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
Our community is full of heroes who dedicate their lives to making Atlanta a better place to live.
As we give thanks this week, I would like to thank all our local heroes.
The abundance of great community leaders really hit home this past week.
It began with the induction of a new shining light — Bill Bolling, founder and executive director of the Atlanta Community Food Bank for 30 years. On Monday, Bolling received the Shining Light Award from Atlanta Gas Light and WSB-Radio — placed nostalgically on Peachtree Street in front of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church.
Then on Thursday, Progressive Redevelopment Inc. — one of
By Maria Saporta
The wooing between the Atlanta business community and the two mayoral candidates is in full swing.
Although the business community can’t produce the number of votes to get a candidate elected (partly because many executives live outside the city), their financial contributions are critical in financing campaigns in a close election.
A week ago, both mayoral candidates had back-to-back meetings with the executive committee of the Metro Atlanta Chamber and the executive committee of Central Atlanta Progress.
By Maria Saporta
What a day for women.
At lunch Thursday, the Atlanta Women’s Foundation held its 13th annual Numbers Too Big to Ignore event at the Georgia World Congress Center with Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times columnist and author, as the keynote speaker.
Kristof was the first man to serve as keynote speak for the event.
And then, Thursday evening, state Rep. Kathy Ashe hosted a cocktail conversation with Lilly Ledbetter, a heroine for women across the country and beyond. She was the inspiration for
The Atlanta elections of 2009 will go down in history as turning point for our city.
This is our generation’s version of the 1969 election when for voters broke rank and defeated the candidate of the business community in favor of Sam Massell, a Jewish businessman.
Up until Massell’s election, it had been customary for the mayor of the city of Atlanta to become an honorary member of the Piedmont Driving Club. But that offer was not extended to Massell.
And by 1973, when Atlanta’s first black mayor — Maynard Jackson — was elected, the transition was complete. The predominantly white business community no longer had a hold
By Guest Columnist ANNE OSTHOLTHOFF, founder and CEO of ArtsNOW/Creating Pride.
We want our young people to think critically, creatively and demonstrate an ability to solve problems and communicate effectively in today’s workplace. To achieve that goal, then all school leaders should take note, assess their priorities and make sure the arts are central to their school improvement plans for student success.
The reasons are twofold: First, educational research in school reform proves over and over again that students who are engaged in the arts outperform students who are not. Secondly, it is a relatively low-cost first step for school administrators and faculty in helping teachers provide engaging work in the classroom that captures the attention of students.
By Maria Saporta
Friday, September 18, 2009
Two global organizations are partnering with each other — United Parcel Service Inc. and UNICEF.
The Atlanta-based UPS Foundation is making a two-year, $1 million commitment to UNICEF to improve the emergency response capacity for its disaster preparedness program in the Asia-Pacific region.
The gift, which includes $700,000 in cash and $300,000
By Maria Saporta
The Atlanta Streetcar — through the Georgia Transit Connector partnership — is making its best pitch to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
A public-private partnership between the City of Atlanta, MARTA, the Atlanta Downtown Improvement District and the Midtown Improvement District today is submitting its application for federal stimulus funding.
The proposal for up to $300 million for “shovel-ready” funding includes two
Go to any neighborhood meeting, mayoral forum or happy hour in Atlanta and ask folks to rank the issues that worry them most. I’d bet dollars to donuts that “crime” and “the economy” will top their lists.
I’ve been wondering a lot about how these issues are related and concluded that instead of putting more people in prison-issue, orange jumpsuits we’d be better off preparing them to become part of the coming “green collar” economy.
I realize that talking about job training for criminals seems untimely when we’re so busy being scared witless about becoming their next victims. But I’m convinced my proposition would ultimately be much cheaper, and saner.
It’s easy to see why our community is obsessed with crime. Our fight-or-flight response has been raised to fever pitch by a series of high-profile crimes in Atlanta – including the tragic murders of an elderly laundry worker, an outstanding young boxer and a popular bartender.
As a result of our anxieties, gun sales are up and more people are getting home security systems (assuming they can still afford to actually live in their homes).
Our local news outlets are also feeding the frenzy; most TV stations have adopted the “if it bleeds it leads” approach to journalism and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution launched a new online service that will enable its readers to track neighborhood crime stats as easily as Braves box scores.
