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That's Senator Smalley to you

You watched him on “Saturday Night Live.” You listened to him on Air America. You loved him in Stuart Saves His Family. OK, maybe not that last one.

But now comedian-turned-liberal-pundit-turned-politician Al Franken is finally going to join the U.S. Senate. Everyone knew he’d won the race months ago, but incumbent Norm “Douchebag” Coleman had been hanging on the seat by his fingernails.

Well, the NYT has just reported that the Minnesota Supreme Court today returned a unanimous verdict in Franken’s favor and that Coleman has conceded. It only took him seven months.

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Rep. Tim Bearden

The City of Carrollton’s attempt to clear the air over a controversial “verbal agreement” it made with state Rep. Tim Bearden, R-Douglasville, nearly four years ago just might have backfired.

A recap: On June 15, a Carrollton blogger broke the news that the City of Carrollton had paid Bearden nearly $93,000 since October 2005 to serve as a “consultant.” When asked to produce documents that showed evidence of the state lawmaker’s work, Carrollton officials said none existed.

Now there’s this from the Carrollton Times-Georgian:

The local organizer for the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots program has come out publicly to refute claims by the city of Carrollton that Rep. Tim Bearden helped with the annual campaign while serving as a consultant for the city.

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In a paid advertisement printed in the Sunday, June 21, issue of The Times-Georgian, Carrollton Mayor Wayne Garner listed briefly “a sampling of the projects Rep. Bearden has either solely or partially been responsible for.” These include the Police Department’s “Save a Life … Stop on Red” campaign, the “Fans for Seniors” program aimed at helping the elderly keep cool during the summer and the Toys for Tots drive that occurs every year during the Christmas season. In addition, Garner’s letter says that Bearden has also served in “an advisory capacity on sensitive police issues that are not open for public disclosure.”

But Carlis Baker, the area organizer of the toy drive, said in a letter to The Times-Georgian that his organization has no records of Bearden’s work, and if he were to be paid for his services to Toys for Tots, it would be a violation of the spirit of volunteerism that makes the program a success.

It’s one thing to say the fruits of Bearden’s labor existed in the “minds of the children,” as city officials recently said. It’s another to screw with Toys for Tots.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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A car being removed this afternoon from the Centergy parking deck which collapsed yesterday.

The AJC reports that Hardin Construction, whom we discussed in this space yesterday, is working with clean-up and emergency crews to determine the cause of yesterday’s COLLAPSE THAT SHOOK THE WORLD.

From a statement by Hardin President Bill Pinto:

“Although Hardin’s last direct involvement with the Centergy project was in 2002, senior Hardin staff members were on site immediately, joining others in trying to understand what happened. We will continue to make ourselves available to investigators and offer our full cooperation and assistance.

Metromont, the concrete company that Hardin kind of threw under the bus in a released statement yesterday, says it also has workers on scene and will assist in the investigation.

From a statement by Rick Pennell, CEO of the Greenville, S.C.-based company:

“As has been reported, Metromont Corporation assisted Hardin Construction on this project, which was finished in 2002 and is just one of over 500 parking facilities that our seventy five year old company has helped construct. Our last direct involvement with the garage was in 2002.

More importantly, yesterday’s partial collapse of the parking facility in downtown Atlanta is a terrible incident. We are pleased with the initial reports of no loss of life. Our senior design professionals have been on the site since yesterday afternoon working side by side with fire and public safety officials, assisting them in assessing the structural condition of the building, so that search efforts could begin without further danger to those first responders on the site. I arrived in Atlanta last evening and I am currently on the site with our team. Metromont Corporation is committed to providing whatever assistance, professional expertise or additional resources may be requested in this matter.”

Occupational Safety and Health Administration staffers are also on site. No formal investigation has been launched. The AJC says no one knows exactly whom will lead the investigation into exactly the parking deck collapsed.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Blondie sez: Check out the updated CL article

Got a few million to spare — in cash? Then you could be Blondie’s new landlord!

Next Tuesday, the Clermont Hotel and four other chunks of real estate owned by the troubled Inman Park Properties are scheduled to be auctioned off on the courthouse steps. John Mansour, a local lawyer representing Fairway Capital, the New York-based lender that’s foreclosing on the Clermont, told the AJC early last week that his client was negotiating with IPP founder Jeff Notrica. On Friday, however, Mansour told CL he didn’t have an update.

