By David Pendered
The proposed 1 percent sales tax for transportation that voters will decide next year may last longer than the 10-year period that will be on the ballot.
That’s because elected officials are starting to talk publicly about the as-yet imaginary second phase of the proposed sales tax.
Two reasons for the presumed desire to extend the 10-year sales tax appear to be emerging:
By Maria Saporta
Friday, July 15, 2011
It’s coming full circle.
The Georgia Cancer Coalition, which was spun off from the Georgia Research Alliance a decade ago, is now being folded back into the public-private organization.
And Bill Todd, who has been president of the Georgia Cancer Coalition for the past eight years, will be leaving to join the faculty of Georgia Tech’s College of Management, from which he graduated nearly 40 years ago.
Todd also was the founding president of the Georgia Research Alliance, a public-private partnership formed in 1990 to solidify the state’s technology development by partnering with its six research universities.
By David Pendered
The recent white paper by the Fair Share Initiative on the need to fund transit projects with the proposed penny sales tax contains a footnote that’s startling enough on its own merit.
But it’s just the tip of the iceberg.
The footnote raises the issue of the pending federal reauthorization bill for highway and transit spending.
The current proposal before Congress is to cut federal revenues to Georgia by 35 percent in the next fiscal year, according to one report.
By David Pendered
Fair Share for Transit released Tuesday a $4 billion wish list of projects and a policy statement on what it says is the need to invest sales tax dollars in transit and other modes of alternative transportation.
The document was released in advance of a Thursday morning meeting of the five voting members of the executive committee of the Atlanta Regional Transportation Roundtable. The committee is to work on the draft list of projects to be put before voters for funding in 2012.
Fair Share’s document concludes with this chilling statement:
“If we do not advance viable alternatives now … we will mark the passage of half a century since our region took a significant step forward on permanent public transportation while cities like Dallas and Denver, Charlotte and Houston, Tampa and Phoenix celebrate what they have built.”
By Maria Saporta
After nearly four years at the helm, Helen Tapp is retiring as the Georgia director of the Trust for Public Land at the end of the month.
Tapp, who joined the Trust in late 2007, continued the environmental organization’s top initiatives in Georgia — the Atlanta BeltLine, the Chattahoochee River Corridor Greenway and Georgia Green.
“I am privileged to have been part of the TPL team and celebrate the great work of our talented staff, dedicated volunteers and good partners,” Tapp said. “Together we’ve been able to assemble the land for new and expanded parks in the City of Atlanta and Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb, Carroll counties…”
By Maria Saporta
It is an incredible “man bites dog” story.
A Cobb County pedestrian’s four-year-old son is killed by a hit-and-run driver who admittedly had been drinking. But it’s the mother who gets charged and convicted with vehicular homicide.
The mother, Raquel Nelson, was guilty of walking across Austell Road from the bus stop to her apartment complex with her three children. She had no car, yet she is charged with vehicular homicide.
Sally Flocks, founder of PEDS, a pedestrian advocacy organization, had told me a couple of weeks ago that this case was coming up and that she was going to testify in support of the mother.
By Maria Saporta
Friday, July 15, 2011
After the release July 5 of the state investigation report on cheating in Atlanta Public Schools, key business and civic leaders are wondering what’s next.
Will the response to the cheating scandal be one of renewed commitment? Or has there been irreparable damage done between the Atlanta Public Schools and the community at large?
On July 7, interim APS Superintendent Erroll Davis held a breakfast meeting with top donors.
“Everybody feels angry,” said Davis, who retired as chancellor of the Georgia Board of Regents on June 30. “I wanted to give them assurances that there were excellent programs in place that merited their support.”
By Maria Saporta
At the Atlanta Region Summit of Georgia’s Competitiveness Initiative, Gov. Nathan Deal highlighted the unprecedented cooperation between the state and the City of Atlanta.
Specifically, both Deal and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed spoke of their recent joint trip to Washington, D.C. to try to secure federal dollars and support to Georgia.
“I do believe you are going to see this week that we are going to be announcing the results of that trip to Washington,” Deal told the group of more than 200 metro leaders.
Reed did his own tease when he addressed the audience, thanking the governor for being willing to work together on that trip to Washington on June 1 when they met with a multitude of federal officials.
By Maria Saporta
The Atlanta Regional Commission has received a federal grant to embark on a year-long effort to put together an “economic development” framework for metro Atlanta.
The initiative was announced Monday morning at the Atlanta Region Summit of the Georgia Competitiveness Initiative that is being held at Georgia Tech’s Conference Center.
The $318,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration us part of a three-year effort to create a strategic plan for innovation and growth for the whole region.
Once again, the Atlanta region and the State of Georgia are seeking ways to improve the state’s competitive edge.
For more than a decade, economic development leaders have been trying to figure out what industries Georgia should target to strengthen the state’s economy.
The latest version of this endeavor is Gov. Nathan Deal’s Competitiveness Initiative — an effort that is being launched by Chris squared — Chris Clark, president of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, and Chris Cummiskey, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic Development.
Deal’s initiative was launched in April, and it includes 23 business leaders from
By Guest Columnist TAMMY HURT, co-president of Georgia Music Partners
Georgia’s internationally-known music industry is big business, and our creative community is unmatched. Based on 2009 data, there were 19,955 jobs in the state because of the music business. “Economic and Fiscal Impact Analysis of the Music Industry in Georgia,” recently published by noted Ph.D. in Economics, B. William Riall, also put state and local government tax receipts at $314 million.
