By Maria Saporta
In light of my Maria’s Metro column this week, I thought it would be good to run the full statement that Atlanta Mayor-elect Kasim Reed sent out on Wednesday following the recount of votes cast in the run-off election.
This statement was made after City Councilwoman Mary Norwood conceded to Reed that she had lost the election.
It sounds as though our next mayor is saying all the right things. What do you think?
Kasim Reed’s statement:
“Earlier this afternoon, I received a call
By Maria Saporta
Mayor-elect Kasim Reed reached out to the Atlanta business community Monday morning at the quarterly meeting of the Atlanta Committee for Progress, a blue-ribbon advisory group set up six years ago by outgoing Mayor Shirley Franklin.
Reed, accompanied by City Council President Lisa Borders, had to leave directly after the meeting at SunTrust Plaza and wasn’t available to answer questions.
But ACP Chairman Jim Wells, CEO of SunTrust Banks, said the meeting between the business leaders and the
The morning after of the city of Atlanta’s run-off election, I received an email from a veteran player in local government — George Berry.
Berry served under four different Atlanta mayors — Ivan Allen Jr., Sam Massell, Maynard Jackson and Andrew Young. As the city’s aviation commissioner, he oversaw the building of Atlanta’s new airport. Berry also served as commissioner of what is now the Georgia Department of Economic Development. More recently, he served as an executive of Cousins Properties until he retired a few years ago.
In short, Berry has a long memory, great insight combined with decades of exemplary public service.
So after the run-off on Dec. 1 showing that former state Sen.
By Maria Saporta and Dave Williams
Friday, December 4, 2009
Many empty chairs at City Hall will face Atlanta’s new mayor, who will have the daunting task of putting together a new leadership team for the city.
As of press time Dec. 2, former state Sen. Kasim Reed appeared to have won the Dec. 1 runoff, but the results were so close that City Councilwoman Mary Norwood was asking for a recount and the final results had not
By Guest Columnist LAURA HEERY PROZES, AIA, executive co-chair of the Congress for the New Urbanism 18
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have tracked a virulent virus, spreading since the 1950’s, crossing borders and oceans, with host bodies adapting remarkably to this disease.
Americans have adapted to the imbedded foreign bacteria, unaware of the extent that lives and health are compromised. In fact, we have been living remarkably well with the virus, perhaps similar to how we integrate cancer, diabetes, asthma, hypertension into daily lives.
Symptoms from the virus are mundane, such as obesity, and other symptoms have new names, such as Nature Deficit Disorder. We have prostheses to offset the health and lifestyle limitations, elevators to avoid stairs, cars to our doorsteps.
By Jeanne Bonner
Hope tinged with realism marked Friday’s Sustainable Roundtable on the future of transit in Atlanta held at All Saints Episcopal Church in Midtown.
Or was it realism softened ever so slightly by a bit of a hope?
Speakers Erik Steavens, director of the Georgia Department of Transportation’s Intermodal Programs, and Lee Biola, president of Citizens For Progressive Transit, sketched out the current status of transit in Atlanta and Georgia.
They both made a case for why one
By Dave Williams and Maria Saporta
Friday, December 4, 2009
The Atlanta political machine that elected Maynard Jackson, Andrew Young, Bill Campbell and Shirley Franklin is still alive.
But some political observers say the razor-thin margin of Kasim Reed’s apparent victory over Mary Norwood in the Dec. 1 mayoral runoff shows that it’s on life support.
By Maria Saporta
For the first time ever, the Atlanta Regional Commission has elected a citizen member as its next chairman.
Tad Leithead, a consultant who used to be an executive with Cousins Properties Inc. (NYSE: CUZ), was elected chairman on the third round.
He will succeed Sam Olens, chairman of the Cobb County Commission, who decided to step down as ARC chair so he could run for state Attorney General next year.
By Maria Saporta
Whose bright idea was it to hold city council committee meetings on run-off election day?
It took nearly four hours for the Atlanta City Council’s Committee for Human Resources and Community Development on Tuesday to finally take some kind of action on the proposed Sustainable Building Ordinance.
The ordinance, introduced to council in July, has been held in committee for months as environmentalists and
By Maria Saporta
Friday, November 27, 2009
The Atlanta Ballet has named a seasoned arts and cultural leader as its new executive director.