Based on recent experience, the outlook isn’t good. In fact, it’s pretty dismal.

Last week, I called Danny Glusman, sales manager for Inman Park Properties, in an effort to confirm which of the company’s many parcels in foreclosure had wound up back in the lenders’ hands. I picked random addresses from a long list I’d compiled by searching through public foreclosure notices, but Glusman was able to identify only one — the old Hilan Theatre in Virginia-Highland —that had been spared from foreclosure by a last-minute deal with the lender.

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By Sarah Bakhtiari

311, Ziggy Marley, the Expendables 311 headlines the Summer Unity Tour with Jamaican musician Ziggy Marley and reggae-punk band the Expendables. $20-$38.50. 6:30 p.m. Aaron’s Amphitheatre at Lakewood, 2002 Lakewood Way. 404-817-8700. www.ticketmaster.com.

4th of July Bash ’80s Style Dress ’80s for this Independence Day event with a dance floor. Bathing suits are also welcome for the poolside party. $15-$20. 7 p.m. DoubleTree Hotel Northlake, 4156 LaVista Road, Tucker. 678-608-8807.

4th of July Punk Rock Extravaganza Local punk-rock acts take over the Masquerade for shows in both Heaven and Hell. Who needs fireworks? 7 p.m. $8. 695 North Ave. 404-577-8178. www.masq.com.

All-American Celebration Family fun, patriotic sing-alongs and anthems, and a fiery post-concert blast! Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, conductor Bridget Reischl and the formidable U.S. Army Chorus perform. $21-$59. 8-10 p.m. Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre, 2200 Encore Parkway. 404-733-5010. www.ticketmaster.com.

Alpharetta’s Summer Celebration Alpharetta Recreation & Parks Department will host a spectacular fireworks show with food, children’s activities & entertainment. 5 p.m. Wills Park, 11925 Wills Road, Alpharetta. 678-297-6140. www.awesomealpharetta.com.

Beer and BBQ for the Fourth Chow down on an all-American Fourth of July three-course dinner. Chef Kevin Gillespie will roast a whole hog using his personal Terminus City barbecue recipes. $35-$40. 5 p.m. Woodfire Grill, 1782 Cheshire Bridge Road. 404-347-9055. www.woodfiregrill.com.

Big 4th in Little 5 Groove to two stages, one indoors and one outdoors. Bands include James Hall, the Constellations, Batata Doce, the Jaguars, F’ing Heartbreaks, Death on Two Wheels, the Whiskey Gentry, the Weeks and El Cobra Negro. $5-$8. 4 p.m. Star Bar, 437 Moreland Ave. 404-681-9018. www.starbar.net.

(Photo by Flickr.com/Pixel Addict)

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The competition for fifth place in Atlanta’s mayoral race just got hotter!

Tiffany Brown “launched” her campaign this morning in the form of a web site, BrownForAtlanta.com.

This is Brown’s second “run” at Atlanta’s highest elected office. Brown, then 25, “ran” for mayor in 2005, citing her 3.22 undergrad GPA as one of her main qualifications.

Brown has been commenting on the mayoral race since March using the Twitter pseudonym @nextatlmayor.

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• Done: U.S. troops pull out of major cities in Iraq… meanwhile, some of Iraq’s massive oil and gas fields are now opened for bids from foreign firms for exploration.
• Damn: An Airbus airliner carrying 153 passengers crashed off the Comoros islands, so far a 5-year-old child is the lone survivor.
• Don’t look now: But drug violence is increasing at the border… the U.S.-Canada border.
• In our own backyard: In light of the coup in Honduras, and while President Obama strongly condemned the ouster of the Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, the U.S. has a long history of instigation in the region.
• Serious WTF!: Some people (read: demented) are holding “swine flu parties” to “immunize” their children.
• Interesting: China decides against plan to require manufacturers to install a web filter after protests from the Obama Administration and Chinese internet users.
• White collar crime justice? Bernard Madoff sentenced to 150 years in prison.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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1) M.O.T.O. plays the Earl.

