By Maria Saporta
The people have spoken. The question is whether anyone is listening.
Time and time again — in telephone town hall meetings, in forums and countless opportunities for public comment — people are saying the Atlanta region needs to invest in transit.
The latest case in point was Saturday morning when more than 200 interested citizens from metro Atlanta spent three hours at the Civic League for Regional Atlanta’s Town Hall meeting called: Get a Move On.
By Maria Saporta
It’s been a tough year for Atlanta’s United Way as it implements its new method of allocating dollars to agencies to meet its six community objectives.
In all, United Way’s community investment package totaled $20.9 million, a 10 percent decrease from last year’s $23.1 million.
The largest pool of money — the Community Impact Fund — totaled $15.2 million that went to 124 community organizations in the 13-county metro area. That was a 20 percent decrease of the dollars that were available last year in the Community Impact Fund.
As a result of the new competitive grants process, 49 agencies that had received funding in 2010 received no dollars this year. A total of 173 agencies applied for grants., but only 124 agencies received United Way funding.
By Maria Saporta
Friday, July 15, 2011
It’s coming full circle.
The Georgia Cancer Coalition, which was spun off from the Georgia Research Alliance a decade ago, is now being folded back into the public-private organization.
And Bill Todd, who has been president of the Georgia Cancer Coalition for the past eight years, will be leaving to join the faculty of Georgia Tech’s College of Management, from which he graduated nearly 40 years ago.
Todd also was the founding president of the Georgia Research Alliance, a public-private partnership formed in 1990 to solidify the state’s technology development by partnering with its six research universities.
By Maria Saporta
After nearly four years at the helm, Helen Tapp is retiring as the Georgia director of the Trust for Public Land at the end of the month.
Tapp, who joined the Trust in late 2007, continued the environmental organization’s top initiatives in Georgia — the Atlanta BeltLine, the Chattahoochee River Corridor Greenway and Georgia Green.
“I am privileged to have been part of the TPL team and celebrate the great work of our talented staff, dedicated volunteers and good partners,” Tapp said. “Together we’ve been able to assemble the land for new and expanded parks in the City of Atlanta and Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb, Carroll counties…”
By Maria Saporta
It is an incredible “man bites dog” story.
A Cobb County pedestrian’s four-year-old son is killed by a hit-and-run driver who admittedly had been drinking. But it’s the mother who gets charged and convicted with vehicular homicide.
The mother, Raquel Nelson, was guilty of walking across Austell Road from the bus stop to her apartment complex with her three children. She had no car, yet she is charged with vehicular homicide.
Sally Flocks, founder of PEDS, a pedestrian advocacy organization, had told me a couple of weeks ago that this case was coming up and that she was going to testify in support of the mother.
By Maria Saporta
Friday, July 15, 2011
After the release July 5 of the state investigation report on cheating in Atlanta Public Schools, key business and civic leaders are wondering what’s next.
Will the response to the cheating scandal be one of renewed commitment? Or has there been irreparable damage done between the Atlanta Public Schools and the community at large?
On July 7, interim APS Superintendent Erroll Davis held a breakfast meeting with top donors.
“Everybody feels angry,” said Davis, who retired as chancellor of the Georgia Board of Regents on June 30. “I wanted to give them assurances that there were excellent programs in place that merited their support.”
By Maria Saporta
At the Atlanta Region Summit of Georgia’s Competitiveness Initiative, Gov. Nathan Deal highlighted the unprecedented cooperation between the state and the City of Atlanta.
Specifically, both Deal and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed spoke of their recent joint trip to Washington, D.C. to try to secure federal dollars and support to Georgia.
“I do believe you are going to see this week that we are going to be announcing the results of that trip to Washington,” Deal told the group of more than 200 metro leaders.
Reed did his own tease when he addressed the audience, thanking the governor for being willing to work together on that trip to Washington on June 1 when they met with a multitude of federal officials.
By Maria Saporta
The Atlanta Regional Commission has received a federal grant to embark on a year-long effort to put together an “economic development” framework for metro Atlanta.
The initiative was announced Monday morning at the Atlanta Region Summit of the Georgia Competitiveness Initiative that is being held at Georgia Tech’s Conference Center.
The $318,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration us part of a three-year effort to create a strategic plan for innovation and growth for the whole region.
By Maria Saporta
For more than 20 years, a regional leadership program has been preparing current and up-and-coming leaders for moments just like this.
The week-long Regional Leadership Institute (RLI), which had its first class in 1991, brings people together from all corners of the region where they can take a deep look at the issues facing metro Atlanta — from transportation, water, education, aging and leadership.
The program, which takes place at St. Simons Island, has become a neutral ground where a diverse group of leaders can get to know each other and find areas of consensus when they return to metro Atlanta to work on its various challenges.
By Maria Saporta
Friday, July 15, 2011
During the course of the cheating scandal within the Atlanta Public Schools, a myriad of accusations have been leveled against the Atlanta business community for its role in the ordeal.
Business leaders have been accused of supporting former Superintendent Beverly Hall unconditionally, for believing in the extraordinary academic improvements under way at the Atlanta Public Schools, for having direct business interests in the school system’s affairs, for orchestrating the community’s response to the investigation before all the results were known, and for caring more about Atlanta’s brand and reputation than students.
But after conducting interviews with more than a dozen key business and civic leaders, a far more complex, and much less sinister, picture emerges.
In fact, the story could be a case study of how the Atlanta business community deals with issues and addresses conflict — often preferring to keep its harshest criticism within private meetings while presenting a non-confrontational demeanor in public.