Arthur Jacobus has worked in the ballet field for nearly 20 years, serving as president of the Pacific Northwest Ballet and executive director of the San Francisco Ballet.
By Maria Saporta
Foreclosure on the Peachtree-Pine homeless shelter has been averted, at least for now.
Two lenders had filed for foreclosure notices that was supposed to go forward on Dec. 1.
But on Monday, the Metropolitan Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless was able to reach a temporary agreement with the lenders to keep the shelter open for at least another three months.
William “B” Wardlaw, who has been the
Life is not fair.
That point hit home once again this week.
On Thanksgiving morning, a friend of mine became seriously ill. She recently had moved in to our guest room — needing a place to stay and wanting to help me organize my home with 25-plus years of clutter.
So Thanksgiving morning, she tells me she is having agonizing pains in her stomach and that she needs to go to the hospital.
We get in my car, and she tells me she needs to go to Grady because she has no health insurance. This does not come as a surprise. I have known she has been living on the margins of society for years.
By Guest Columnist State Sen. DOUG STONER (D-Cobb)
In little over a month, my fellow legislators and I will be returning to Atlanta to begin a new session under the Gold Dome. This will be my eighth session of representing my hometown of Smyrna and South Cobb County, including two in the House of Representatives and six in the Senate.
The coming session appears similar to my first session in 2003. Georgia was just beginning to recover from a recession, and revenues had dropped for 18 straight months. We had nearly exhausted our reserve funds and were facing a $600 million budget shortfall.
How did my fellow legislators, along with Gov. Perdue, confront this budget challenge in 2003? First, the new governor picked the most conservative of the three projected revenue estimates for the coming year. Second, the governor proposed a mixture of budget cuts and
By Maria Saporta
The Metropolitan Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless has been at odds with the downtown business community and others — ever since it purchased the Peachtree-Pine building 12 years ago and turned into the city’s largest shelter.
Now William “B” Wardlaw, the Task Force’s top benefactor and supporter, acknowledges that the shelter’s days are numbered.
Two of the Task Force’s lenders — the Denver-based Mercy Loan Fund and the Institute for Community Economics —
By Maria Saporta
Friday, November 27, 2009
Housing advocates, and business and philanthropic leaders are keeping close tabs on the scheduled Dec. 1 foreclosure of the Peachtree-Pine shelter operated by the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless.
Two lenders have filed foreclosure notices on the Peachtree-Pine building — the Denver-based Mercy
By Maria Saporta
Friday, November 20, 2009
The Metro Atlanta Chamber has nailed down its leaders through 2011.
John Brock, chairman and CEO of Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc., has agreed to chair the chamber’s board in 2011, which means he will become chairman-elect next month.
By Maria Saporta
Mayoral candidate Mary Norwood has received a significant endorsement from State Rep. Margaret Kaiser, a Democrat who represents House District 59.
In a telephone interview late Wednesday afternoon, Kaiser said that her first inclination had been to remain neutral in the mayor’s race.
But as the race has entered its closing stretch, Kaiser felt it was important for Norwood to be recognized for her leadership style.
“It was time for more pro-active
By Maria Saporta
It was a first for me.
For three hours this afternoon, I interviewed the eight candidates currently in run-offs in key City of Atlanta races in a novel format that included video streaming to the web world through the use of social media.
The forum was organized by the Committee for a Better Atlanta, a coalition of several business and civic organizations interested in electing the most qualified people to elected offices.
The interviews, which took place at the
By Maria Saporta
When students return to Morehouse College in January after the holidays, their ranks will be down by between 60 and 80 fellow classmates.
Morehouse College President Robert Franklin told the Atlanta Kiwanis Club today that the economy is taking its toll on some of the historically-black college’s most financially vulnerable students.
“Many of our students can’t afford to come back,” Franklin said.
Morehouse College is only one of three
By Maria Saporta
Friday, November 20, 2009
The legacy of former Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. will live on at Georgia Tech in far-reaching ways that will cover the entire institution.
The centerpiece of that legacy will be the Ivan Allen Jr. Prize in Social Courage, which will be awarded to a national or international leader every year. That leader will receive $100,000 along with the prize.
Tom Glenn, president of the Hilda and Wilbur Glenn