By Maria Saporta
Friday, September 11, 2009
The Southern Center for International Studies, an Atlanta institution since 1962, is in a major state of transition.
The center’s headquarters at 320 West Paces Ferry Road recently was sold to the Watson-Brown Foundation of Thomson, Ga., which plans to restore the historic residence designed by famous Atlanta architect Philip Trammell Shutze.
Tom Johnson knows a thing or two about power and how to use it.
Before he became chief executive of the CNN News Group, Johnson had a multifaceted career in politics and journalism.
Back in the 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson, no relation, brought him on as a White House Fellow. He worked for the president in various positions, including as one of the administration’s press secretaries.
By Maria Saporta
Talk about timing.
On Sept. 25, 2008, Emory University announced a $1.6 billion fundraising campaign — the largest such campaign of any university in Georgia.
“We announced the public campaign right when the economy went soft,” said Sonny Deriso,
By Maria Saporta
The Goizueta Foundation is donating $12 million, three-year grant to the Woodruff Arts Center to expand arts education programming for children and students up to the 12th grade.
The gift is the single largest grant that the center has rceived for its campus-wide education initiatives.
The grant also will help the arts center develop a cohesive and collaborative education platform that works with each
By Guest Columnist MATTHEW HICKS, associate legislative director for the Association County Commissioners of Georgia on economic development and transportation policy.
In 2003, a goal was set by those working on the BeltLine to have transit started on the corridor within ten years. It was a lofty target considering that every day brought obstacles and looming doubts about the overall project’s viability.
Yet every hurdle was overcome and soon problems
Governance.
Even in the best of times, finding the right governance to address a problem in a fair and representative way is a tricky task.
It is just that exercise that the Atlanta Regional Transit Implementation Board has been wrestling with for the past several months.
What would be the most balanced way to oversee transit development in the 12-county Atlanta region, if and when a new funding source is passed.
The effort has been a valiant one. County commission chairs have been working with MARTA, the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority (GRTA), the Georgia Department of Transportation, the governor’s office and the Atlanta Regional Commission to design a governance board to implement a regional transit system.
When General Electric decided to move the headquarters of its Power Systems division to metro Atlanta a decade ago, it was attracted to the state’s business environment.
A decade later, company executives have no regrets.
John Rice, GE’s vice chairman who oversees technology infrastructure for the $182 billion company, spoke today at a press briefing for the Atlanta Press Club.
“One of the reasons that we came to Atlanta and Georgia 10 years ago is
The shapers of Atlanta gathered Sunday evening at the Callanwolde Fine Arts Center to honor one of their own — Richard Stogner.
As a video screen played scenes from Stogner’s life, we all received slices of Atlanta history from the officials who were on the front row of government during the city’s growth from a metro area of less than 1 million residents to a region of more than 5 million people.
Stogner, who has spent more than 40 years serving local governments, recently retired. He culminated his career by serving eight years as executive assistant to former DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones.
It was a friendly and polite crowd that attended the Southern Co.’s annual meeting today in Callaway Gardens.
Even shareholders that had submitted proposals opposed by the company had kind words for Southern’s executives and their willingness to discuss sensitive issues of carbon emmissions, coal plants and climate change.
“We have been discussing these issues with the company for a long time, and we want to acknowledge tremendous progress over the years,” Sister Barbara Aires told CEO David Ratcliffe.
Sister Aires spoke on behalf of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth of
By Guest Columnist CATHERINE ROSS, director of the Center for Qaulity Growth and Harry West Professor at Georgia Tech
They came from all over the southeast and New York. They came because they heard our infrastructure was wearing out. They came because they are concerned about preserving our competitive advantage, and the quality of life in the south eastern United States.
They came because they know we have arrived at a time when we must build a new economy, one that is responsive to opportunities in the global marketplace and sufficient to assure employment and a continued high quality of life for Americans.
Compared to metro Atlanta, the region of Minneapolis-St. Paul virtually works as a metro government.
Back in 1967, the Metropolitan Council was established of seven counties, primarily as a planning organization.
But in 1994, the Council took on the responsibility of planning and operation of the region’s transit agency (Metro Transit), the wastewater treatment system, aviation and parks.
In short, the council brought a regional mindset to what the Minneapolis-St. Paul area believed were metro issues rather than purely local issues.
