Category: Latest News

By Maria Saporta

A year ago, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood told Georgia leaders that they didn’t have their act together.

And LaHood’s perspective helped explain why Georgia couldn’t seem to get any major federal transportation dollars out of the Obama administration.

So LaHood’s comments on Wednesday morning were particularly poignant.

“We are here today because you all have your act together,” LaHood told the coalition of Atlanta business, civic and government leaders as he handed over a gigantic check of $47.6 million for the Atlanta Streetcar project.

By Maria Saporta

Two of metro Atlanta’s top regional leaders are leaving their positions, according to a press release sent out Monday afternoon.

The Atlanta Regional Commission, the planning agency for the 10-county region, announced that two of its key department directors will leave the agency on Dec. 31.

Tony Landers, the ARC’s director of community services; and Tom Weyandt, director of comprehensive planning, will leave to “pursue other ventures,” according to the release.

Landers, who joined the commission in 1973, led several key ARC initiatives: the annual Regional Leadership Institute

By Maria Saporta

Friday, Oct. 15. The end of an era.

That’s the day when the Commerce Club served its last meal in its historic building at 34 Broad St. The lunch room was packed as many of the Commerce Club’s most loyal patrons paid homage to the place where Atlanta history was made.

The Lane Room on the 16th floor was so busy that the buffet tables had to be moved out in the lobby area.

Pete McTier, retired president of the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation, was sitting in the upper area having lunch with his wife. Bill Todd, president of the Georgia Cancer Coalition, was in the

By Maria Saporta

Atlanta Wins!

At long last, Atlanta will get a streetcar thanks to persistent efforts to go after federal funding.

U.S. Rep. John Lewis’ office has just sent out the following press release:

U.S. Representative John Lewis Elated Over Funding for
Atlanta Streetcar Construction

Atlanta, GA – Congressman John Lewis, 5th Congressional District Georgia, is pleased to announce the funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) of more than $47 million to construct the Georgia Transit Connector;

By Maria Saporta

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed is still keeping his fingers crossed that the city will win federal funding for a streetcar that will connect Centennial Olympic Park with the King Center.

“I feel good about where we are,” Reed said Wednesday morning after a Metro Atlanta Chamber breakfast with more than 30 ambassadors from around the world. “We are going to continue to push through Friday.”

Reed said he had a telephone conversation with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood on Tuesday. That followed a meeting Reed had on Monday with LaHood, President Barack

By Maria Saporta

With only three weeks left to go before the Nov. 2 election, the three gubernatorial candidates faced each other in a debate at the Temple — showing their sense of humor as well as their frustrations.

The first question posed by moderator Julia Wallace, editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, was what three traits should the next governor have.

Former Gov. Roy Barnes, the Democratic candidate, answered: “honesty, integrity and transparency.” Then Barnes, in a direct reference to his opponent — former Congressman Nathan Deal — went on to say: “I don’t believe you can lead this state unless people know

By Maria Saporta

In Atlanta, the word “festival” is synonymous with Holly Mull.

Mull was the godmother of several of Atlanta’s most popular festivals — such as the Inman Park Festival, and the coordinator of festivals all over the city — including the recent inaugural Midtown Arts Festival that took place a couple of weeks ago.

So it was only fitting in a sad kind of way that at the end of today’s Gay Pride Parade — perhaps Atlanta’s most colorful festival — I learned that she had passed away suddenly on Thursday.

My friend, Nick Gold, asked me if I had heard about Holly. It’s rarely good news

By Maria Saporta

The theme of the Galloway School’s Speaker Series was supposed to be fearlessness.

So who better to ask that Ted Turner, Captain Courageous.

But when Turner was asked whether he was fearless, he quickly answered: “I was scared all the time. Fearlessness doesn’t make sense. You should have some fear.”

Later in the question and answer period, Turner came up with another line: “I was afraid of losing so much that I worked so hard that I won.”

Then Turner said one shouldn’t confuse

By Maria Saporta

Both top candidates for governor strongly support spending lottery dollars on Pre-K education programs, and they believe it’s at least as important as the popular HOPE scholarship.

The candidates addressed the “Early Education Summit” held Tuesday at Georgia Public Broadcasting.

The Pre-K program and the HOPE merit-based college scholarship were implemented after former Gov. Zell Miller was able to pass the Georgia Lottery with education as its beneficiary.

“Zell Miller said it correctly,” said former Gov. Roy Barnes, the Democratic candidate for governor. “Pre-K is more

By Maria Saporta

The City of Atlanta is moving forward with plans to sell City Hall East to Jamestown Properties.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed broke the news at a community “town hall” meeting Thursday evening at the Inman Middle School.

