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Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed has raised more than $446,000 this year and has just over $1 million in cash in his campaign account, according to his recent campaign disclosure report.

Ten contributors named the City of Atlanta as their employer. They include the city’s newly appointed chief operating officer; two commissioners and a former commissioner; and the mayor’s two communications officers. The CEO of the Atlanta Beltline contributed, as did a project manager with the city’s development arm, Invest Atlanta.

Major expenses reported this year include a birthday party/fundraiser in June that cost more than $12,000; almost $14,000 for two fundraising consultants; more than $11,000 for official travel; and $981 to three florists for constituent recognition.

What does a strip retail center in Norcross have in common with a four-diamond hotel in the French Quarter of New Orleans and a fancy shopping mall near Caesars in Atlantic City?

All three appear in an ad for foreclosed properties that ran Aug. 1 in “The Wall Street Journal.” They’re part of an online auction of more than $1 billion worth of non-performing notes.

This juxtaposition could be just another weird aspect of life after the recession. Or, it would be just weird if it weren’t such a clear sign of lingering malaise in commercial real estate in metro Atlanta and other markets.

Federal authorities said Friday they are continuing their investigation into the recently issued concessions contracts at Atlanta’s airport even though a related probe conducted by the state has been closed.

The Federal Aviation Administration has determined that some vendors who won concessions contracts do not qualify as disadvantaged business enterprises, according to letters the FAA sent to the city, MARTA and Georgia Department of Transportation. For the city to provide these companies with a preference because of their “incorrect” claim to be DBEs, “could have impacted the selection process,” the letters state.

GDOT, which oversees the state’s DBE certification program that was used by the city, looked into the matter and has closed its investigation after making some administrative changes to bring its certification program into compliance with federal standards, according to a letter sent by GDOT to the FAA. The letter was released by Mayor Kasim Reed’s office.

Three regions in Georgia are getting ready to start building roads and bridges, and improving public transit, because voters approved a proposed 1 percent sales tax that was on the ballot Tuesday.

Consequently, $1.8 billion worth of projects are to be completed over the next decade in the special tax districts surrounding Augusta, Columbus and Dublin. The amount of approved construction is 1/10th of the $18 billion that had been proposed in all 12 of the special tax districts.

One of two transit projects approved by voters is to provide intercity bus service between Downtown Columbus and three sites in the Columbus/Muscogee area. The second is to help pay for maintaining and operating Augusta Public Transit.

Here’s a snapshot of the three districts, according to information culled from the Secretary of State’s Elections Division and the Georgia Department of Transportation:

Election day was business as usual for some top officials with the state’s Transportation Department.

They were cutting the ribbon on a new overpass in Savannah while voters were deciding the fate of a proposed sales tax to raise $18 billion for future road and transit projects across the state. Metro Atlanta voters were casting ballots on a $6.14 billion proposal.

The GDOT crowd in Savannah Tuesday morning included Commissioner Keith Golden; board member Jay Shaw, a Lakeland resident who represents the coastal area; and Todd Long, a deputy commissioner who helped craft all 12 project lists that are to be funded with the sales tax proposal on the July 31 ballot.

The cost of two recent campaigns illustrates the stunning amount of money that advocates of the proposed transportation sales tax have raised, and spent, to educate and influence voters. The political battle culminates Tuesday.

One-time Republican presidential hopeful Michelle Bachmann ran her entire campaign with about the same amount of contributions that has been raised for the campaign for metro Atlanta’s transportation sales tax.

When Jim Martin pushed Saxby Chambliss into a runoff in the 2008 campaign for U.S. Senate, Martin spent about $1 million less than the sum that’s been spent to wage the sales tax campaign in just 10 of Georgia’s 159 counties.