Home » Posts

Posts

Posted inMaria's Metro

Leadership changes underway at many environmental groups in metro Atlanta and Georgia

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

In the past several months, there has been a tremendous turnover in a host of environmental organizations in Atlanta and Georgia — and it’s not over yet.

The change is bringing several new faces on the scene, and at the same time, it helps shed spotlight a whole new generation of leaders.

For example, Mark Abner has recently become the state director of the Nature Conservancy. Abner, a Georgia native, has spent the better part of two decades outside the state, most recently working for the Nature Conservancy in the Washington, D.C. area.

Posted inATL Business Chronicle

College Football Hall of Fame needs $20 million by year end

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta and Lisa Schoolcraft
Friday, Sept. 23, 2011

The College Football Hall of Fame is racing against the clock to raise another $20 million before the end of the year so it can break ground in February.

Supporters have raised $22 million thus far for the project, which is expected to cost a total of $67.5 million.

And a trio of banks just agreed to provide a $27.5 million loan to help fund the Hall of Fame during construction. The loan, which is being secured by sponsorships pledges and donations, is being led by Regions Bank and includes Fifth Third Bank and BB&T.

Posted inGuest Column

Federal cutbacks could hurt land conservation in Georgia

by Teresa Johnston

By Guest Columnist DAVID MARTIN, chair of the Trust For Public Land’s Georgia council

Each of us has our favorite spot outdoors. For some, it’s our backyard or a park in the neighborhood, and for others, it’s a place in the mountains or at the beach. For me and a lot of other people, it’s the Chattahoochee River.

Many of us know that most of Atlanta’s drinking water comes from the Chattahoochee, but the river is also one of America’s greatest places for recreation.

On Saturday, Sept. 24, we had a chance to celebrate yet another piece of protected land on the river, when The Trust for Public Land (TPL) donated 22 acres in Johns Creek to the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area. The land, worth about $1.45 million,

Posted inDavid Pendered

Three weeks remain to finish first steps of transportation sales tax campaign

by David Pendered

By David Pendered

Metro Atlanta, and the remainder of Georgia, appears to be on schedule with the first phase of the state’s historic transportation sales tax referendum.

Lots of final details have to be worked out, not the least of which is whether the date of the vote should be changed from next year’s primary to the general election. The state Legislature is likely to consider that shift at its session that begins in January.

But the tough first step of the transportation effort looks like it will end without any train wrecks by Oct. 15. Local political leaders have been able to come together well enough to create lists of projects. Networks of campaign consultants and fundraisers to lobby voters to approve the sales tax have been created.

Posted inMichelle Hiskey

Injuries don’t have to stop an athlete’s contribution to team

by Michelle Hiskey

By Michelle Hiskey

Isn’t watching a fall football or softball game always more about the players on the field than the ones on the sideline?

Unless you’re Peyton Manning (the only 4-time Most Valuable Player in the NFL), few fans will give attention to an injured athlete.

A hobbled player, though, can still demonstrate the power of desire to shape a team – and herself.

Meet Sarah Grace Stafford of Decatur, and find out how coaches like Vince Dooley (of University of Georgia football) and Marynell Meadors (WNBA Atlanta Dream) harness the spirit of injured players to keep their team on track and boosted.

Posted inLatest News

City of Atlanta wins major case against Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta

The City of Atlanta has won a major decision in the federal case involving the Metropolitan Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless.

The Task Force has owned and operated the homeless shelter at the corner of Peachtree and Pine streets in downtown Atlanta.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Thrash ruled in favor of the city in every element of the lawsuit, concluding that the Task Force owed the city $147,288.73 in past due water bills.

Posted inATL Business Chronicle

Column: Olympics veterans together again for new bids

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta
Friday, Sept. 16, 2011

Two Atlanta Olympic veterans, Terrence Burns and George Hirthler, have joined forces to work on a 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games bid.

Between the two of them, they have been part of five successful Olympic bids in the past 20 years — Atlanta (1996), Beijing (2008), Vancouver (2010), Sochi (2014) and PyeongChang (2018).

Burns and Hirthler are former business partners. Their previous firm — Helikon Media — worked on the successful Beijing and Vancouver Olympic bids. The firm dissolved in the early 2000s after 9/11 and the recession when “every piece of the incremental marketing business went away,” Burns said.