“We signed a letter of intent with Jamestown this afternoon for City Hall East,” Reed told those attending the Alliance for Intown Neighbors at the tail end of the session.

The letter of intent calls for Jamestown Properties to pay the city $15.5 million for the property. The agreement will go before the Atlanta City Council for

By Maria Saporta

Talk about a great first day on the job.

Louis Miller started his new job as general manager of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport Monday morning.

And almost at the exact same time, the news came out that Southwest Airlines had entered into “a definitive merger agreement” to buy AirTran Airways.

For years and years and years, those who favored increased competition at Hartsfield-Jackson have been hoping to figure out how to lure Southwest to Atlanta.

But hometown Delta Air Lines

By Maria Saporta

The Civic League for Regional Atlanta managed to get 600 citizens from all over the metro area to spend most of Saturday working on building communities.

It was the Second Annual Neighborhood Summit, which attracted a hundred more folks than last year’s Neighborhood Summit.

After just two summits, it has become one of the signature regional events of the year by capturing the involvement of mostly ordinary citizens dedicated to improving their individual communities.

Atlanta has never quite figured out how

By Maria Saporta

In her 11 months working on the restructuring of AIG, Paula Rosput Reynolds said she learned a great deal about what makes a company not a great place to work.

Reynolds was the keynote speaker Friday morning at the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s “Best Places to Work” breakfast at the Loews hotel in Midtown.

“People were highly siloed,” Reynolds said of her time at AIG, which began in October, 2008. “There was no transparency between the silos let alone transparency to the world. There was an

By Maria Saporta

One of Atlanta’s newest Fortune 500 CEOs spent more than hour with Georgia Tech students Wednesday afternoon in a wide-ranging talk about his views towards business and life.

Bill Nuti, CEO of NCR Corp., attributed much of his success to hard work, mixed in with a bit of luck.

“I grew up in the Bronx, in the projects. I lived in a one bedroom tenement with a very hard-working mom and dad,” Nuti said. “I was the minority.”

Nuti also said he was an over-achiever who

By Maria Saporta

The nationally-known TEDx has sprouted roots in Atlanta.

On Tuesday, the latest TEDxAtlanta took place at Unboundary in the Northyards business park near Georgia Tech and had a theme of “Re-Solve.” About 1,000 people from 41 countries attended through the Livestream webcast.

Speakers were asked to give the “speech of their life” in about 20 minutes.

One of the speakers was Metro Atlanta Chamber Sam Williams, who spoke about “CEOs as Urban Statesmen.”

After giving a two-minute sweep of

By Maria Saporta

The effort to pass a regional transportation sales tax has just become more challenging.

At 10 a.m. press conference this morning (Wednesday), all the mayors in Fulton County with the exception of Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed will stand on the steps of the Georgia Capitol and announce their opposition to the proposed sales tax.

In a media advisory that I just received, it states that the “Fulton County Mayors from the north to the southern end of the county, have banded together to express

By Maria Saporta

Well I really got this one wrong.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed named Louis Miller as his pick for general manager of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport — a move that surprised me as well as people involved in the airline and airport industry.

Louis Miller is the former CEO of Tampa International Airport. He was one of three finalists that included John Clark, the current general manager of the Indianapolis airport, and Lester Robinson, the former general manager of the Detroit airport authority.

At different times, Clark and Robinson

By Maria Saporta

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed intends to hold a City Hall press conference on Monday at 2 p.m. to announce his pick for a new general manager for Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

It’s down to two finalists — Lester Robinson, former general manager of Detroit’s Airport Authority, and Louis Miller, former general manager of Tampa’s airport. The third finalist, John Clark, withdrew his name on Friday. Clark is the director and CEO of the Indianapolis Airport Authority.

Well, for what it’s worth, I’m putting my money down on Robinson.

By Maria Saporta

Congratulations to Georgia Trend for making it 25 years.

Many monthly magazines don’t even survive their first decade. But Georgia Trend has defied gravity, surviving through several ownership changes and countless economic downturns.

As a way to mark the moment, Georgia Trend through itself a birthday party at the Commerce Club last week.

Publisher Neely Young invited some of Georgia Trend’s closest friends to the lunch, including former political columnist Bill Shipp, former owner Millard Grimes

By Maria Saporta

What a difference 20 months can make.

Back in the fall of 2008, Delta Air Lines was writing letters to bond underwriters questioning Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport’s construction plans and the related costs.

It was pretty clear that at the time, Delta would not support the city’s plans to issue bonds to build the new international terminal at the airport and that the airline was questioning the projected costs of the project.

Now consider today’s news conference.