It’s time to set the record straight.
Reducing the bonding capacity on the proposed $1 billion Atlanta Falcons stadium from $300 million to $200 million will not impact the amount of taxes that will be invested in the project.
The amount of hotel-motel taxes that would be invested in the project was determined nearly three years ago when the General Assembly agreed to extend the hotel-motel tax collected in the City of Atlanta and in unincorporated Fulton County.
A redistricting proposal for Fulton County’s board of commissioners would create three commission districts serving majority white populations in north Fulton, and three districts serving majority black populations in south Fulton. The seventh post, county chair, would be elected and serve countywide.
This plan is moving at a time Fulton County’s government appears to have no registered lobbyists to present its views at the Capitol. The county’s previous lobbyist, Michael Vaquer, who served six years, terminated representation Dec. 31, according to the state’s Government Transparency Commission.
An added wrinkle is that the redistricting proposal comes as the U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing a legal challenge to the constitutionality of a portion of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that regulates the formation of districts. Georgia’s attorney general signed a brief urging the court to take up the case, from Shelby County, Ala.
By Guest Columnist VALARIE WILSON, executive director of the BeltLine Partnership, a private, non-profit organization dedicated to fostering support for Atlanta’s BeltLine
Standing on the playground at Historic Fourth Ward Park on a weekend afternoon, surrounded by young families, you look down into the park, past the amphitheater toward the water and see others walking their dogs and generally moving at the sort of leisurely pace inspired by such havens within a city.
You’re in the shadow of hundreds of new apartment and condominiums built in the midst of the worst economy in a generation, filled with residents who want to live in proximity to the park and the Atlanta BeltLine Eastside Trail on the horizon.
The long-awaited redistricting map to be proposed for Fulton County’s board of commissioners was introduced Friday, and it contains at least two major changes in Fulton’s form of government – while keeping a seven-member board.
One new district would be created in northwest Fulton, and one countywide post would be eliminated, under the plan introduced by Rep. Lynne Riley (R-Johns Creek), who chairs the Fulton County delegation.
The proposal calls for elections under the new district boundaries to be held during the general election of 2014, according to House Bill 171.
There’s an old show biz chestnut, variously attributed to different people that goes something like this:
A famous comedian is terminally ill. One of his buddies goes to see him in the hospital. The guy says, “This must be so hard for you.” And the sick man replies, “Dying’s easy. Comedy’s hard.”
The farm-to-table movement has reached the point in metro Atlanta that today it is attracting buyers in a deal-of-the-day internet coupon.
Sweet Potato Cafe, in Stone Mountain, is offering a half-price deal for brunch, lunch or dinner through groupon.com. Over 100 deals had been sold by mid morning.
Georgia’s movement of sustainable agriculture also marks another milestone: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent, has signed on as the keynote speaker of the Farm Rx conference sponsored in February by Georgia Organics.
By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on Friday, January 25, 2013
At the exact same time that the board of the Georgia Research Alliance was meeting on Jan. 17, Gov. Nathan Deal was releasing his proposed state budget.
Atlanta made a final step Wednesday, perhaps the conclusive one in terms of creating needed bureaucracy, in the journey to build a new park system along Ga. 400 in Buckhead at minimal public expense.
A proposal that formally brings Georgia’s Department of Transportation into the design and construction of the planned Ga. 400 Greenway Trail was approved unanimously by the Utilities Committee of the Atlanta City Council. The council is expected to approve the deal at its Feb. 4 meeting.
Hopes for the trail are high: “This project has the chance to be an example of inventive use of space that people will fly in to see,” Atlanta Councilman Howard Shook said Wednesday evening.
Deteriorating conditions at Clark Atlanta University may force a company that’s comprised of Atlanta’s development arm and CAU to close, according to the latest audit of Invest Atlanta.
According to bondview.com, ADA/CAU Partners, Inc. already is in technical default of bonds it issued for more than $50 million to finance the construction of student housing. The company has depleted its reserve funds and had to borrow from its insurer to make its payment last year, according to the audit of Invest Atlanta.
The Invest Atlanta audit includes this cautionary statement about the partnership between Invest Atlanta and CAU: “Should the company’s operations not improve, the company might not be able to continue as a going concern.”
One of the most vocal critics of the Atlanta Regional Commission attended his first board meeting on Jan. 23 as a new board member.
Steve Brown, the recently-named chairman of the Fayette County Commission, was an outspoken critic of last summer’s regional transportation referendum, also known as the T-Splost.
The referendum failed, thanks partly to Brown and the Tea Party’s strident opposition to it and its project list.
When Saxby Chambliss was elected to Congress in 1994, he was the first Republican to represent a rural Deep South district since Reconstruction, which made him stand out in the big freshman GOP class that came to Washington that tumultuous year.
He could have been described then as a pioneer, which is hardly the way he seemed last week when Chambliss announced he’d decided not to seek a third U.S. Senate term next year. The two-decade arc of that Washington career spans much of the story of what’s happened in American politics since the year when the Democrats lost control of Congress for the first time in decades, and Newt Gingrich declared Year One of the new Republican Era.