2) Sol Fusion and Friends host a Michael Jackson tribute at Opera nightclub.

3) Einstein Meets Elvis stages rock ’n’ roll improv at Laughing Skull Lounge.

4) Oakhurst Community Garden hosts Buggin’ Out and Living in a Garden of Weedin’.

5) Pints for Park Pride raises money for Atlanta parks at Sweetwater Brewery.

See more Atlanta events.

(Photo courtesy M.O.T.O.)

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Jim Maddox, caught between naps

The Atlanta City Council voted today to raise property taxes by 3 mills, an outcome we’d been predicting for weeks. But the actual vote count — 8 to 7 — was closer than anyone expected it to be. Not because Council members believed the tax hike was a bad idea. Hell, with only one or two possible exceptions, even those who voted against it were privately praying it would pass.

No, the vote was so close because several of our Council members possess, as Teddy Roosevelt once said, “the backbone of a chocolate eclair.”

Exhibit A is Jim “40 Winks” Maddox, the self-proclaimed “Dean of the Council” because he’s warmed a chair in City Hall for more than three long decades. Today, Maddox shocked his colleagues by voting against the tax hike and the $541 million budget. This is a guy who, two months ago, said publicaly that he didn’t think Mayor Franklin’s proposed 3-mill increase was big enough!

“I’m prepared to approve a tax increase to end the furloughs for all employees,” he announced at a budget hearing at the end of April.

But that was before he picked up three challengers for his beloved Council seat. So, today, without giving anyone a heads up, the lily-livered Maddox cravenly hung his colleagues out to dry.

Here’s guessing the next Council retreat is going to be awwwkward.

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CBS Atlanta reports that Hardin Construction, the big-name firm that managed the construction of the partially-collapsed Cyntergy parking deck in Midtown Atlanta, was also involved in the construction of the Atlanta Botanical Garden walkway that collapsed in December 2008. One worker was killed and 18 others injured in that accident.

The company, which was founded in Atlanta, is behind such notable buildings as 30 Allen Plaza, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation office, Terminus in Buckhead and — well, hell, a bunch of other buildings in metro Atlanta. In April, Hardin was selected by the University of Georgia to build two new parking decks on campus (PDF of the announcement).

A Hardin spokeswoman sent CL this statement:

We were the construction manager on the entire Centergy project, which included two office buildings and the parking facility. The parking facility was completed in December of 2002

For more information on how this deck was designed, fabricated and erected, your best source of information is Metromont Corporation who was responsible for the structure and chosen because of their expertise in precast/prestressed concrete building systems.

We contacted Metromont’s Greenville, S.C. office, but it’s closed for the day. We’ll update when we hear word. Back to the statement!

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The two alleged top leaders of the weekend’s military coup in Honduras are graduates of the U.S. Army’s Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, a.k.a. the School of the Americas at Fort Benning in Columbus.

General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez, head of Honduras’ armed forces, attended the school in 1976 and again in 1986. General Luis Javier Prince Suazo, head of the country’s air force, attended the school for a month in 1996.

WHINSEC/School of the Americas was founded in 1963, ostensibly to help professionalize the militaries of U.S.-allied countries in Latin America. A September 21, 1996 article by the Washington Post’s Dana Priest revealed the school taught students how to torture, kidnap, extort and execute prisoners. Priest won a Pulitzer Prize ten years later for uncovering the Bush Administration’s gulag archipelago chain of secret CIA prisons.

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1. Congress debates, votes on cap-and-trade energy bill (Good news: The House passed the monumental energy-conversation bill. Bad news: Georgia Congressman Paul Broun has embarrassed the entire state.)

2. Clermont foreclosure is tip of the iceberg (The plot thickens.)

3. Michael Jackson tributes in Atlanta (Atlanta celebrates the King of Pop. Twitter crashes. And Perez Hilton weeps.)

4. Coolest contest ever: Redesign the Clermont Hotel (The contest would have been a lot cooler if the seedy hotel wasn’t in danger of foreclosure. See No. 2.)

