The first six months of public meetings for the upcoming Atlanta City Design Project will occur at Ponce City Market in space donated by its developer, pending approval of legislation the Atlanta City Council is expected to adopt Monday.
Tag: politics
Posted inColumns, Guest Column, Main Slider
Love and worry over tax allocation districts
By Guest Columnist CAROLYN BOURDEAUX, director of the Center for State and Local Finance at Georgia State University
As a city of Atlanta taxpayer, I have a “love-worry” relationship with tax allocation districts (TADs): I love some of the projects that Atlanta has used TADs to finance, but I worry about whether we are keeping a close eye on the cumulative impact of this and other economic development finance tools.
Posted inMaria Saporta, WABE
Commentary: Former Atlantan wins prize for military women aid
Social justice advocate Nancy Parrish received Georgia Tech’s Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Social Courage on Feb. 18.
It’s one of the most prestigious awards given in Atlanta, named in honor of late Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. He gained national respect in the 1960s for supporting integration in the South.
Posted inDavid Pendered, Latest News, Main Slider
MARTA’s Brookhaven development stalled; city wants more discussion about density
The mixed use development planned at MARTA’s Brookhaven Station has been put on hold by Brookhaven city officials, who want to have a broader discussion about the area’s infrastructure before homes, shops and a hotel are built at the site.
Posted inTom Baxter
Sleep-walking into the SEC Primary, and beyond
When historians go back to sort out how the political establishment sleep-walked into the 2016 presidential election, Gov. Nathan Deal’s comments last week should stand out. Days before the South Carolina Republican presidential primary that everybody knew Donald Trump was going to win, as Jeb Bush was gasping his last air, Deal got grumpy about the water wars.
Posted inLatest News, Main Slider, Maria Saporta
Business leaders speaking out against religious freedom bill
Concerned business leaders are stepping up their efforts opposing the “religious freedom” legislation that passed the Georgia Senate on Friday.
The Metro Atlanta Chamber gave a letter to every Georgia senator – stating that it had signed the Georgia Prospers pledge, an initiative led by former Republic Senate Majority Leader Ronnie Chance.
Posted inColumns, Guest Column, Main Slider
Danger: Political leaders putting Georgia in reverse
By Guest Columnist BRIAN TOLLESON, a Georgia native who is the founder and owner of BARK BARK, a branded entertainment firm headquartered in Atlanta with offices in New York and Los Angeles
I’m a proud Georgian and a third generation entrepreneur here.
Posted inDavid Pendered, Latest News, Main Slider
Legislation to block Palmetto Pipeline pending Feb. 23 in South Carolina, Georgia
The coming days could tell a lot about the potential of the Palmetto Pipeline being built across sections of Georgia and South Carolina.
Posted inDavid Pendered, Latest News, Main Slider
Moores Mill Road shopping center to break ground, could mark area’s upswing
The back-and-forth at Atlanta City Hall over the fate of a road project in northwest Atlanta has ended with the announced groundbreaking for a shopping center along Moores Mill Road.
Posted inColumns, Main Slider, Maynard Eaton
Hank Thomas: ‘I’m a Freedom Rider and Buffalo Soldier’
Hank Thomas is a legendary civil rights activist and a pioneer Black fast food franchisee multi-millionaire, but few people know he is also among Black America’s foremost African American art collectors. The 74 year-old Thomas is the only surviving Freedom Rider aboard the infamous Greyhound bus that was set on fire on Mother’s Day in 1961, and he may be the only Atlanta art aficionado who owns so many Black art paintings he can’t count them all.
Posted inColumns, Guest Column, Main Slider
Ga. Water Coalition urges legislators to protect Georgia’s water
By Guest Columnist CHRIS MANGANIELLO, policy director for Georgia River Network
More than 150 conservation advocates from the mountains to the coast are making sure their voices are heard at the Capitol – urging legislators to cast votes for clean water. In the wake of the Flint, Mich. drinking water crisis, nothing could be more important than securing clean water for all Georgians.
Posted inColumns, Tom Baxter
Antonin Scalia and the splintering of the conservative movement
It says something about the current fragility of our political system that the death of a 79-year-old man with a lot of health issues and a penchant for the good life should have caught so many people completely off guard, and spurred so much talk of constitutional crisis and political war.
Posted inDavid Pendered, Latest News, Main Slider
Georgia’s reaction muted on delay of Obama’s climate change agenda
Georgia is among the 25 states that prevailed in their effort to have the U.S. Supreme Court delay the centerpiece of President Obama’s environmental agenda.
Posted inDavid Pendered, Latest News, Main Slider
Atlanta takes aim at scrap tires; latest clean-up effort spurred by Zika virus
The Atlanta City Council pressed ahead Tuesday with an effort to remove scrap tires, which serve as breeding grounds for disease-carrying mosquitoes, as social media displays pictures of workers in another country ladling water by the cupful from scrap tires.
Posted inATL Business Chronicle
Mayor Reed to work to keep city ‘equitable’ in 2016
By Maria Saporta and Amy Wenk
As published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on February 5, 2016
Building an equitable Atlanta will be a central theme of Mayor Kasim Reed’s administration in 2016.
Reed disclosed his commitment to making “sure Atlanta is a place for all us,” during an editorial board meeting with Atlanta Business Chronicle on Feb. 2.
“It’s not going to be just a traditional race conversation,” Reed said. “It’s going to be about the future conversation. How do millennials afford to live in the city of Atlanta? How does anybody afford to live in the city of Atlanta? How do you learn from London, New York, San Francisco … that are dealing with real issues around equity?”
Posted inDavid Pendered, Latest News, Main Slider
Georgia’s coastal marshland buffer zone again protected by state rules
Georgia has a new set of rules to govern development along the Georgia coast, and they provide the state with statutory authority to enforce a 25-foot salt marsh buffer.
Posted inTom Baxter
The Spotification of political music
Perhaps it isn’t Puccini, but you can learn a lot about political campaigns from the music which bubbles up from them.
Posted inColumns, David Pendered, Main Slider
Vacant houses cost Atlanta millions a year, solutions not easy or cheap: Ga. Tech report
Blighted and vacant properties in the city of Atlanta come at a great cost in terms of services such as police and fire, lost property taxes, and the way they pull down values of neighboring properties, according to a new report by a Georgia Tech professor.
Posted inColumns, Guest Column, Main Slider
Securing students’ academic future shouldn’t be a crap shoot
By Guest Columnist TAIFA BUTLER, executive director of the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute
People pushing proposals to bring casinos or horse tracks to Georgia are hitching their chances to the gold-plated brand that is the state’s HOPE Scholarship. Not a bad play.
Posted inLatest News, Main Slider, Maria Saporta
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed agrees to transfer 10 property deeds to APS
Given the new spirit of cooperation between the City of Atlanta and the Atlanta Public Schools, Mayor Kasim Reed said he is willing to transfer 10 property deeds to the school system.
Reed, speaking at the State of the City business breakfast Thursday morning at the Georgia World Congress Center, said he would ask the Atlanta City Council to transfer those deeds “right away.”
