Atlanta Public Schools wants to renegotiate Beltline TAD deal
April 14, 2009 at 6:54 pm by Thomas Wheatley in NewsJim Walls at Atlanta Unfiltered reports:
Atlanta school officials took action Monday to keep some or all of an $18 million pot collected for the city’s BeltLine project.
The Board of Education voted to change the effective date of its decision to allow school tax money to be spent on the BeltLine. The board first OK’d the funding in 2005. Under a complicated resolution that you really don’t want to read, the board said its decision will take effect this year instead.
In the meantime, the board plans to renegotiate the split for the $18 million that’s already in the bank.
School officials emphasized they still back the BeltLine. “We voted to support the beltline in December of 2005, and that support level is still there,” board Chair LaChandra Butler Burks said.
APS staff sent CL a copy of Monday’s resolution. Take a look at it here.
And why should any of this matter? Walls sums it up very nicely.
April 14th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
This whole thing has turned into Kabuki theater.
The APS Board is “fighting” for the right to keep only $10 million of $18 million in school tax funds? All the Board had to do in the resolution last night was to outright rescind the existing TAD agreements, and all $18 million would be safely back in the hands of the school board.
Instead, they want to “negotiate” with the ADA the right to keep only $10 million. Truly embarassing.
What makes this all much ado about nothing (and truly Kabuki theater in the round) is the retroactivity provision in HB 63 will ultimately get tossed into the trash heap of Georgia constitutional jurisprudence. The Woodham v. City of Atlanta decision and the language of Constitutional Amendment 2 all but assure this outcome.
The APS and the ADA are arguing over whether the sky is purple or green.
The sky is still blue.
April 15th, 2009 at 2:11 am
I don’t know what to make of this news.
Thanks for covering, Wheatley, otherwise we wouldn’t know.
April 15th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Sorry for my ignorance, but can someone explain why our school tax money is going to pay for the Beltline?
April 15th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Thanks for holding up the Beltline John. Very productive use of your time…
April 16th, 2009 at 12:05 am
S. DeKalb Voter.
You are welcome. Let us know when you get the right to vote within the City of Atlanta, and perhaps then your opinion in respect of the BeltLine and the illegal use Atlanta taxpayers dollars may become relevant.
Until then, keep drinking the Kool Aid.
Cheers.