5. Peachtree-Pine homeless shelter told to vacate building (In the end, surprisingly, the homeless prevailed.)

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Farah Fawcett’s passing last Thursday prompted a generation of now-middle aged males to recall their frustrated adolescent fantasies. Michael Jackson’s death, on Friday, nearly broke the internet. The equally untimely death of householder-appliance pitchman Billy Mays, who likely succumbed to heart disease, inspired entirely different sorts of reminiscences.

Mays already had almost 52,000 fans on Facebook, over 2,000 of whom have visited his page since then to pay their respects. (Condolences ranged from “NOW who will I buy useless shit from?” to “zorbies won’t absorb my tears…and Mighty Mend-it can’t fix my broken heart” to “why couldnt the sham-wow guy die.”) Mays’ death pushed Twitter into another day of overload, while on MySpace users were hawking Orange Glo as collector’s items.

Though while the outbursts of sentiment following Fawcett and Jackson’s untimely deaths were not at all surprising, the phrase “infomercial star” that all the obits are throwing around wouldn’t even exist without Mays. So how to account for the impact of “the OxiClean guy” on the cultural zeitgeist?

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John Williams has awesome timing. About 10 to 15 minutes before a portion of a Midtown Atlanta parking deck collapsed today, the web designer, who works in a nearby building, says he left the area to get his car’s emissions checked. He returned to find the structure near Technology Square shut down, firetrucks parked, and a crowd gathered wondering just what the hell happened.

In this photo taken this afternoon the middle section of the Centergy parking deck is collapsed onto the floors below it. On the bottom floor cars are smashed on top of each other.

“It looked like a section about five cars wide just fell and took out the next three floors below it,” Williams said in a phone interview with CL. “You can see the cars piled up.”

Williams shot video from the scene. To view them, click the screenshots below.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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This just in, from Amnesty International’s media relations director, Wende Gozan Brown: The country’s highest court has postponed its decision on whether to hear the appeal of Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis, whose innocence claims have caused an international outcry.

Although a decision was expected today, the U.S. Supreme Court has opted to wait until it reconvenes in September — which will ward off a death warrant for Davis.

Davis already has had three execution dates set over the past three years, and once came within hours of execution before a last-minute stay was granted.

We’ll be updating this as the story develops. Stay tuned.

Here’s a statement we just received from Amnesty International:

“This delay is an indication that the Supreme Court is concerned by the gravity of Troy Davis’  innocence claims,” said Laura Moye, director of Amnesty International USA’s Death Penalty Abolition Campaign.  ”We will continue to call on all authorities, including the Supreme Court, to finally hear the evidence that has motivated hundreds of thousands of people worldwide to raise their voices and demand justice.”

(Photo courtesy Georgia Department of Corrections)

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The U.S. House narrowly passed the cap-and-trade bill late Friday, and it didn’t take long for Georgia’s own Congressman Paul Broun, R-Flat Earth, to be singled out as the nuttiest of the naysayers.

Why, you ask? Because of statements like this, made from the well:

“The idea of human-induced global climate change is one of the greatest hoaxes perpetrated out of the scientific community.”

So, Nobel Prize-winning economist and NYT columnist Paul Krugman, what was your take on Broun’s remarks?

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Thomas Wheatley’s kick-ass cover story about his battle with alcoholism, “Sober,” was named the second-best feature story in the country at the Association of Alternative Newsweekly’s annual conference this past weekend. Yay Thomas!

The AAN awards are the most prestigious for the nation’s altweeklies.

The other winners in the Feature Story category for 2008 were Westword’s “The Good Soldier” (first place), Westword’s “Father of Invention” (third place), Houston Press’s “Mental Anguish” (honorable mention), and L.A. Weekly’s “From Silver Lake to Suicide” (honorable mention).

Our sister papers Washington City Paper and Chicago Reader took home a whopping five and two AAN awards, respectively. Congrats, guys!

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The plight of the working class, the homeless and the otherwise disenfranchised are the focus of Matthew Cardinale’s online ‘zine Atlanta Progressive News. Cardinale, a liberal-progressive activist, has weathered such setbacks as a violent stabbing on Ponce de Leon Avenue, the loss of his professorship instructor’s job at Georgia State University and the all-consuming power of Georgia’s conservative right.

