Jim Durrett, executive director of the Buckhead Community Improvement District, strongly refuted Tuesday the notion that plans are afoot to tax condo owners in Buckhead to raise money for a planned park above Ga. 400, as reported in SaportaReport. Durrett also said the park’s financial model has been made public.
Tag: politics
Posted inColumns
Taxing condo owners in Buckhead to pay for a planned park to be built above Ga. 400?
As preparations advance for a park that’s to be built over Ga. 400 in Buckhead, indications are emerging that backers may ask the Georgia Legislature to authorize a new property tax on condo owners in Buckhead to help pay for the project – priced at $250 million and mounting.
Posted inColumns
Once again, a nation drops its jaws at Alabama, and Alabama doesn’t care
The shock and outrage expressed by outside observers over the Alabama Senate race is only the latest of many cases in which the state has played this role. But as Herman Melville observed 160 years ago, Alabamians are stoutly resistant to moral condemnation.
Posted inColumns
Tax reform in the time of crypto currencies
Here’s a startling and largely unreported development which tells us a lot, indirectly, about what’s going down this week in Washington on tax reform. This year, investors have put more money into the initial offerings for crypto currencies than they have into all the initial public offerings for U.S. companies that came onto the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ.
Posted inColumns
New national water policy could emerge in 2018; depends on SCOTUS, Trump
A depleted fishery in Florida and parched farmland in New Mexico. The U.S. Supreme Court is to consider both scenarios in January as it prepares to issue rulings that could reshape the nation’s management of water resources.
Posted inColumns
Roy Moore and how the news gets made today
Repeatedly over the past few weeks, commentators have remarked that we’re going through a moment. However you define what a moment is, it has a lot to do with the way news gets made in the 21st Century.
Posted inLaw & Public Policy, Thought Leader, Uncategorized
As Atlanta’s skyline grows, so does city’s affordable housing crisis
By Steven Labovitz The cityscape, culture, and even color of our bustling city in the forest is changing faster these days than most people’s socks. Everywhere in Atlanta massive, new structures are going up as older, crumbling ones are razed. What was once a blighted factory on the east side is now trendy loft space […]
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Confederate icons to come down in Atlanta, pending support from city council, mayor
In the most personal of moments, Brenda Muhammad on Monday asked her fellow panelists permission to read aloud a motion calling for the removal of the names Confederate Avenue and East Confederate Avenue from the city’s streets. The two Confederate icons are among several that are to come down, according to recommendations that are headed to the Atlanta City Council and Mayor Kasim Reed.
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New criticism of transit voiced as MARTA eyes proposed line to Emory area
Randall O’Toole is at it again. Just as MARTA, Atlanta and possibly DeKalb County seem poised to help fund a transit line to the Emory University area, O’Toole – one of the nation’s outspoken critics of transit and smart growth policies – is out with new reports saying the transit era is over.
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Atlanta’s Confederate icons panel to issue final recommendations Monday
The one Confederate icon in Atlanta that appears slated for the dustbin is a street name, Confederate Avenue. In addition, Atlanta may install a sign to mark the site of a slave auction house that once stood near the present Five Points MARTA Station.
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Emory University says House tax plan could harm research, student learning
Emory University is ramping up its efforts to inform Georgia’s congressional members of the harm it says the current version of the House tax plan could cause to colleges and universities, which includes undermining funding for research, academic programs and student finances.
Posted inColumns
In mayor’s races, partisan politics seeps up through the potholes
Across the country, more than 30 big cities are electing or have already elected mayors this year. As we swing into the second round of our own mayoral contest, here’s a look at some of the trends emerging in other cities.
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Tour of mayors’ graves in Oakland Cemetery a solemn reminder before election day
The Greek leader Pericles said something about legacy that is worth recollecting in the final weekend of the campaign in Atlanta’s general election. Oakland Cemetery is putting in its 2 cents, as well.
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Racial make-up of Atlanta’s Confederate icon review among thorny issues raised
The racial composition of the Atlanta committee that’s reviewing Confederate icons in the city was called into question Wednesday by Aaron Turpeau, a former cabinet member of Maynard Jackson and Andrew Young’s mayoral administrations. It wasn’t the only concern expressed.
Posted inLatest News
U.S. Housing secretary visits Bedford Pine to commend senior housing project
When U.S. Housing Secretary Ben Carson arrived Tuesday in Atlanta’s Bedford Pine neighborhood to tour a new apartment community for low-income seniors, there was little to remind of the long road traveled to complete the project. All eyes were looking forward, not back.
Posted inColumns
Atlanta’s public policymakers must put children first
By Guest Columnist MERIA CARSTARPHEN, superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools
Atlanta – as the birthplace of a King, the crucible of the Civil Rights Movement and the international gateway to the Southeastern United States – is a city of innovation and spirit. Yet it is also a city entrenched in inequities that prevent children from living the choice-filled lives they deserve.
Posted inColumns
Trump backs away from a sacred 401(k)ow
It didn’t take Donald Trump long to shoot down the idea paying for the tax cut in part by radically reducing the 401(k) program. Which, when you look at it more closely, is a pretty good deal for Uncle Sam.
Posted inLatest News
Georgia voices vie for attention during NAFTA talks
The NAFTA talks slated to conclude Monday have transpired as an array of Georgia voices have sought to be heard: The Georgia Chamber of Commerce and five local chambers; small farmers seeking protection from competitors based in the U.S. and Mexico; and Sonny Perdue, a former Georgia governor now serving as U.S. agriculture secre
Posted inColumns
Orthodoxy is the easy way in early governor’s race forums
Over the past week or so both the Democratic and Republican candidates for governor have met to air their differences, and it should come as a surprise to no one that they don’t have many.
Sure, the two Staceys jabbed at each other over a couple of points and all the Republican challengers accused their better known rivals of being career politicians, But the overriding impression from this first pair of encounters is that both parties have grown settled in their respective orthodoxies, with very little way for candidates to break new ground.
Posted inLatest News
Mayor Reed names six to advisory committee on Confederate streets, statues
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed on Monday announced six appointments to the Advisory Committee on Confederate Monuments and City Street Names, which is to review and recommend what, if anything, is to be done with the monuments and street names.
