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.
The board of the Atlanta Regional Commission unanimously re-elected Kerry Armstrong to serve a third two-year term as chairman at its meeting on Wednesday.
Armstrong, a commercial real estate executive, has served on the ARC board since 2008 as a citizen member representing a district that includes portions of Gwinnett County.
Armstrong was first elected chairman in 2013. His third term will begin on Jan. 1.
Lisa Borders, a former president of the Atlanta City Council, is endorsing Mary Norwood for mayor.
Borders was a mayoral candidate in 2009, and she ended up coming in third – not making the run-off that included Kasim Reed and Norwood. At the time, Borders endorsed Reed, and many believed she helped put him over the top. Reed beat Norwood by just 714 votes.
Eight years later, the tables have turned.
Memo to Atlanta’s next mayor:
Please put a stop to the building of an unnecessary $24 million loopy-loop pedestrian bridge across Northside Drive.
Now let me explain my rationale.
The expensive pedestrian bridge would connect the Vine City MARTA Station with the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The total length of the bridge would be about two blocks to just get pedestrians to cross over a 70-foot crosswalk.
Former DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis is joining the ACLU of Georgia as its first political director.
Andrea Young, executive director of the ACLU of Georgia, said Ellis was one of the first people to respond when the job was posted.
With just a month to go before he leaves office, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed is recommending a fellow Howard University alum to serve as a city appointee to MARTA’s board of directors.
Reed’s appointment of Ryan Glover will go before the Committee on Council and then the full City Council at their respective meetings on Monday.
As published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on November 3, 2017
A year ago, Atlanta-based Intercontinental Exchange Inc. only had one woman on its board. Today, the owner of the New York Stock Exchange has three, reflecting a growing trend among Georgia’s top public companies of having at least three women on their boards.
That’s one of the findings of the just-published 2017 OnBoard study of women directors and executives of Georgia’s publicly owned companies.
The next president of the Atlanta City Council will seek to create a more independent body that will be dedicated to transparency and reforming the city’s procurement process.
The Center for Civic Innovation held a leadership breakfast Thursday morning with the two candidates in the run-off for City Council President – Felicia Moore and Alex Wan – two existing district Councilmembers.
When the City of Atlanta sold the 19-acre Civic Center site to the Atlanta Housing Authority for $31 million, the deal occurred with virtually no public involvement.
It was a deal struck by two public officials – Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and Catherine Buell, president and CEO of the Atlanta Housing Authority.
As published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on October 27, 2017
The City of Refuge, founded 20 years ago, has already helped transform 20,000 lives.
But to listen to founder Bruce Deel, a minister who founded City of Refuge, the nonprofit is just getting started.
It’s been more than two years since historic Gaines Hall caught on fire – and little has been done to save one of the oldest and most significant buildings in Atlanta.
Gaines Hall continues to deteriorate in front of our eyes – a victim of the natural elements as well as inadequate fire insurance coverage. The building also has been in the middle of a hotly contested legal battle between the City of Atlanta’s Invest Atlanta and Clark Atlanta University over who owns land that used to belong to Morris Brown College.
As published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on October 27, 2017
Charlie and Robin Loudermilk have come home.
The father and son have moved their business offices back into the building where they worked for decades.
Built in 1963, the office tower at 309 East Paces Ferry Road was the first high-rise in Buckhead. Charlie Loudermilk bought it in 1970 and for more than 40 years it served as the headquarters for Aaron’s Inc., the furniture and electronics rental company he had founded in 1955. Aaron’s used it as its home base until a couple of years ago, when the company moved to a new headquarters at 400 Galleria Parkway.
By Maria Saporta The Metro Atlanta Chamber has secured Marty Flanagan, CEO of Invesco, to serve as its chair in 2020, it was announced today at the business organization’s annual luncheon on the field of Mercedes-Benz Stadium in front of 2,000 people. The luncheon also had the symbolic passing of the baton from Jeffrey Sprecher, […]
Literacy Action, a nonprofit that provides adult basic education, has named named Kerry McArdle as its new executive director. She will begin her new role on Dec. 4.
McArdle is currently managing director of advancement at KIPP Metro Atlanta Schools, a network of eight public charter schools serving Atlanta’s underserved communities.
A boat and a water tower are among the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation’s 2018 list of the 10 “Places in Peril” across the state.
“It’s the first time we’ve had a boat,” said Mark McDonald, president and CEO of the Georgia Trust, which has been publishing the Places in Peril list for the past 13 years. “But it’s a Georgia boat with a Georgia pedigree.”
At its annual lunch meeting Sunday afternoon at Lindsay Street Baptist Church, Friends of English Avenue launched the Kevin Baker Music Program to provide music lessons to children in the community.
It was the 11th anniversary of the organization, which was co-founded by John Gordon and Rev. Andrew Motley, senior pastor of Lindsay Street Baptist Church.
SaportaReport hit an important milestone this past week.
We brought together our Thought Leader partners and friends for a special evening of fellowship on Nov. 9 – when we discussed how we can improve civic journalism in Atlanta.
The evening culminated with two sequential interviews with Atlanta’s mayoral run-off candidates, when they were able to share their vision for Atlanta’s future. We were the first venue to have a joint appearance of candidates Mary Norwood and Keisha Lance Bottoms after the Nov. 7. general election. Here is our livestream on Facebook.
As published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on October 20, 2017
John Hope Bryant, founder and CEO of Operation HOPE, sees the world through credit scores.
The average credit score for people living in the city of Atlanta is 670. An unnamed county south of the city has an average credit score of 602 while a county to the north of the city has an average score of 720. Credit scores are an indicator of the wealth in an area, and Bryant believes they are key in lessening the income divide.
The Sustainable Atlanta Roundtable on Friday morning set the stage for the Atlanta mayoral run-off campaigns for City Councilwomen Keisha Lance Bottoms and Mary Norwood.
Both candidates described their platforms for making Atlanta a more sustainable city, and both seemed to be keenly aware that the environmentally-focused voters would be critical to winning the Dec. 5 runoff to succeed Mayor Kasim Reed.
A week ago today, Milton Little texted me. “Removing life support shortly and letting her go.”
Less than two hours later: “She’s gone.”
She was Traci Gibson Little, Milton’s wife since July, 1993, and she had been his soulmate since they had met in December 1991. Their love for each other was infectious and complete.
Affordable housing developer Egbert Perry, and his Atlanta-based company – Integral, are fighting back against claims by Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and the Atlanta Housing Authority (AHA) that he had received a sweetheart deal to buy land next to his company’s existing developments.
In an effort to set the record straight, Integral and its development partners filed a legal response late Saturday to an AHA lawsuit. The response seeks to correct several statements AHA and Reed have made, which Perry said are misrepresentations of his company’s actions and history.