Tell me why you decided to create Atlanta Progressive News.
There is a gap in the ecosystem of information. If we want people to become involved, then we must provide them the information they need to become participants. I saw news services beginning to do this, and I wrote for a few them and saw that they could be successful. So I created Atlanta Progressive News to serve in a similar function.

What do you believe is the most important issue facing Atlanta today?
Affordable housing is the most important, because so much else falls from housing. If you don’t have housing, you can’t have anything else. There is a lack of affordable housing in Atlanta. The demolition of public housing is creating a worse housing situation. People don’t understand that moving those who live in public housing into the rental market is a terrible idea. Were all struggling. People should be in support of housing as a right. You shouldn’t have to worry about whether or not you can afford housing.

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The Macon Telegraph, of all places, reports via the Associated Press:

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UPDATE: Word comes in that City Council might make a motion to reconsider the property-tax vote. More details to come. The move to reconsider failed. The final budget adoption will most likely take place around 1:30 p.m.

The Atlanta Business Chronicle reports the Atlanta City Council this morning narrowly approved a three mill property-tax increase that will plug a $56 million budget shortfall. The average homeowner will see his or her property tax bill increase by $240.

The 8-7 vote Monday morning to raise property taxes by 3 mills was still considered preliminary. It is contingent upon council members adopting the mayor’s $541 million fiscal 2010 budget, a vote expected to take place on Monday afternoon.

The closeness of the tax vote reflected criticism aimed at the council during several public hearings for considering a tax hike in the midst of a severe recession.

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If the budget passes, the tax increase would allow the city to end employee furloughs during the fiscal year that starts on Wednesday. Furloughs of police officers and firefighters, and the subsequent impact on public safety, emerged as major concerns during the council’s review of Franklin’s budget.

The vote’s roll call:

Yeas: Carla Smith, Ivory Lee Young, Jr., Natalyn Archibong, Anne Fauver, Felicia Moore, C.T. Martin, Joyce Sheperd and Ceasar Mitchell.

Nays: Kwanza Hall, Cleta Winslow, Howard Shook, Clair Muller, Jim Maddox, Mary Norwood and H. Lamar Willis.

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• Kind of a big deal? Military ousts Honduran president… FWIW, the U.S. has publicly sided with president Manuel Zelaya…
• Mixed messages? As partial recount begins in Tehran, authorities detain Iranian staffers working at the British embassy… meanwhile: forget recount, reformers want annulment.
• Steve Jobs’ recently disclosed liver transplant sheds light on flaws in the system that favor those with means to travel to where organ wait times are shorter.
• Gas sippers: Thanks to the recession, the International Energy Agency expects demand for oil to grow only 0.6 percent from now until 2014.
• Yes the U.S. lost a 2-0 lead to Brazil in the Confederations Cup final. Yes, it’s still a good thing. (When was the last time the U.S. soccer squad made an international tournament final?)

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All day Sunday, a small cadre of local artists and arts lovers gathered at Eyedrum to kick off the first phase of a grassroots project to add a touch of art to the Beltline — and to make more people aware of where it is.

The project, which has been months in the making, involves creating more than 100 artful signs to designate where the 22-mile smart-growth project crosses public streets.

Angel Poventud, one of the project’s co-organizers, says WonderRoot staff spent $400 on wood on Saturday night. The next day, artists brought whatever materials they had — oils, pastels, even house paint — and got to work.

“It’s hard to believe you can pull off a project like this for less than a grand,” Poventud says. “But it’s all about the passion. And it’s here.”

The group plans to install the signs along the project sometime this week. After the jump, more photos from the event.

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The feds shut down five more failed banks over the weekend, two of which were in Georgia. 20 percent of U.S bank failures this year have been in Georgia, home to only four percent of the country’s banks.

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1) The Wooden Birds play the Earl.

2) Charles Martin discusses his book, Where the River Ends, at Decatur Library.

3) Safe Word plays 529.

4) Big Man Japan continues at the Plaza Theatre.

5) Soul Shakers play Blind Willie’s.

See more Atlanta events.

(Photo by Aubrey Edwards)

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The Georgia Aquarium has got to be the only place in Atlanta you can wiggle your fingers right beside stingrays…

(Photo by Jeff Riley)

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