Category: Guest Column

By Guest Columnist State Sen. DOUG STONER (D-Cobb)

In little over a month, my fellow legislators and I will be returning to Atlanta to begin a new session under the Gold Dome. This will be my eighth session of representing my hometown of Smyrna and South Cobb County, including two in the House of Representatives and six in the Senate.

The coming session appears similar to my first session in 2003. Georgia was just beginning to recover from a recession, and revenues had dropped for 18 straight months. We had nearly exhausted our reserve funds and were facing a $600 million budget shortfall.

How did my fellow legislators, along with Gov. Perdue, confront this budget challenge in 2003? First, the new governor picked the most conservative of the three projected revenue estimates for the coming year. Second, the governor proposed a mixture of budget cuts and

By Guest Columnist HATTIE DORSEY, president of HBDorsey & Associates and former president of Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership (ANDP).

The AJC wrote an article last week about the “disaffected voters” – those who seem to believe that no matter who is elected in the current campaign, their quality of life will continue unchanged, if not ignored.

In mulling over this subject and thinking about last year’s national elections, I thought of Pearl Cleage’s poem, “I Speak Your Name”. My take on why disaffected voters feel the way they do is that they simply do not hear their name in the messages spoken by this year’s candidates.

A critical run-off election will take place on Dec. 1 for the Mayor of Atlanta and the City Council, and, this time, the national media is watching for the outcome. The turnout is again expected to be very low. And in

By Guest Columnist BRUCE GUNTER, founder and president of Progressive Redevelopment Inc.

Lost in the understandable focus on the meltdown in the single-family housing market is the everyday truth that Atlanta has a galling lack of affordable housing for those with very low incomes.

Most of the very affordable housing stock that we do have is rental, and much of it is scattered around the region in apartment complexes in varying degrees of repair. Even as the drop in for-sale housing prices renders single family housing more affordable (a very good thing), quality rental housing remains out of reach for many who live on incomes below $35,000. This is not a minor matter to this part of the population that resides in a city that remains stubbornly poor.

As a region, our housing priorities must be to first stem the tide of foreclosures, setting the stage for a return to

By Guest Columnist MICHAEL WALLS, chairman of MARTA’s board of directors

For more than three decades, metro Atlanta has awakened every morning secure in the knowledge that MARTA trains, buses and para-transit vehicles were up and running.

Day after day after day, year after year, MARTA has provided safe, reliable and affordable transportation to millions of people who have come to depend on the critical services we provide. As chairman of the MARTA Board of Directors, I can’t tell you how proud I am of the fact that we carry 500,000 passengers daily.

Lately, however, some sadly misinformed detractors of mass transit in general, and MARTA in particular, have questioned the vital importance of the service to our customers and to the broader community. For those

By Guest Columnist MIKE KLEIN, former CNN & Georgia Public Broadcasting executive whose online column is written at www.mikekleinonline.com.

This past Sunday morning we jumped into the minivan and took off down the road toward one of those large discount stores that sells everything for less. The young man standing outside our neighborhood entrance held aloft his sign that said “Will do any Work. Family Depends on Me.”

He is a reminder that unemployment is personal. It matters little that 90 percent of the working eligible population has a job if you are in the 10 percent that needs a job. Even those numbers are artificial. Americans who exhaust jobless benefits no longer appear in government reports. Hundreds of thousands try to cover living expenses with multiple part-time positions. Some quit looking.

By Guest Columnist ANNE OSTHOLTHOFF, founder and CEO of ArtsNOW/Creating Pride.

We want our young people to think critically, creatively and demonstrate an ability to solve problems and communicate effectively in today’s workplace. To achieve that goal, then all school leaders should take note, assess their priorities and make sure the arts are central to their school improvement plans for student success.

The reasons are twofold: First, educational research in school reform proves over and over again that students who are engaged in the arts outperform students who are not. Secondly, it is a relatively low-cost first step for school administrators and faculty in helping teachers provide engaging work in the classroom that captures the attention of students.

