Author Archives: Saba Long

Forty. It is a number of biblical significance. Oftentimes in the Old Testament, God used the number 40 as a time period of intense trials and testing of the peoples’ faith. Goliath terrorized the Israelites for 40 days before a young shepherd boy hurled a stone toward his forehead. Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness fasting and was then tempted by the devil.

And in just 40 days, the Georgia General Assembly blazed through the legislative session in what seemed to be a race to take the logic out of lawmaking.

Too frequently, Georgia’s children take the proverbial bullet for legislators and “suits” lacking the spine to stand up to interest groups and the old way of doing things. We saw it firsthand this session with the attempted rush job at privatizing foster care. But perhaps where this behavior hurt Georgia families the most was with the failure to pass the medical marijuana and autism insurance bills.

A personal friend of mine watched with deep disappointment the hacking of and eventual demise of the autism insurance bill. He and his longtime partner have already spent thousands in healthcare costs associated with their toddler’s autism.

Earlier this week, I took advantage of a rare evening of sunshine to enjoy sushi and sake outside at Strip in Atlantic Station. While dining, I watched young children playing tag, couples chatting on benches, a photo shoot taking place, amongst other activities.

My thoughts drifted to a recent The Urbanist podcast from Monocle featuring Dr. Ray Oldenburg, who coined the term, the “third place.” Our private home is considered our “first” place while our “second” place is the work environment.

“Life without community has produced, for many, a life style consisting mainly of a home-to-work-and-back-again shuttle. Social well-being and psychological health depend upon community.

Six years ago, Vladimir Putin, then prime minister of Russia, accused the United States of stirring up conflict in the Republic of Georgia as a way to influence the 2008 presidential election.

The Kremlin’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, called the Bush Administration’s support of Georgia a “special project” and warned the United States it would have to choose between future ties to Moscow and its relationship with Georgia.

Putin banned exports from a number of U.S. poultry companies under the guise of failed health inspections, alleging that meat being transported to Russia contained arsenic.

In the book, “A Little War That Shook the World: Georgia, Russia and the Future of the West,” one can indeed get a glimpse into Putin’s soul.

“You think you can trust the Americans, and they will rush to assist you?” Putin asked, according to a Georgian record of the talk. “Nobody can be trusted! Except me.”

Atlanta – this may come as a surprise, but when it comes to transparency in data keeping, we’re faring better than other large cities.

Through events such as Random Hacks and Govathon, civic hackathons are becoming the norm within the city limits. In fact, just this weekend, Atlanta transparency advocates participated for the first time in CodeAcross, a global event in its third year organized by Code for America, the Sunlight Foundation and the Open Knowledge Foundation – all leading open government organizations.

This year’s theme Beyond Transparency focused on establishing an open data inventory to include, among other items, city code enforcement violations, business listings and procurement processes.

Nationwide, CodeAcross participants assessed the availability of city data and catalogued its inventory on the U.S. City Open Data Census. Of the participating cities, Atlanta received high marks in transparency, ahead of Washington, D.C. and Seattle.

The K-12 education system is overwhelmingly rote in nature. Students memorize formulas and facts year after year, moving from one standardized test to the next.

Yet we know real life application and tangible problem solving skills gives students a sense of place in the world around them.

Across the country, school boards are hearing proposals to bring the Maker mentality into classrooms. Four years ago at the request of the school superintendent, Emily Pilloton and Matthew Miller of Studio H developed a yearlong lesson plan for juniors at a high school in Bertie, a sprawling, rural county in North Carolina.

The students, they proposed, would design and build projects meaningful to the town’s agricultural economy, including a chicken coop. Students would learn welding, and the basics of architecture would be acquired. Soft skills such as team building and critical thinking would be developed during each project.

The federal minimum wage debate is taking place in editorial boards, gold-domed capitols and boardrooms across America. Raise it to lift people out of poverty, some say. Others argue an increase will cripple job growth.

The waters of truth are murky in this hyper-partisan climate, making it difficult to determine the credibility of economic forecasts footed by various chambers of commerce and policy.

Last week, national journalists unapologetically exposed Georgia and metro region’s dirty laundry. A mere few inches of snow crippled the state and the ninth largest metro area in the union. Frustrations and anger were displayed. And the blame-laying commenced.

An hour before the snow began to fall, I walked (a reliable form of transportation in a snow storm) to a Capitol press conference.

A few days ago, Arizona’s GOP leadership formally censored the state’s senior U.S. Sen. John McCain for what they deem to be a liberal voting record.

U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, who infamously stated that the single most important thing the Republican Party could achieve was for President Barack Obama to be a one-term president, is facing primary opposition for not being a conservative Republican.

