Category: Guest Column

By Guest Columnist W. IMARA CANADY, vice president of programming and strategic partnerships for the National Center for Civil and Human Rights

Last month, as a result of an invitation by the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta, I was able to experience one of the most powerful and transforming moments of my life.

Through a program called “Celebrating Success”, I joined a small, but diverse group of concerned Atlantans for a lunch-time session, where, broken up into small groups, we listened to formerly homeless individuals tell the story of their successful, but difficult road to self-sufficiency.

This moment in time transformed my life. As a young, middle class African-American male that grew up in

By Guest Columnist WILL WINGATE, vice president of advocacy and land conservation for the Georgia Conservancy

As the 2010 Georgia General Assembly draws to a close, one of the success stories of the session is the near unanimous passage of the Senate Bill 370, also known as the “Water Stewardship Act.”

This groundbreaking legislation sets forth a “culture of conservation” when dealing with Georgia’s water resources.

While the conservation measures set forth in the legislation are important, the willingness of the environmental and business communities to sit down and work together towards a common purpose will set

By Guest Columnist BETH BOND, editor and managing partner of Southeast Green.

There is a vortex of activity revolving around renewable energy here in the state of Georgia. Can you feel it?

These past couple of weeks have been monumental for Atlanta. We had two of the leading minds on carbon and renewable energy in the country, if not the world, speak separately and yet with the same voice several times to local audiences.

Who were they? Dr. Richard Sandor the chairman of the Chicago Climate Exchange; and Jigar Shah the chief executive director of the Carbon War Room, a non-profit started by Sir Richard Branson to help produce solutions for businesses that are interested in reducing

By Guest Columnist BRIAN LEARY, president and CEO of Atlanta BeltLine Inc.

On a rural highway outside one of the South’s busiest ports, the largest German investment ever in the United States is on schedule and on budget to employ 2,700 employees by 2012.

ThyssenKrupp’s $3.7 billion investment is further proof that our agreeable weather and hospitality; expansive interstate, rail network and long-term prospects for growth are positive factors contributing to the ongoing interest and investment of the world’s largest and most successful companies.

Where ThyssenKrup chose to build their new steel mill shouldn’t come as a surprise. The team that brought this technologically-advanced plant from an old world

By Guest Columnist SAM A. Williams, president of the Metro Atlanta Chamber

A recent SaportaReport column accused the business community of neglecting transit.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The fact is, no one has pushed harder for improving transportation – including transit – than the business community.

For years, the Metro Atlanta Chamber and its board of top business leaders have pushed aggressively inside and outside the Capitol for transportation funding.

We created one of the largest and most diverse transportation coalitions in the history of this state,

By Guest Columnist BILL FLOYD, Mayor of the City of Decatur and president of the Georgia Municipal Association

There are a number of interesting conversations going on nationally about the role of cities.

The common theme among the various discussions is that cities matter. They are seen as critical elements in our economic recovery, and they are considered to be core components in tackling any number of critical issues facing our society.

But in Georgia the discussion about cities doesn’t reflect the national conversation. Too often cities are painted, along with counties and local schools, as ineffective and not representing the needs of their citizens.

By Guest Columnist JAMES OXENDINE, CEO of the Oxendine Group, a public policy consulting firm specializing in economic and transit-oriented development.

Noted author, Malcolm Gladwell, has characterized the potentially massive implications of small scale events known as tipping points: “the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable.”

After 13 years of sitting around unused, the federal funds that U.S. Rep. David Scott (D-Atlanta) secured for the commuter rail line to Lovejoy have emerged as not only a linchpin for Atlanta and Georgia’s future federal

By Guest Columnist MICHAEL WALLS, an attorney who is a former MARTA board chairman and currently serves on the board.

We all know the story. MARTA was conceived as a five-county transit system but after the three suburban counties opted not to participate, it was developed as a two-county system for Fulton and DeKalb Counties.

For over 30 years those two counties have paid a one-percent sales tax that has been used to fund the construction and operation of MARTA. Not surprisingly, the fact that the three suburban counties chose not tax themselves to support the system has led to a certain amount of resentment among many in Fulton

By Guest Columnist LEE BIOLA, president of Citizens for Progressive Transit and a worker’s compensation lawyer.

Georgia built a world class public transportation system. Georgia destroyed a world class transportation system. Georgia can build a world class transit system again.

It was 1836. Georgia legislators sitting in Augusta voted to fund a taxpayer subsidized rail line out in the middle of nowhere. They wanted the line to run from one obscure dot on the map to another.

It was the best investment the people of Georgia ever made.

One of those dots on the map became Atlanta. The other became Chattanooga.

The tax-subsidized rail line helped transform tiny communities into economic powerhouses. Following the

By Guest Columnist STACY SHELTON, former environmental reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution who is now a public affairs specialist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Southeast Regional Office in Atlanta

Pat Epps, owner of Epps Aviation at Dekalb-Peachtree Airport, recently offered me the chance to ride along on a mission to Haiti with one of his pilots. I said yes in part because I wanted to see some of the devastation up close. My old newspaper reflexes had kicked in, the ones that compelled me to scramble for a front row seat to news event.

But on the 13-hour trip, which began and ended at PDK, I was never more than 100 yards from the airplane. I didn’t see the ruins, or its many victims. Just small tent cities and blue tarps over cinderblock buildings as we flew in and out.

By Guest Columnist SAM PETTWAY, founding director of BoardWalk Consulting and founding trustee of the Atlanta Police Foundation.

Since moving here as an executive search consultant in 1977, I have come to know Atlanta as a city that expects and rewards civic engagement from its leaders.

My consulting practice has taken me to all 50 states and dozens of other countries over the past 32 years, and I have been privileged to recruit leaders to nonprofit and for-profit organizations based in scores of cities. Although at least three quarters of my clients have been based elsewhere (a common fact for Atlanta-based executive search consultants), I can say that Atlanta has consistently been the easiest city to sell to senior executives.

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.