By Guest Columnist SPENCE ROSENFELD, founder and president of Arborguard Tree Specialists

Maybe I was particularly vulnerable to the irresistable nature of trees. From a very young age I just had to climb them. Later I built a treehouse and lived among the branches of a giant Black Cherry for most of my High School summers. In college I decided my career would be to work with people and trees.

Finally, I took the bold step of starting a special kind of tree care business designed to bring people and trees close together. Looking back now at nearly 60 years of age, I feel like one of the most fortunate people in the

By Guest Columnist JOHN AHMANN, executive director of the Atlanta Committee for Progress and owner of a public policy communications firm.

With the transition of the City of Atlanta’s Mayor and City Council just around the corner, what can we expect to find as our newly elected leaders turn their focus from running for office to running the City?

These new leaders will walk in the door armed with not only accurate information about the City’s cash flows and projected revenues and expenses for the coming fiscal year, but for the first time, financial projections for the next five years. Catching up with technology investments the private sector made years ago, the City recently completed the launch of an enterprise resource planning system. Akin to the quantum leap

By Guest Columnist MADELYN R. ADAMS, executive director of the East Lake Foundation

This week, golf fans all over the nation will focus their attention on Atlanta. Our own East Lake Golf Club will once again host THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola, the season-ending tournament for the PGA TOUR’s top 30 players.

While television viewers watch the world’s best golfers compete, they may also catch a glimpse of the neighborhood surrounding the historic golf club. They might notice East Lake’s new housing options, gleaming charter school and award-winning public golf course. What they may not know, though, is that there’s a lot more to East Lake than new buildings and green fairways.

Not all that long ago, the stories coming out of East

By Guest Columnist AUDREY PETERMAN, president and co-founder of Earthwise Productions Inc., a consulting and publishing company. For 13 years, Audrey and her husband, Frank, have published the travel and environmental periodical: “Pickup & Go.”

“There is so much that can, and must be accomplished when we know what is happening to our environment and its direct impact on each of our lives. No one person, group or organization can bring about complete awareness and comprehensive change alone. . .”

That statement was made in 2006 in a letter sent to me, and my husband Frank by the Rev. Gerald Durley, a prominent Atlanta pastor.

Rev. Durley was explaining what inspired him to become “a missionary for the environment” after seeing

By Guest Columnist JEREMY C. GARLINGTON, an Atlanta-based leadership consultant and publisher of “The Garlington Report.”

Call it the summer of racially tinged brew-ha-has.

The first featured a new president, a cop from Cambridge, Mass and an angry Harvard professor drinking beers in the Rose Garden and presenting an iconic image of a “teachable moment.”

After a sip or two, all seemed well again.

The local installment, which to date represents a “non-teachable moment,” is an incendiary memo that threatens to blow the cover off of Atlanta’s mayoral

By Guest Columnist HARRY WEST, professor of Practice for Georgia Tech’s Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development.

Appropriately so, both the term and measurement “shovel ready” has been applied to the selection of projects funded in the first round of federal stimulus spending. Getting the program underway with projects that could be implemented quickly had to be a priority.

As additional projects and programs are taken into account, time is available to consider other measurements in establishing selection priority. I am compelled to advocate funding the steps necessary to bring other needed projects to the point of being “shovel ready”.

By Guest Columnist CHARLEY ENGLISH, director of the Georgia Emergency Management Agency and Homeland Security

Thirty percent of your employees don’t show up for work one day. What would you do? Would you close for business? Try to make it with a skeleton staff? And how would either of these choices impact your bottom line? Now imagine that those same employees – or more – were unable to get to work for three days or more.

It’s a scenario that most business owners don’t think will happen to them, and, if you are fortunate, it won’t. But it’s an understatement to say that when a tornado struck downtown Atlanta in March 2008 that people were a bit surprised. Most had never expected a tornado to follow a path down some of the city’s major thoroughfares. But that’s exactly what happened.