Four months ago, two Atlanta technology leaders, Scott Henderson and Rhonda Lowry, organized Core Reaction, a regional collaborative focused on helping the greater Atlanta area to thrive, play and grow.

Moving swiftly from ideation to sustainability, 13 teams ultimately transitioned to six final projects that are now in the early stages of public use.

Later this year, the metro Atlanta region will reach the end of the state mandated 24-month cooling off period before voters can reconsider another attempt at a regional transportation referendum.

With no known “Plan B” in the works, the Atlanta Regional Commission is in the process of revising the PLAN 2040 Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) to reflect current funding realities and updated MAP-21 requirements – ahead of a federally mandated 2016 RTP update.

The city of Atlanta has the capacity to have a catalytic four years ahead. My back of the napkin wish list for the New Year includes three wishes.

They are for city leaders and developers to have a greater focus on repurposing vacant industrial space; to rethink affordable housing and transportation; and to turn Atlanta into a city that sparks the creative curiousity of the Generation Y population — giving us a reason to stay and make this our home.

Earlier this month, former Vice President Dick Cheney opined on FOX News about American exceptionalism.

“I don’t think that Barack Obama believes in the U.S. as an exceptional nation, and the whole concept that the world is a safer place, a more peaceful place, when the U.S. is powerful, able to in fact project its will in various places around the world,” Cheney said.

Here is a Georgia statistic we can be proud of. The Chronicle of Philanthropy notes the state ranks sixth nationally in charitable giving, with $4.8 billion in total contributions, averaging 6.2 percent of total income given.

As Georgians aged from 20 years to 44 years make up more than 35 percent of the total population, and those under 20 year nearly 29 percent, not-for-profit organizations are actively recruiting younger donors and finding creative ways to tap into their discretionary spending.

Four years ago our city came to the proverbial fork in the road in selecting a new Atlanta mayor and some freshman council members.

The 2009 campaigns highlighted tremendous concerns related to public safety and the fiscal wellbeing of the city. Significant revenue losses due to the Great Recession Atlanta led the Council and administration at the time to increase property taxes, an incredibly risky election year decision.

Elections have consequences, and the City of Atlanta elections on Dec. 3 will be among the most important run-off contests we have seen in quite some time.

Just three weeks ago, a mere 20 percent of registered Atlanta voters cast ballots in the general city and school board elections. Four of the Atlanta school board races ended up in run-offs. And those will be decided next Tuesday.

While media coverage has been sparse at best – headlines these days are focused on stadia — taxpayers and the general public ought to focus just as fervently on the future of a school district yearning for a new day.

This past weekend proved Govathon is easily becoming one of the most important events hosted at Atlanta’s City Hall.

Its second civic hackathon was ripe with ideas from city department heads, including finance, public works, Invest Atlanta and the airport.

In less than 24 hours, the teams presented 22 projects to judges and participants, three of which were specific to Atlanta Public Schools. One such application, RightRoute, allows parents and school administrators’ track real-time bus locations and arrival times.

On the heels of (co)lab, a thought leadership conference, many conversations have taken place across the city and the metro region on how to move Atlanta forward. While the dialogue is always stimulating in these types of settings, people move on to the day-to-day minutiae of their respective lives.

Over two days last week, a new project was birthed in the hopes of moving from ideation to collaboration and implementation of projects that can truly move the city forward via a theme of thrive, play and grow.

Weekend projects. We all have them but I doubt any of ours were as exciting as what the folks at Atlanta Maker worked on this past weekend.

The Georgia Tech Invention Studio partnered with the Coca-Cola Co. and General Electric to host a special “maker” edition of Startup Weekend, the second of its kind in the world.

A decades-long haven for international refugees, the City of Clarkston is easily the most diverse square mile of DeKalb County and the State of Georgia.

With a population of nearly 8,000, the Ellis Island of the South is in the midst of an interesting mayoral and City Council elections with the incumbent mayor, Emanuel Ransom, an African-American, facing two challengers – Ibrahim Awow Sufi, a Somali-American; and Ted Terry, a resident of Clarkston for the past two years.

In his book “Political Ideals,” British philosopher Bertrand Russell opined political and social institutions should “encourage creativeness rather than possessiveness” and should “embody a spirit of reverence between human beings.”

These same themes are what make a city competitive and a corporate culture envied.  As such, it is no surprise the broad strokes of Russell’s thoughts were painted time and time again throughout Leadership Atlanta’s recent, inaugural (co)lab summit on tackling innovation,  education and talent acquisition and retention in the Atlanta region.