More on Terri Montague leaving the Beltline
May 13, 2009 at 12:45 pm by Thomas Wheatley in NewsAtlanta Beltline Inc. President and CEO Terri Montague told CL Tuesday that no cloakroom antics were behind her announcement that she’ll leave the ambitious public-works project on September 1. Simply put, she says: Now’s a good time for her to find another challenge and ensure the $2.8 billion project doesn’t lose momentum.
“This is about a transition in leadership,” Montague said at last night’s Beltline Quarterly Briefing at the Atlanta Public Schools auditorium. “Now is better than later to think about how that looks like, who that person is, and what’s best for the next stage of [the project's development]…In the grand scheme of things, now is a good time to make that change.”
She said the Beltline is preparing to develop its next five-year work plan — a blueprint for its objectives — and she didn’t want to craft a vision for something she wouldn’t be responsible for seeing through to fruition. She said the fact that she’ll stay on as a consultant until the end of the year to help her successor make a smooth transition — working for 15 hours each week on the project — shows she’s leaving on good terms. She’ll also help the ABI Board decide a successor-selection process and slate of candidates.
“There are probably some people who are saying, Oh, they’re getting ready for a bond sale,” Montague said, referring to the project’s next round of funding (more on that at a later time). “But I’ll be here for that. I’m not angry, not hurt. I’m sorry to disappoint, but there is such a thing as a good transition in leadership.”
Before updating residents about the project’s progress, staffers from ABI and the Beltline Partnership, the separate fundraising and public-outreach arm of the project, took a moment to thank Montague for her efforts and leadership.
Montague, who moved to Atlanta to lead the Beltline, says she plans to stay in the city. “I came here to make Atlanta my long-term home,” she said. She hasn’t decided what she wants to do next. It has to be a challenge, she said.
“Right now, until I get a good vacation in, I’m not even going to think about,” she said with a laugh.
May 13th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Terri Montague’s decision to leave is the best one for the Beltline. She is a nice person and a smooth communicator, and she has some decent instincts. But she has been a very poor business manager and leaves a string of terrible decisions, including: 1. Paying a king’s ransom of $66 million to Wayne Mason for Beltline land in the NE; 2. Failing to recognize when buying that property that the Beltline was not even obtaining the right to operate transit on it (fortunately, this problem has been corrected); 3. Paying millions to Barry Real Estate to buy them out of a Beltline joint venture, even though Barry had failed to perform its obligations; 4. Failing to keep the community involved in decisions and failing to run a transparent organization; 5. Ignoring that attorney John Woodham had a slam-dunk challenge to the constitutionality of using school tax dollars for the Beltline and instead, treating him like a pest; 6. Putting virtually all of the proceeds from the first Beltline bond sale in the NE quadrant of the city. Even if many of these were done at the insistence of Mayor Shirley Franklin (as is likely since Mayor Franklin is on the ADA and ABI Boards) ,Terri Montague must shoulder responsibility for decisions that have imperiled the Beltline. I hope the city and Beltline leadership take this opportunity to reassess the project in light of all that has happened and develop a new Beltline plan that reflects today’s financial and political realities.