By Maria Saporta
Georgia State University President Mark Becker is taking on a major community role.
As of July 1, Becker became board chair of the Atlanta Regional Council for Higher Education (ARCHE), an organization of 20 colleges and universities in the greater metro area.
Becker succeeds Beheruz Sethna, the president of the University of West Georgia, who has chaired the board for the past two years. Sethna will remain on ARCHE’s executive committee.
By Maria Saporta
Friday, July 8, 2011
The Center for the Visually Impaired is the latest Atlanta-based nonprofit that has established a business arm to help it raise revenues.
Since 2001, the center has seen its state funding cut by 60 percent. At the same time, United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta Inc. has had to cut its grants to the center from $583,995 in 2006 to $405,561 in 2010.
“Everyone knew we had to diversify our funding,” said Subie Green, president of the Center for the Visually Impaired. “That was one issue. The other issue is that 70 percent of all working age blind folks are unemployed. We wondered if there was some way we could run a business, support ourselves and employ our clients.”
By Maria Saporta and Douglas Sams
Friday, July 8, 2011
Two years after leaving Cousins Properties Inc. as its CEO, Tom Bell is getting back into the real estate business — his first love.
Bell and five other partners have formed a company — Mesa Capital Partners LLC — and have raised $40 million to acquire distressed apartment properties. The partners include former Georgia-Pacific CEO Pete Correll and former Cousins Properties director John Mack, who also served as CEO of Morgan Stanley until 2009.
By Maria Saporta
The City of Atlanta is reviewing its festival ordinance and policies, according to George Dusenbury, commissioner of the City of Atlanta Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs.
A particular focus is Piedmont Park, the most popular gathering spot in Atlanta and usually the favored choice for any organization wanting to hold an event or festival in a city park.
Now that Music Midtown has announced that it will be resurrecting its festival at Piedmont Park, questions about the park’s use or over-use are resurfacing.
Music Midtown will make its comeback on Sept. 24 wit Coldplay as its headlining act. There also is a chance that a major artist will come the night before — turning the “new” Music Midtown in a two-day, two–stage event.
By Maria Saporta
Friday, July 8, 2011
The Hire One Atlanta campaign — a program to help improve Atlanta’s employment picture — has reached a major milestone.
Since March, 10,000 people have been hired by 1,100 local companies. Each week, the Atlanta Business Chronicle has been recognizing companies that have hired at least one new full-time employee. The list now fills the two-page centerfold of the weekly newspaper.
The initiative is a partnership between Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, the Metro Atlanta Chamber, the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta, the Atlanta Business League and the SHRM-Atlanta.
By Maria Saporta
Ever since the popular Music Midtown festival disappeared after the 2005 season, Alex Cooley wanted to bring it back.
Cooley, who was the inspiration and founder of the “legacy” Music Midtown, believed Atlanta’s music scene would never be complete without an annual festival that attracted both known and unknown artists.
“It’s very important for Atlanta to have a music festival,” Cooley said in a telephone interview on the same day that plans for a “new” Music Midtown was unveiled. “If you go back, I wanted this to be a festival that lasted for 20, 30, 40 years.”
Cooley is the true godfather of concerts and music performances in Atlanta. He literally introduced Atlanta to the national music scene, and vice versa.
By Maria Saporta
Friday, July 1, 2011
The board of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Atlanta has named Missy Dugan its president and CEO after she had served as the interim head of the organization since January.
“After having worked with Missy over the last six months and observed her in the role, she has demonstrated continued strong leadership, management skills and passion to serve the children in our community who need it the most,” said Brent Wilson, the organization’s board chair who is a partner with law firm Elarbee, Thompson, Sapp & Wilson LLP. “It made the decision very easy for us.”
By Maria Saporta
Could it be? Music Midtown is coming back?
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed’s office issued a media advisory today that smells an awful lot like a return of Music Midtown. The title of the advisory: “Mayor Kasim Reed and Live Nation’s Peter Conlon to Make Major Music Announcement.”
A press conference is planned for noon at the W Atlanta Downtown, and the people involved will be: Mayor Reed; Conlon; president of Live Nation Atlanta; William Pate, president of the Atlanta Convention & Visitor’s Bureau; and Atlanta City Councilmen Alex Wan and Kwanza Hall.
Music Midtown was a popular Atlanta institution from 1994 to 2005 when it was discontinued because of losses it had incurred due to inclement weather and the scheduling of major expensive acts.
By Maria Saporta
The next six weeks are the make or break time for the regional transportation sales tax.
On Aug. 15, the executive committee of the Atlanta Regional Transportation Roundtable will release its draft list of transportation projects to be included as part of the 2012 referendum.
For transit advocates, the critical issue will be whether a large portion of those projects will be for non-road and bridges transportation options. In short, they will be looking to see if the project list will include significant funding for transit, bicycle paths and sidewalks.
By Maria Saporta
Friday, July 1, 2011
Atlanta has in recent days taken a few steps backward at having top women executives at some of its largest companies.
First, Suzanne Sitherwood, president of Atlanta Gas Light Co. and the first (and only) woman to chair the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, announced June 22 she has accepted a job to become president and then CEO of the Laclede Group, a natural gas holding company based in St. Louis.
Then Becky Blalock, a senior vice president and chief information officer with Southern Co., who has been one of the top women executives at the utility, announced June 23 that she will be retiring from the company at the end of the summer. She has been with the company 33 years.