Posted inEleanor Ringel Cater

Ryan Gosling shows he can “Drive” a movie as an actor

Avatar photo by Eleanor Ringel Cater

By Eleanor Ringel Cater

“Drive” made me car sick.

The sort of super-sleek cheese that Michael Mann used to do in his sleep, it profits — immensely — from Ryan Gosling’s iconic rendering of an iconic role: the strong, silent loner who just happens to be better than anyone else in the entire world at one thing.

Gosling can drive.

A movie stuntman who moonlights as as a getaway-driver-for-hire, he’s a stone-cold hero for a stone-dead post-9/11 world.

Posted inLatest News

Clean Air Campaign names Tedra Cheatham its new head

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta

The Clean Air Campaign will soon have a new executive director — Tedra Cheatham, currently the chief operating officer for the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce.

Cheatham will succeed Kevin Green, who was selected in May to be president and CEO of the Midtown Alliance.

The Clean Air Campaign conducted a search with the help of the Goodwin Group firm.

“At the end of the day, Tedra was the perfect fit,” said Renay Blumenthal, who chairs the Clean Air Campaign’s board. “Tedra’s experience as a leader, a convener and a conduit for advancing positive growth will be instrumental as the Clean Air Campaign works to accomplish its mission.”

Posted inLatest News

Future Atlanta Hawks owner Alex Meruelo welcomed to the city by Latin and local leaders

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta

The Latin American Chamber of Commerce of Georgia welcomed its newest star to town.

Alex Meruelo, president and CEO of Meruelo Enterprises, has reached an agreement to buy the Atlanta Hawks and Philips Arena.

If the sale is approved by the National Basketball Association, Meruelo would become the first Hispanic majority owner of a NBA team.

At a reception Wednesday evening at the Buckhead Club, top Latin business leaders got an opportunity to visit one-on-one with Meruelo, whose diversified investment holding company based in Southern California.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Cobb transportation sales tax forum calm, informative

by David Pendered

By David Pendered

The meeting Tuesday evening in Marietta had been so benign, with no incendiary comments about the proposed sales tax for transportation, that Brett Bittner said he felt compelled to speak at the end.

“There had been so many ‘pro’ comments that I had to make sure I got to say something,” said Bittner, who’s vice president of the Cobb Taxpayers Association and executive director of the Libertarian Party of Georgia. “My concern is the cost of the projects … and what we are committing ourselves to maintaining.”

Never once over the course of the two-hour event was there a public mention of transit causing an increase in crime, as was the case at a similar event in Smyrna earlier this month.

Posted inATL Business Chronicle

Gov. Nathan Deal open to state pension dollars being invested in venture capital funds

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta
Friday, Sept. 16, 2011

In an effort to make Georgia more competitive, Gov. Nathan Deal is open to allowing a portion of the state’s pension funds to be invested in venture capital.

Georgia is the only state in the nation that forbids its employee pension funds to be invested in alternative investments — a sore point among technology leaders hoping to make Georgia a vibrant center for research and new ventures.

For much of the past decade, technology leaders have been trying to get traction at the state Capitol to change Georgia’s restrictive investment policies — so far to no avail.

But Deal could emerge as a champion to change the state pension funds’ investment portfolio.

Posted inLatest News, Michelle Hiskey

Leading female pro golfer – Rosie Jones of Sandy Springs – continues to break barriers

by Michelle Hiskey

By Michelle Hiskey

Two of Atlanta’s top professional golfers will end the 2011 season by starring in atypical competitions this weekend.

You’ve probably heard of Matt Kuchar, who will tee off Thursday at East Lake Golf Club in the Tour Championship.

Kuchar, who lived in Brookhaven before moving to St. Simons a year ago and starred as an amateur while attending Georgia Tech, knows his scores at East Lake will also count toward the FedEx Cup – the PGA Tour’s prize for season-ending points playoffs.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic Ocean, Rosie Jones of Sandy Springs will be leading the best American female pro golfers into the Solheim Cup against all-stars from Europe. This team match play (modeled after the men’s Ryder Cup) will take place at Killeen Castle in Ireland starting Friday.

Posted inLatest News

Atlanta Rotary panel: Georgia should do more to support its diverse music industry

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta

Georgia needs to extend the same kind of tax credits to the music industry as it has the film and video industry.

