Posted inSaba Long

Expect a compromise on fiscal cliff, but the hard work will be tax reform

The last line of the great Herman Miller’s poem — “The Martyr”— sums up how the American public should treat the political theatrics regarding the fiscal cliff being acted out by our Democratic and Republican leaders in Washington. “Beware the People weeping when they bare the iron hand.”

U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, U.S. House Speaker John Boehner and other partisan actors performed their one-act plays on the various Sunday political talk shows, declaring the opposite side as unwilling to compromise. Boehner called the Democrats plan to avoid the fiscal cliff as “unserious.”

In a phone interview, Mel Schwarz, director of tax legislative affairs for Grant Thornton, shed some light on the negotiations and what could lie ahead.

Posted inATL Business Chronicle, Maria's Metro

‘Fundamental shift’ in strategy underway at Metro Atlanta Chamber

By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on Friday, November 30, 2012

Looking forward, the Metro Atlanta Chamber is rewriting its game plan in more ways than one.

For more than 15 years, the influential business organization has been focusing its efforts on three issues — water, education and transportation. Of the three, improving metro Atlanta’s transportation issues was the chamber’s top priority.

But after the regional transportation sales tax referendum failed on July 31 — despite the business community’s investment of $8 million to try to get it passed, the Metro Atlanta Chamber has been surprisingly silent about how the region should address its transportation issues.

Posted inGuest Column

Don’t let wind energy tax credits go away because of the fiscal cliff

By Guest Columnist JENNETTE GAYER, coordinator of policy development, research and legistlative advocacy for Environment Georgia

This past Friday, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar made a historic announcement — for the first time ever, his department will hold competitive lease sales for the purpose of offshore wind energy development. The two areas being leased are off the coasts of Massachusetts-Rhode Island and Virginia.

In the press release, Salazar explained: “Wind energy along the Atlantic holds enormous potential, and today we are moving closer to tapping into this massive domestic energy resource to create jobs, increase our energy security and strengthen our nation’s competitiveness in this new energy frontier.”

Posted inEleanor Ringel Cater

‘Hitchcock’ — an ‘old Hollywood fun’ movie on the creation of ‘Psycho’

The quips come quick and smart in “Hitchcock,” a delicious “re-imagining” of Alfred Hitchcock and the making of “Psycho,” his celebrated 1960 horror film.

Of all the Must-See Movies avalanche between now and Christmas, so far “Hitchcock” is the most fun. Not the best or most thought-provoking or insightful. Just a lot of Old Hollywood fun.

Coming off the immense success of “North By Northwest,” Hitch (played with stiff, portly commitment by Anthony Hopkins) is unhappy to find the movie critics feel he should “quit while he’s ahead” at the ripe old age of 60. However, the director isn’t ready to say “Good Night;” he’s still quite comfortable saying “Good Evening” — the signature opening of his popular TV series, “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.”

Posted inDavid Pendered

Atlanta to extend contract with company planning airport master plan

A Chicago-based airport planning firm that opened an Atlanta office in June is poised to consolidate its position to create the long-range master plan at Atlanta’s airport.

Ricondo & Assoc. will see its base fee increase from $3 million this past year to $5.35 million in the coming year, under a contract the Atlanta City Council is expected to approve Monday. The rate for the third year of the three-year contract is to be determined in the future.

The company is providing recommendations to shape the physical footprint and operations of the world’s busiest passenger airport. Ricondo’s work will influence the passenger experience during an era when the number of travelers is expected to increase by 30 percent, to 120.7 million passengers in 2031, according to the company’s forecast.

Posted inDavid Pendered

High-speed rail not a consideration in Atlanta airport’s master plan

The future of high-speed passenger rail in the southeast is so uncertain that it is not a significant factor in the long-range master plan being devised for Atlanta’s airport, according to an airport official.

“Given that there are not firm high-speed rail plans, that is not included here,” in the airport’s master plan now being devised, said Tom Nissalke, the airport’s director of environmental and technical services.

This assumption on high-speed commuter rail, and a myriad of other forecasts that are driving the master plan, are to be presented Dec. 4 in a meeting that’s open to the public at Atlanta City Hall. The Atlanta City Council’s Transportation Committee is hosting a two-hour work session on airport related matters.

Posted inLatest News

CNN’s new president – Jeff Zucker – to be based in NYC instead of Atlanta

By Maria Saporta

Atlanta-based CNN Worldwide will be veering back toward its journalistic roots with the naming of Jeff Zucker, the former president of NBCUniversal, as its new president.

But one major difference is that for the first time ever the president of CNN will not be based in Atlanta.

Ever since the network was launched more than three decades ago, Atlanta has been the center of gravity for the news organization. But in the past decade, more and more of CNN’s programming and talent are being broadcast out of New York and Washington, D.C.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Atlanta Streetcar: Opening date in 2013 may be slipping away

The Atlanta Streetcar appears increasingly unlikely to open in 2013, according to an update Atlanta’s public works commissioner presented Wednesday to the Transportation Committee of the Atlanta City Council.

Commissioner Richard Mendoza did not provide a direct answer to this question from Councilmember Yolanda Adrean: “When will you get the streetcar up and running?”

Mendoza said track construction will take up to 16 months after the first utility cut was made, this past summer. Just 30 percent of the requisite utility work is complete and as for its final completion date, Mendoza said: “I don’t have that information.”