By Guest Columnist JOHN SIBLEY, program director of the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance and former president of the Georgia Conservancy

Last week, the Georgia Public Service Commission, by unanimous vote, tripled the amount of solar power in Georgia Power’s green energy program. This very positive action enables developers of solar energy to take advantage of federal stimulus incentives that must be claimed in the next several months. The state’s solar industry just got a big booster shot.

The PSC’s action also helps Georgia get ready for pending federal policies. It’s a near certainty that federal legislation will require utilities to sell more renewable energy.

By Guest Columnist STEVE VOGEL, president of the Georgia Association of Railroad Passengers

It’s like trying to jump on a train that’s already pulling out of the station.

Georgia is seeking a share of $8 billion in federal stimulus money earmarked for the development of a national high-speed passenger train network. At first glance, it might look like there’s a good chance of getting some of that money. Georgia is on two of the proposed corridors: the Southeast Corridor from Washington, D.C. to Florida, and the Gulf Coast Corridor from Atlanta to Houston.

But here’s the problem: There’s a long line of states trying to climb aboard this train, and Georgia is at the end of the ticket line, asking for a free ride.

By Guest Columnist MATTHEW HICKS, associate legislative director for the Association County Commissioners of Georgia on economic development and transportation policy.

In 2003, a goal was set by those working on the BeltLine to have transit started on the corridor within ten years. It was a lofty target considering that every day brought obstacles and looming doubts about the overall project’s viability.

Yet every hurdle was overcome and soon problems

By Guest Columnist KIM ANDERSON, CEO of Families First

Virtually every measure of individual success begins with a loving and supportive family. Yet on any given day, approximately 13,000 children in Georgia’s foster care system have lost the family connections essential for them to succeed in life.

The national and state trends are grim: 60 percent of children placed into foster care are there because of neglect, 10 percent because of physical abuse and 8 percent are victims of sexual abuse.

By Guest Columnist JIM MARAN, president and CEO of the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce

In Jim Collins best-selling book Good to Great, he says visionary companies don’t ask “How well are we doing?” or “How can we do well?” or “How well do we have to perform to meet the competition?”

According to Collins, they institutionalize this question as a way of life–a habit of mind and action. Superb execution and performance naturally come to the

By Guest Columnist DICK ANDERSON, executive director of the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority.

When Gov. Sonny Perdue asked me over a year ago to join his administration and take look at our transportation challenges from an executive perspective, I am not exactly sure what I expected to encounter.

I had experienced congestion as a daily commuter and heard about our funding challenges, but my experience in transportation was limited to being a flagman and mower operator for Kentucky Department of Transportation during college summers.

What I found was a set of business problems very similar to ones we faced at BellSouth, where I worked for 28 years.

Our transportation network (highways, rail, transit, ports), much like the telecommunications network, is a shared network used for many different purposes. Capital for investment in the network is always a scarce resource. Success demands a clear, targeted strategy for improved performance that includes a focus on execution and measurable results.

By Guest Columnist RAY CHRISTMAN, retired CEO of the FHLBank of Atlanta who
currently is involved in a variety of housing/banking-related consulting and civic activities, including the Peachtree Corridor Partnership, the ULI Terwilliger Center for Workforce Housing, and the Livable Communities Coalition.

While there are reasons to be optimistic that an economic recovery is beginning to take hold, both locally and nationally, the housing industry remains mired in a deep depression.

Despite the conventional wisdom that housing will rebound ahead of other sectors, it’s possible that the industry’s comeback will be protracted and anemic and, indeed, will be a drag on the overall recovery.

Moreover, it’s a sure bet that as the economy stabilizes, the housing industry – and the mortgage financing system that supports it – will function much differently than they have in the recent past.

It has become painfully obvious that the problems facing the housing and banking systems are deeply intertwined. And the changes affecting these symbiotic sectors aren’t merely cyclical, but are structural in nature, and will have long-lasting effects.