That was one of the themes that three veterans of Georgia’s music industry share with members of the Rotary Club of Atlanta at the Monday luncheon.

The members of the panel included:

Joel Katz, a high-powered Atlanta-based entertainment attorney with Greenberg-Traurig, has been a major player in Georgia’s music scene for decades;

Dallas Austin, a songwriter, music producer, filmmaker, movie producer and musician who helped turn Atlanta into a center for urban music through the hip hop label LaFace and working with a number of local and national acts; and

Chuck Leavell, a Georgia tree farmer and keyboardist who has played with the Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, George Harrison and has been touring with the Rolling Stones for three decades.

Posted inLatest News

Charles Tarbutton elected chair of state’s economic development board

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta

The Georgia Department of Economic Development elected a new chair — Charles Tarbutton — at its board meeting on Sept. 16.

Tarbutton, who has been serving as vice chairman of the GDEcD board, is assistant vice president of the Sandersville Railroad Co., a short-line freight railroad primarily serving kaolin, forest products and plastics industries in Central Georgia.

In 2008, Tarbutton served as chair of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.

Tarbutton succeeds Ben Hinson, who is president and owner of Mid Georgia Ambulance in Macon. He had served on the economic development board since 2007.

Posted inMaria's Metro

Past ARC Chair Sam Olens: Is it time to elect a metro leader?

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

The Atlanta region is like Rodney Dangerfield. It don’t get no respect.

For decades, efforts to create a regional mindset have had mixed results.

Barriers are torn down just to be rebuilt — creating divisions between the inner urban core, the closer-in suburban counties and the exurban counties; between cities and counties; between the northern and southern parts of the region.

And while elected officials in all the various cities and counties in the 10-county area that makes up the Atlanta Regional Commission all agree that our problems cross over the borders of their jurisdictions, they all understand that when it comes to decision-making time they must take care of their voters first.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Oakland Cemetery refurbishing mausoleums, S.C. experts arrive this week

by David Pendered

By David Pendered

Atlanta’s historic Oakland Cemetery embarks this week on a tricky next step in its comprehensive effort to preserve decaying mausoleums.

Expert preservationists will examine two mausoleums that are in dire straits. One structure is held together with metal bands, and the other is shedding sheets and chunks of its stone skin.

“The materials in these are limestone and sandstone, and they have been melting over time,” said David Moore, Oakland’s executive director.

Posted inGuest Column

As Atlanta wrestles with awarding airport concessions, it’s time to revisit an idea

by Teresa Johnston

By Guest Columnist GEORGE BERRY, former aviation commissioner for the City of Atlanta, former commissioner of the Georgia Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism and retired executive of Cousins Properties

It is my guess that shortly after signing a lease/purchase agreement for the Candler Field property in l925, the Mayor of Atlanta or a member of the Board of Alderman was approached by a constituent hoping to establish a hot dog stand at the new facility.

In the decades since, airport concessions have been the bane of airport managers and have been tainted by corruption both real and implied.

Posted inEleanor Ringel Cater

A cough here; a sneeze there — ‘Contagion’ movie is as deep as a piece of Kleenex

Avatar photo by Eleanor Ringel Cater

By Eleanor Ringel Cater

By the time I was done with “Contagion” — or, perhaps, by the time “Contagion” was done with me — all I wanted was good shower.

And maybe a gallon of hand sanitizer.

As you may have guessed from the title, “Contagion” is about a contagious disease. A virus, you might say. Or a plague, to get biblical about it.

Tag, you’re it. And now you’re dead.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Challenge: Managing region’s largest proposed road, transit construction project

by David Pendered

By David Pendered

The first step was to create a $6.14 billion project list.

The next challenge facing the Atlanta Regional Roundtable is figuring out how to manage a road and transit construction program that would span 10 years and 10 counties. Presuming, of course, that voters approve next year a proposed 1 percent transportation sales tax.

“What has to be sorted out is how we have administration across the board,” Gwinnett County Chairman Charlotte Nash said Friday at a roundtable meeting. “We have to have an adequate oversight system in place.”

The cost of that oversight could be close to $250 million, or about the amount earmarked for the proposed MARTA route from Atlanta east along I-20. The management question has to be answered, at least in part, by Oct. 15 in order to devise the construction schedule that must be submitted to the state Legislature.

Gift this article