all the buzz at Thursday night’s annual meeting of the Civic League for Regional Atlanta.
The news that the board of the Georgia Department of Transportation had fired Commissioner Gena Evans had come out only a couple of hours before the dinner at the Twelve hotel in Atlantic Station.
First person I talked to was Sam Olens, chairman of the Atlanta Regional Commission and chairman of the Cobb County Commission.
“The working relationship between the Atlanta Regional Commission, the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority, GDOT and MARTA was
Up until now, proponents for new transportation funding were taking a neutral stand on which version of two bills they preferred.
There’s the Senate version, which would provide a regional two-step approach. First, voters would be asked whether they would favor changing the state constitution to permit a regional one-cent sales tax. Then the region would come up with list of transportation projects that would then be presented to the voters so they could decide whether to support that sales tax.
Then there’s the House version, which calls for a statewide one-cent sales tax with a list of projects already identified by the House.
The current economic and political climate is giving rise to extremists, according to Bill Nigut, the Southeast regional director of the Anti-Defamation League.
“In times like these, hatred and bigotry flourish,” said Nigut, whose organization fights prejudice in society. “We have even seen a backlash to the (President Barack) Obama election in the white extremist community.”
Nigut, a longtime political reporter for WSB-TV, joined the ADL in January, 2007 after serving as executive director of the Metro Atlanta Arts & Culture Coalition for three years.
After 30 years at the Georgia World Congress Center, Khalil Johnson announced today that he will retire as chief operating officer on Aug. 1.
Johnson has been an integral part of GWCC’s operations for decades.
Before he was named COO in 2002, Johnson was general manager of the Georgia Dome. In that role, he was involved in the 1996 Summer Olympics, two Super Bowls, SEC football championships and several basketball tournaments including one Final Four and several NCAA regional matches.
Dan Graveline, GWCC’s executive director, broke the news at the monthly meeting of his authority.