Sounds like a nice contribution to the state’s overall economy, so what is the problem?
1. Other states, such as Louisiana, are doing a far better job attracting and growing music businesses. For example, Louisiana’s music credit incented our own R.E.M. to record in New Orleans,
By David Pendered
Atlanta has strengthened its economic development ties with Paris, which is on a $50 billion program to secure its position as a capital of global commerce.
Atlanta and Paris signed a five-year deal last week to promote each other as a business destination. The target audience is companies that already do business, or may expand, in one of the cities and want to reach a foreign market.
Paris evidently has a plan to develop its business ties to the Southeast, and Atlanta is now part of it. Paris signed a similar trade agreement in April with Memphis.
The Paris/Memphis deal envisions the strengthening of an air-freight trade route between the cities. The goal is to put businesses, and their products, just a few hours from their clients and end markets.
By Maria Saporta
For more than 20 years, a regional leadership program has been preparing current and up-and-coming leaders for moments just like this.
The week-long Regional Leadership Institute (RLI), which had its first class in 1991, brings people together from all corners of the region where they can take a deep look at the issues facing metro Atlanta — from transportation, water, education, aging and leadership.
The program, which takes place at St. Simons Island, has become a neutral ground where a diverse group of leaders can get to know each other and find areas of consensus when they return to metro Atlanta to work on its various challenges.
By Eleanor Ringel Cater
All’s well that ends well.
And the much-loved “Harry Potter” series has ended very well indeed.
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” the last film based on J.K. Rowling’s extraordinary books, wraps up things wonderfully well for the best-known wizard this side of Oz (and who knows? By now, Baum’s clever humbug may well have to settle for second place…or third.)
True, “Deathly Hallows” doesn’t begin well. If you aren’t already steeped in Harry Potter lore, you may feel a bit muggle-ish (and if you don’t know what a muggle is, you’ll be really stuck.)
By Maria Saporta
Friday, July 15, 2011
During the course of the cheating scandal within the Atlanta Public Schools, a myriad of accusations have been leveled against the Atlanta business community for its role in the ordeal.
Business leaders have been accused of supporting former Superintendent Beverly Hall unconditionally, for believing in the extraordinary academic improvements under way at the Atlanta Public Schools, for having direct business interests in the school system’s affairs, for orchestrating the community’s response to the investigation before all the results were known, and for caring more about Atlanta’s brand and reputation than students.
But after conducting interviews with more than a dozen key business and civic leaders, a far more complex, and much less sinister, picture emerges.
In fact, the story could be a case study of how the Atlanta business community deals with issues and addresses conflict — often preferring to keep its harshest criticism within private meetings while presenting a non-confrontational demeanor in public.
By Maria Saporta
Georgia State University President Mark Becker is taking on a major community role.
As of July 1, Becker became board chair of the Atlanta Regional Council for Higher Education (ARCHE), an organization of 20 colleges and universities in the greater metro area.
Becker succeeds Beheruz Sethna, the president of the University of West Georgia, who has chaired the board for the past two years. Sethna will remain on ARCHE’s executive committee.
By David Pendered
Atlanta has increased the pressure on companies that want to sell food, drink and other concessions at the Atlanta airport’s new international concourse that opens in Spring 2012.
The shops must be open by April 15, 2012 regardless of the date a company is allowed to begin construction on space it leases in Concourse F, according to city’s new terms for the concessions contracts.
For passengers who use Concourse F, the new requirement seems intended to ensure that service will be available at all of the planned restaurants, beverage and retail shops. And there isn’t to be any annoying sound of construction.
By Maria Saporta
Friday, July 8, 2011
The Center for the Visually Impaired is the latest Atlanta-based nonprofit that has established a business arm to help it raise revenues.
Since 2001, the center has seen its state funding cut by 60 percent. At the same time, United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta Inc. has had to cut its grants to the center from $583,995 in 2006 to $405,561 in 2010.
“Everyone knew we had to diversify our funding,” said Subie Green, president of the Center for the Visually Impaired. “That was one issue. The other issue is that 70 percent of all working age blind folks are unemployed. We wondered if there was some way we could run a business, support ourselves and employ our clients.”
By David Pendered
Atlanta appears to be reinforcing its effort to help small businesses get a piece of the pending food and drink concessions trade at the airport.
The city’s procurement department has added language to its request for proposals for the airport concessions contracts.
The new language hammers home Atlanta’s decision to require the big prime operators to allow their sub-tenants to join up with other prime operators that are competing for contracts.
The amendment, released July 6, will result in the city being about a month behind schedule in receiving proposals to run the airport’s food and drink concessions.
By Maria Saporta and Douglas Sams
Friday, July 8, 2011
Two years after leaving Cousins Properties Inc. as its CEO, Tom Bell is getting back into the real estate business — his first love.
Bell and five other partners have formed a company — Mesa Capital Partners LLC — and have raised $40 million to acquire distressed apartment properties. The partners include former Georgia-Pacific CEO Pete Correll and former Cousins Properties director John Mack, who also served as CEO of Morgan Stanley until 2009.
