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Two organized opponents of the proposed 1 percent transportation sales tax said Thursday they are baffled by the allegation by tax advocates that the opponents have not offered an alternative to the tax.

The Sierra Club issued its alternative in writing in April, and members of the Atlanta Tea Party have voiced a consistent set of alternatives since October.

“We have common ground on this issue. There some things we don’t agree on, but we agree that this tax has got to be stopped,” said Debbie Dooley, a co-founder of the Atlanta Tea Party.

Proponents of the sales tax for transportation are pushing back against a loosely organized group of tax opponents, challenging them to present their solution to the region’s mobility challenges in lieu of the plan that will be on the July 31 ballot.

The opponents were portrayed as “a rare coalition of conservatives and liberals” and represented by state Sen. Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta) in a story by reporter Jon Shirek that posted Wednesday morning on the website of WXIA/11 Alive. Sam Williams, president of the Metro Atlanta Chamber, represented the region’s business leaders who advocate for the tax.

A few hours after Shirek’s report was posted on WXIA’s homepage, the following statement was released by Citizens for Transportation Mobility, which was formed in 2010 with Williams listed as one of three founding board members.

The rich tapestry of metro Atlanta will be on display in two events this week, one a photo exhibit of Atlanta in the ’70s and the other a book presentation by the author of a new work on the namesake of the John Ripley Forbes Big Trees Preserve in Sandy Springs.

The photo event includes a film to be shown Wednesday at 11 a.m. at Atlanta City Hall of works by photojournalist Boyd Lewis. An exhibit at City Hall that’s open through Thursday features works by Lewis, who’s known as a white photographer for the black press who chronicled the leaders of the 1970s.

The book presentation is Saturday at 10:30 a.m. at the Big Trees Preserve in Sandy Springs. Gary Ferguson, a nationally known nature writer, will discuss his recent book, “Nature Keeper: John Ripley Forbes and the Children’s Nature Movement.”

The most sweeping slate of reforms in some 20 years is on tap for the most popular urban renewal program in the city of Atlanta.

The measures expected from the Atlanta City Council are to be in place by the year’s end, and are to match the five recommendations of a performance audit that reviewed the city’s use of tax allocation districts. TADs enabled construction of such signature projects as Atlantic Station, Georgia Aquarium, projects along the Atlanta BeltLine, and the Center for Civil and Human Rights.

“We have a lot of work to do,” Councilmember Felicia Moore, who chairs the council’s Finance Committee, said after a work session Monday at which Atlanta internal Auditor Leslie Ward presented her agency’s report in a meeting that lasted nearly two hours.

Atlanta’s most successful urban renewal program over the past two decades is the subject of a work session on Monday that’s been called by two committees of the Atlanta City Council.

The primary purpose of the session is to consider results of an audit of the city’s tax allocation districts (TADs) that was released in May by Atlanta’s internal auditor, Leslie Ward. The audit portrays the city’s program as needing more oversight by the council, and it identified $226 million that it says is sitting in city coffers with no specific use attached to the money.

Since the audit was released, the city agency that manages the TAD program has hit two more bumps – one involving a warning issued by a New York bond rating house, the second involving Mayor Kasim Reed.