Posted inLatest News

Cathy Woolard to become new interim executive director at AID Atlanta

By Maria Saporta

Former Atlanta City Council President Cathy Woolard will serve as the interim executive director of AID Atlanta, a 30-year-old nonprofit that has been a national leader in helping people with AIDS and HIV.

The AID Atlanta board of directors said in a release that it “is thrilled” to announce that Woolard was coming on board.

“She brings extensive non-profit executive management expertise as well as a broad knowledge of the city’s corporate and civic leadership,” the release stated. “She will continue to maintain the client base at her public affairs company while she leads the organization in its 30th year.”

Posted inLatest News

Column: Atlanta Police Foundation launching $8.1 million campaign

By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on Friday, November 23, 2012

The Atlanta Police Foundation is launching an $8.1 million, three-year campaign to continue improving public safety in the city.

The Robert W. Woodruff Foundation has made the lead $1 million gift to that campaign. “The Woodruff Foundation has been our biggest supporter,” said Dave Wilkinson, president and CEO of the Atlanta Police Foundation.

The foundation was started in 2003 as a way to bolster the city of Atlanta’s public safety efforts.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Carter, MARTA agree to payment plan at Lindbergh City Center

This story was revised Wednesday with additional information from Carter and MARTA.

The master developer of MARTA’s Lindbergh City Center has worked out terms for a $91,000 payment it owes the transit system, MARTA officials said Tuesday.

MARTA and Carter, a major Atlanta developer, agree the money is owed and is a reconciliation of a portion of the ground lease at the Lindbergh station. Carter’s base payment in 2012 was $496,000, and the company has been paying it quarterly.

“We asked to pay in installments due to the unexpected nature of the charges,” said Scott Stringer, Carter’s executive vice president.

Posted inLatest News

Woodruff Arts Center leaders disclose $1.438 million fraud by ex-employee

By Maria Saporta

A former employee at the Woodruff Arts Center is thought to defrauded the cultural institution out of $1.438 million over the past five years through false invoices.

The leadership of WAC disclosed Tuesday morning that it has been conducting a internal investigation with outside forensic accounting experts over the past three weeks to determine the extent of the fraud.

The case has been turned over to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Posted inLive Healthy, Atlanta!, Thought Leader

Bringing New Doctors into Your Practice

By David Martin, President and CEO of VeinInnovations This month, I was excited to share news about my practice, VeinInnovations. Two new doctors, Dr. David Park and Dr. Alexander Park, are the newest members of our medical staff. In case their names made you wonder, the two are brothers. Before joining VeinInnovations, they operated their […]

Posted inLatest News

Metro Atlanta and Georgia lead the nation in electronic payments

By Maria Saporta

Atlanta and Georgia dominate in the field of credit card and debit card payments.

Paul Garcia, CEO of Atlanta-based Global Payments, told members of the Rotary Club of Atlanta Monday that 70 percent of all credit and debit transactions that occur in the United States are handled by companies based in Georgia — primarily in metro Atlanta.

Garcia then went on to list some of the major players based in Georgia — First Data, Elavon, TSYS (Total Systems), NCR and of course, Global Payments.

Posted inSaba Long

Georgia still has a long way to go to recover from the Great Recession

Among the flurry of press releases pronouncing the rebound of state’s economy, the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute (GBPI) released a sobering report this month on the Great Recession’s impact on working and middle class Georgians.

The institute’s State of Working Georgia 2012 report addresses battered annual incomes, decreased wealth, depressed wages and historically high poverty. There’s another Georgia far removed from the cluster of Buckhead A-Class office buildings, the trendy Midtown restaurant scene and the gameday suites.

Posted inMichelle Hiskey

At Alex Haley memorial, Atlanta’s modern slave trade comes to light

Annapolis, MD – Anchoring the heart of this seaside, colonial capital is a can’t-miss commemoration to a beloved storyteller who died 20 years ago.

Alex Haley transformed the appreciation of family history by starting with his own wrenching past, and his bronze likeness sits in a storyteller pose on the city dock, overlooking the waters where the slave ship Lord Ligonier brought his forefather Kunte Kinte from Gambia 245 years ago.

Alex Haley authored the memoir “Roots,” and the Kunte Kinte–Alex Haley Memorial pays tribute to ancestor and descendant, the power of storytelling and the resurgence of interest in genealogy.

The sculpture showing an animated Haley speaking to three children also points indirectly to Atlanta, where slavery thrives today in the form of human trafficking.

Posted inMoments, Moments Season 2

Mark McDonald’s jarring childhood Moment stirred lifetime passion for preserving historic sites

By Chris Schroder

Mark McDonald and his childhood friends were bicycling to their favorite fishing pond nestled in a grove of trees outside their historically rich hometown of Montgomery, Alabama, when they made a startling discovery.

The future CEO of the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation and his friends suddenly faced a harsh reality that had struck many historical southern towns before and since – development. The boys stood in silence as they watched as a large construction tractor bulldoze their beloved trees that had always shaded their favorite getaway.

“After I got out of law school, I realized that there were things that could be done about this,” he said in our accompanying Moments video. “The historic preservation movement was taking hold.”

Posted inDavid Pendered

Fate of Xpress bus service in hands of governor, General Assembly in 2013

The million-dollar question facing more than 2 million riders a year who use the Xpress bus service is actually a multimillion-dollar question.

Will the state continue to provide funds for GRTA to maintain Xpress bus service throughout metro Atlanta?

Only Gov. Nathan Deal and the state Legislature can respond. Their final answer won’t be known until state budgets are adopted in, perhaps, March 2013.

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