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Gates Foundation to give $28.8 million to Task Force for Global Health

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

The Decatur-based Task Force for Global Health has received a five-year $28.8 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to establish a support center for neglected tropical diseases.

The grant will enable the newly-established Neglected Tropical Diseases Support Center to collaborate with other partners around the world to address gaps in research. The center will coordinate with partners to implement the research agenda for these diseases, while ensuring the quick translation of new solutions into the program policy.

The Gates grant will be officially announced on Tuesday, Feb. 5.

Posted inATL Business Chronicle, Maria's Metro

Gates Foundation-backed education nonprofit eyes Atlanta headquarters

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Douglas Sams and Maria Saporta

Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on Friday, February 1, 2013

A new nonprofit organization backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that aims to transform American education is considering Atlanta for its headquarters.

The nonprofit, supported by the world’s largest philanthropic organization, would make Atlanta the center of a cohesive effort to accelerate student achievement in the United States by boosting personalized learning in schools.

Posted inMaria's Metro

Despite lower bonding limits, new Atlanta Falcons stadium would receive same amount of hotel-motel taxes

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

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.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Redistricting proposal for Fulton County creates three white, three black commission districts

by David Pendered

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.

Posted inGuest Column

Atlanta BeltLine a path for private entities to partner for public good

by Teresa Johnston

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.

Posted inLatest News

The future of the world — according to former Vice President Al Gore

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By Maria Saporta

Trying to follow Al Gore as he speaks is like trying to drink water from a fire hose.

The former vice president is a fountain of knowledge and ideas, stimulating thought and concern as he weaves a tale of the future.

Gore was in Atlanta Friday evening at the Carter Center to talk about his most recent book: “The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change.”

Posted inDavid Pendered

Redistricting proposal for Fulton County’s board of commissioners creates new district, cuts at-large post

by David Pendered

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.

Posted inLatest News

Common Cause opposes public funding for new Falcons stadium

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By Maria Saporta

Common Cause Georgia will do all it can to prevent any public funds from being used to build a new stadium for the Atlanta Falcons.

Willam Perry, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, said at the Sustainable Atlanta Roundtable meeting Friday morning that his organization was going to try to get a bill introduced to stop the hotel-motel tax from being used to finance the proposed $1 billion stadium.

In the 2010 session, the General Assembly authorized that the hotel-motel tax collected in the City of Atlanta’s and in unincorporated Fulton County could be extended to build a new stadium as long as it was built on property owned by the Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC).

Posted inLatest News

Kelly Loeffler of ICE has “little bandwidth” to run for U.S. Senate

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta

Atlanta Dream co-owner Kelly Loeffler is flattered to be mentioned as a possible U.S Senate candidate, but right now her life is all-consuming.

Loeffler, who is also vice president of investor relations and corporate communications at Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), has been mentioned by Republican insiders in Georgia who would like to bring new names into the 2014 race for Senate to succeed U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-Georgia). The U.S. Senate race also is expected to open up a series of congressional seats as well.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Appetite for groupon to farm-to-table cafe shows demand for organic foods

by David Pendered

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.

Posted inLatest News

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed: Too bad transportation secretary Ray LaHood is leaving Obama administration

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By Maria Saporta

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed is disappointed that U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood is stepping down.

Reed and LaHood had developed a strong relationship over the past four years — a relationship that has been beneficial for both Atlanta and Georgia.

“I really wanted Secretary LaHood to continue because he could not have been a more active transportation secretary,” Reed said after the Buckhead Coalition’s annual meeting on Wednesday.

Posted inLatest News

Atlanta Housing Authority board may vote Wednesday on a separation agreement with CEO Renee Glover

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By Maria Saporta

The board of the Atlanta Housing Authority is scheduled to meet Wednesday Jan. 30 afternoon— one that could be Renee Glover’s last as the organization’s president and CEO.

It is thought that Glover and the AHA board will say that they’re parting ways, and the board is expected to vote on her separation agreement.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Buckhead Trail to move ahead with design/build agreement with GDOT

by David Pendered

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.

Posted inLatest News

Gov. Nathan Deal: ‘incumbent on us’ to not lose the Falcons to Los Angeles

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By Maria Saporta

Gov. Nathan Deal said Tuesday it would be a big loss for the state if the Atlanta Falcons were to move to Los Angeles.

Los Angeles, one of the top media markets in the country, has been seeking a football team for years. Reportedly, Arthur Blank has told Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and other officials that he has been approached by Los Angeles leaders who are interested in him moving the Falcons to the Southern California city.

“It’s incumbent on us to make sure we don’t lose the franchise,” Deal said after being recognized as the 2013 Georgian of the Year by Georgia Trend magazine at its annual 100 Most Influential Georgians luncheon.

Posted inDesign, Design and Our City, Thought Leadership

Perkins+Will Scores with Interior Design at IMG

Avatar photo by Perkins and Will

The elevator lobby has basketball texture on the floor, turf on the walls along with a scoreboard. Employees and clients congregate to meet and relax in the Half Time area. Larger meetings are held on bleachers that rise above a grass turf. The open office area with custom workstations is the gridiron with yard markers […]

Posted inPublic Relations, Thought Leader

Working in the Great Divide: PR and Journalism

by SaportaReport

When I was a reporter working for several daily newspapers in the 1980s, we instinctively fell silent when a company salesperson would walk by our desks. In those days, journalists were purists: newspaper salespeople wore nicer clothes, drove fancier cars and made lots more money, but we were more comfortable in our glow of righteousness. […]

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