Category: Columns

Left with no viable “Plan B,” nearly 18 percent of Atlanta’s registered voters turned out Tuesday to pass the extension of the penny sales tax for sewer improvements by an overwhelming margin.

The outcome has implications for the upcoming referendum on a regional 1 percent sales tax for transportation improvements. There is no “Plan B” in that campaign, either.

In the sewer tax campaign, Atlanta voters were told that “Plan B” was for water rates to rise by as much as 30 percent if the 1 percent sales tax were not extended. In the transportation sales tax, voters are being told that there is no “Plan B” to fund mobility improvements if the proposed sales tax is rejected.

Emory Morsberger is still having incredible days, and now they are spent nurturing the Stone Mountain Community Improvement District.

In less than a year, the region’s newest CID has made demonstrable improvements to the quality of life and streetscapes in a teetering area along the Gwinnett/DeKalb county line.

But the vision of this CID goes beyond creating streets that are pretty and secure. It’s about creating jobs.

“Our goal is to create 2,000 jobs in the CID,” Morsberger said. “Our first priority has been to secure it and clean it up, and then we’re going to fill it up. We have 2 million square feet of vacant space in an industrial area that has 10 million square feet. Once we fill it up, we’ll create 2,000 jobs.”

For some odd reason, the folks in North Carolina think they are able to build a deep water port that could rival Charleston or Savannah for the massive vessels expected to sail through the expanded Panama Canal.

The Old North State even issued last week a draft copy of its governor-sponsored study into the possible project: “North Carolina Maritime Strategy.” Public comment sessions continue this week.

This possible port development is barely mentioned in Georgia, where the public discourse is of competition between Charleston and Savannah. Sometimes there’s a nod to a potential ocean port in Jasper County, S.C., which could complement the Savannah port along the shared river.

Yet North Carolina bears watching – the state is a fierce contender that already is a regional leader in areas including scientific research and development, banking and finance, transit and tourism.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed has funded the entire campaign for the extension of the 1 percent sales tax to pay for sewer upgrades with a $50,000 loan from his 2010 inaugural committee, according to campaign finance disclosures.

Reed’s inaugural committee has provided the only contributions received by the MOST campaign, according to a disclosure filed Feb. 24 with the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission. Of the loaned sum, the campaign has spent $30,000 on polling and $5,000 on media – all of it with two firms located outside of Georgia.

The Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce is hosting at least three campaign materials on its website in advance of the March 6 referendum. One file is a letter signed by three former mayors (Shirley Franklin, Sam Massell, and Andrew Young) urging readers to support the campaign and contribute to it. Two other files are fact-based documents about the purpose of the MOST and its use in the federally mandated $4 billion sewer upgrade.