Atlanta region needs to refresh annual LINK trips

June 18, 2018, 11:35 am/5 Comments

For 22 years, an impressive group of metro Atlanta civic, business and government leaders have spent three days a year visiting a North American city to learn how other cities are handling their urban challenges.

The LINK trips also have provided people an opportunity to get to know each other – connecting with leaders from different races, genders and sections of the Atlanta region as well as people from different circles of influence.

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Let’s honor Atlanta with statues of Ivan Allen Jr. and Maynard Jackson at Peachtree and Sweet Auburn

June 4, 2018, 5:22 pm/7 Comments

Before leaving office, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed announced in late November that a statue of boxer Evander Holyfield would be placed near Woodruff Park at Peachtree and Auburn Avenue.

With all due respect to Holyfield, Woodruff Park is the wrong spot to honor the boxer, who fought Bert Cooper on Nov. 21, 1991 at the now demolished Omni Coliseum – the site of Philips Arena.

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Atlanta’s ParkScore jumps seven spots, still has lots of room to improve

May 28, 2018, 5:14 pm/3 Comments

The City of Atlanta jumped from 50 to 43 in the Trust for Public Land’s annual ParkScore survey of the nation’s 100 largest cities.

The improved ranking shows how Atlanta has gained traction when it comes to acquiring and maintaining parks and green space in the city limits. TPL also including a few other factors in its ranking – such as including private support for parks – that helped boost Atlanta’s standing.

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Center for Civil and Human Rights gives us timely inspiration

May 21, 2018, 7:25 pm/7 Comments

For me, the Power to Inspire gala – the benefit for the Center for Civil and Human Rights – inspired a sense of gratitude for what we have in our town.

The Center will celebrate its fourth anniversary next month, and it’s hard to imagine an Atlanta without this touchpoint for our community. It combines in one place our unique place in the history of civil and human rights.

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Influential Atlanta leaders to visit San Diego in May for 2018 LINK trip

April 30, 2018, 7:36 pm/6 Comments

Housing affordability and transit will be key focus areas of the 2018 LINK trip to San Diego, which will take place from May 9 to May 12.

Ever since 1997, a group of more than 100 Atlanta leaders – representing governments, businesses and nonprofits –  go to a different city to learn about the best practices that we can bring back to our region. And it also provides an opportunity for leaders from the 10-county region to get to know one another.

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Atlanta Housing Authority’s recent actions need further scrutiny

April 23, 2018, 6:38 pm/10 Comments

Recent actions by the Atlanta Housing Authority need to be viewed through a magnifying glass.

Despite owning hundreds of acres of land, AHA is spending millions of dollars to buy more land from the City of Atlanta, another public entity.

AHA couches these land deals as helping fulfill its goal to develop more affordable housing in the City of Atlanta. But over the past eight years, AHA has not developed any new housing units on its significant land holdings.

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Enough already: GRTA, SRTA, MARTA, GDOT, ARC…and now….the ATL

April 9, 2018, 6:23 pm/5 Comments

Nearly 20 years ago, key business and government leaders heralded the creation of a new transportation authority that would tackle metro Atlanta’s traffic problems by expanding transit.

And so the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority – GRTA – was born.

At the time, there was one naysayer – the late Harry West, the longtime executive director of the Atlanta Regional Commission.

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Georgians finally will be able to vote on a dedicated fund for conservation

April 2, 2018, 7:49 pm/1 Comment

At long last, Georgia now has a pathway to create a dedicated funding source to conserve our land and water.

The state legislature on Thursday passed the Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Act calling for a referendum on a constitutional amendment that would dedicate a portion of existing state sales and use tax on outdoor recreation equipment to establish a conservation trust fund.

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Still missing Martin Luther King Jr. after all these years

March 26, 2018, 3:26 pm/20 Comments

MEMPHIS – For 50 years, I had little desire to travel to Memphis.

The city always triggered one of the most painful memories of my youth – the assassination of an idol who had become a friend – Martin Luther King Jr.

I have often said my life peaked when I was 11. It was September, 1966 when I became close friends with Yolanda King, who had helped integrate my elementary school – Spring Street – along with the children of Juanita and Ralph David Abernathy.

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The tree massacre at the Bobby Jones Golf Course a blow to Atlanta

March 12, 2018, 5:32 pm/55 Comments

Back during the Civil War, the land that is now known as the Bobby Jones Golf Course was a battlefield that witnessed one of the bloodiest battles of the Atlanta Campaign.

Today, the Bobby Jones Golf Course has become a battlefield once again. But this time, the casualties were more than 800 trees that were cut down to make way for a redeveloped Bobby Jones Golf Course.

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Wanted: a strong business leader to run for governor

March 5, 2018, 7:18 pm/17 Comments

Top Georgia business leaders expressed “frustration and disappointment” over the current slate of declared Republican candidates running for governor.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was when Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle attacked Delta Air Lines, the largest employer in the state of Georgia. The state was about to vote to rescind a tax on jet fuel when Delta announced it was ending a discount offered to members of the National Rifle Association (only 13 NRA members had taken advantage of the discount according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution).

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Roswell’s historic Mimosa Hall could become nation’s oldest ‘net zero’ home

February 12, 2018, 6:22 pm/9 Comments

History is being made in Roswell thanks to a cutting edge proposal to preserve the historic Mimosa Hall and Gardens.

The City of Roswell purchased Mimosa Hall, initially built around 1840, as well as its 9 acres of gardens and woods last August for $2.95 million – partly because of a citizen-led effort to save Mimosa Hall and its grounds from being redeveloped.

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