Buckhead provides an interesting glimpse into the mixed bag that is metro Atlanta’s commercial real estate industry, a vital piece of the region’s economy.
The good news is two major transportation projects should improve access measurably in a region where prestigious buildings are surrounded by traffic congestion. One project involves MARTA’s Buckhead Station, while the other addresses the interchange of Ga. 400 and I-85.
The not-so-good news is the office market continues to drag. Buckhead was one of the region’s five submarkets that lost tenancy in fourth quarter 2012, though Buckhead showed an overall gain in the year, according to the latest vacancy report from Cassidy Turley, a commercial real estate services provider.
By Maria Saporta Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on Friday, January 25, 2013
Theatrical Outfit will celebrate a new era on Jan. 31 — a morning when its mortgage will be burned — providing financial security for the theater company.
That morning, Theatrical Outfit will hand over the title to its downtown building to the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. The foundation will then lease the building back to Theatrical Outfit for $1 a year.
By Guest Columnist DARAKA E. SATCHER, partner and chief oprating officer at the Pendleton Group consulting firm
A few times a week, I have the privilege of working from a location where I have a great view of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on a clear day. I can see the whole expanse of it and – if I give myself enough time to pay attention for a moment – observe a few planes land or take off.
In other words, it is the ebb and flow of airport functions that can be seen at a number of places throughout the world. I’ve seen enough of that to not be too fascinated by it, but I often have a different reaction watching these run-of-the-mill activities occur at Hartsfield-Jackson. Because every now and then, I recognize that I’m actually watching the primary engine behind the phenomenon of world-shrinking.
“Quartet” is the movie I wanted “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” to be.
Yet again, some of England’s very best have been gathered together for a little heart, a little soul and some expertly executed comedy. But “Quartet,” blithely handled by Dustin Hoffman in his directorial debut, actually gives these golden oldies something to do.
Based on a play by Ronald Harwood — who also did “The Dresser,” which, in its movie incarnation, starred Laurence Olivier and Tom Courtenay — “Quartet” takes place at Beecham House, a home for retired musicians. It’s a nice place, well kept, with lovely grounds.
The message about the value of rainwater harvesting should reach a broader audience this year.
The Regional Business Council has signed on as a partner with the Southeast Rainwater Harvesting Systems Assoc., a non-profit that promotes the endeavor. The RBC plans to spread the message through the business community, possibly throughs chambers of commerce, as well as the private sector.
“What caught my attention was the significant amount of water we as a region could save through rainwater harvesting,” said Terry Lawler, the RBC’s executive director. “Our organization has the capacity to get this message into the public eye in a way that will be bigger than the volunteer organization can.”
MARTA GM Keith Parker said Wednesday he intends to pursue a consultant’s recommendations that MARTA privatize some services in order to fix the battered budget.
“If we make these adjustments, we will, by 2018 again be contributing to our fiscal reserves rather than bleeding them,” Parker told the DeKalb Chamber of Commerce during his talk at the “Executive Speaker Series,” formerly known as the “First Monday Lunch Series.”
Privatization will fly in the face of Parker’s plans to boost morale among MARTA’s 4,500 workers. Privatization also will present opportunities for local businesses to take over the service, he said – almost in passing.
By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on Friday, January 18, 2013
The East Lake community is close to realizing its dream of offering top-quality education from cradle to college.
On Jan. 15, Gov. Nathan Deal joined other dignitaries to break ground on the new Drew Charter School Senior Academy at the Charlie Yates Campus in East Lake. The academy will permit Drew to teach students through high school. Currently, the Drew Charter School serves nearly 1,000 students from pre-K through 8th grade.
Morehouse College, the alma mater of Martin Luther King, Jr., has received a credit rating that’s barely investment grade, and with a negative outlook, on $23.4 million in bonds to be sold this week. The rating is just three notches above a rating of speculative.
Kennesaw State University has received a credit rating that’s solid investment grade, and stable, on $41.6 million in bonds slated for sale last month.
These two ratings illustrate the divergence of credit risk among Georgia’s institutions of higher learning. As state lawmakers consider Gov. Nathan Deal’s proposal to borrow almost $200 million this year to expand facilities at public colleges and universities, they face going to market in a sector dinged as negative across the board by Moody’s Investors Services.
Atlanta’s destiny is coming into focus.
The latest evidence of that was Saturday night at the Salute to Greatness dinner — the annual fundraiser for the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Non-Violent Social Change.
It was at that dinner when Laura Turner Seydel introduced honoree Muhammad Yunus, the father of micro-credit who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.
“Professor Yunus is a close friend to my family. He’s like a brother to my father,” said Seydel of her father Ted Turner.
In fact, Yunus is a longtime board member of the United Nations Foundation, which was started by Turner to help improve the lives of people around the world.
