Fresh Loaf

Retired Georgia-Pacific Corp. Chairman and CEO and private equity honcho A.D. “Pete” Correll is the latest local bigwig said to be eyeing the Atlanta mayor’s race.

Correll, you will recall, took on the role earlier this year as savior of Grady Hospital, helping to manage the mostly bloodless power transfer from a community-based board to one headed by top business leaders. Under Correll’s guidance, the money-losing public hospital has been awarded a $200 million Woodruff grant and hired a new CEO.

We’d heard Correll mentioned before as a potential candidate for mayor, but frankly hadn’t given it much thought because of his advanced age – 68 – and the perception that he’s committed himself to resuscitating Grady, a project that could take the rest of his natural life.

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Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin is out of town again this week, but this time John Sugg won’t need an open-records request to find her. She’s in Denver, of course, serving as one of the co-chairs of the Democratic National Convention. Last night, she was on hand in the Mile High City to kick off the ceremonies with her two co-chairs, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and Texas Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, who were joined by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

I’ll leave it to the Hillary-ites to point out the irony of having an all-female chairing committee and no women on the ticket. But at least the Dems finally agreed to seat Florida and Michigan delegates with full voting privileges, so no hard feelings, hmm?

Anyway, if you’d like to follow Shirley’s adventures in Denver, or simply follow the convention action on a minute-by minute basis, we recommend you check out the Demver blog set up by Denver alt-weekly Westword. They’ve got a fresh interview with Herroner, in which she opines on Howard Dean’s “50-state strategy” and about Georgia as a potential swing state:

“In my home state of Georgia, there’s a sense that well, a Democrat can’t win here competitively, can’t be competitive on the national level. Well, we’ve seen in our lives, we had a president from this state in our lifetime, in the 70s. The state supported Clinton in his first election and was very close in the second election. So there’s no question, just a few years ago, it was competitive. So I think it’s a mistake [to write off Georgia].”

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How would you like some face time with a real-life presidential nominee whose first name starts with a “B”?

That’s right – this Saturday, for only $100 a ticket, you can attend a cocktails-and-dinner fund-raiser in Dunwoody with Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr. Who’d you think we were talking about?

Enticingly titled “An Evening with Bob Barr,” the event also will feature appearances by fellow Libertarians, Senate candidate Allen Buckley, PSC candidates John Monds and Brandon Givens – and, if you’re lucky, current Johns Creek City Councilwoman Karen Richardson.

Anyway, if you want to go, the Georgia Libertarian Party would love to have you.  Register here.

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Get ready to OD on rezoning issues, DeKalbites. There’s a host of heavy-duty proposals coming down the pike that promises to keep slow-growthers, homeowner activists and land-use variance geeks occupied for days to come.

First up is an apartment complex being proposed for the Merry Hills neighborhood just west of the Toco Hill Shopping Center by Ashkouti Development. In an e-mail to constituents, local state Rep. Mike Jacobs, (R-DeKalb) calls the plan “the most egregious encroachment into a residential neighborhood I have seen during my time in public service.” Mike can be pretty hard to read sometimes, but we’re gonna go out on a limb and guess this means he doesn’t like it.

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And isn’t it ironic? A little too ironic, don’cha think?

Earlier this month, Gov. Sonny Perdue announced that state revenues were in the toilet, budget estimates were projecting a $1.6 billion ( yes, that’s a “B”) shortfall and that he was considering raising most people’s property taxes.

Hmm. This reminds us of an earlier situation involving a large government entity. We just can’t quite put our finger on it…

Oh, yeah – It’s Atlanta! Remember when CL broke the news back in January about the city budget crisis and the media shit-storm that followed?

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At its first meeting following a six-week summer recess, the Atlanta City Council today will finally take on a knotty issue that has troubled the city for years: street vendors.

Mayors have come and gone (and gone to prison) in the time that local officials have discussed, debated and feuded over the appropriate way to clean up what has long been described as the scroungiest bunch of street vendors and sidewalk hawkers this side of Sao Paulo.

But now the Council thinks it has the answer: outsourcing.

We don’t mean they’re shipping the guys selling fake Chanel handbags outside the Five Points MARTA Station off to Mumbai – although there’s something to be said for that idea.

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In a few hours, the latest round of head-butting between the Atlanta City Council and Mayor Shirley Franklin will commence. This time, the issue is the recently shuttered Fire Station #7, which the mayor ordered closed in July as part of $21.6 million in city budget cuts. Located on Whitehall Street just south of the I-20 overpass, #7 had been the city’s oldest fire station still in service.

Councilman Ceasar Mitchell has proposed legislation to reopen #7 by skimming the $1.12 million in needed operating funds from a number of other sources, such as the annual budgets for consulting services, travel and office supplies. which held the distinction of being Atlanta’s oldest station still in service, (more…)

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Being a Superior Court judge is a pretty sweet gig. You set your own hours. Everyone calls you “Your Honor.” And when you hold people in contempt, they go to jail. It’s not just the job of a lifetime – it’s the job for a lifetime.

So what would induce someone to voluntarily leave these perks behind and jump back into the job market? Well, in one case we can think of, the goal would be to trade a seat on the bench for the throne in City Hall.

Yes, it seems that Marvin Arrington, former City Council president and current Fulton Superior Court judge, is planning to make his second bid for the city’s top office.

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The departure of Atlanta City Council President Lisa Borders from the Atlanta mayor’s race earlier this week has, by political strategists’ calculation, left behind a large window of opportunity for the right candidate.

Specifically, we mean someone backed by the Atlanta business community – anointed by the Chamber of Commerce, as it were. Borders, a protege of mega-developer Tom Cousins, had been that person, but now she’s out.

Therefore, the buzz of the moment has concentrated on a well-known and universally respected chief executive, a man of unique achievement who’s arguably done more than anyone since Ted Turner to restore the vibrancy of Atlanta’s downtown business district.

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Atlanta City Council President Lisa Borders is expected to announce shortly that she will discontinue her campaign for mayor. Borders, one of the favorites in an already-crowded field of hopeful successors to Shirley Franklin, became the first declared candidate in April 2007.

No, her decision has nothing to do with the Atlanta Dream’s terrible WNBA record (she’s a team advisor), or her rumored fling with ex-presidential candidate John “Loverboy” Edwards (OK, we made that part up).

Actually, if we may be serious for a moment, we’re told Borders is stepping aside to spend more time with her ailing parents, Dr. William H. and Gloria T. Borders.

Last December, Borders left her position as senior vice president of marketing and communications at real-estate giant Cousins Properties to head her own consulting firm, LMB LLC and concentrate on her mayoral campaign. She will continue her term as Council president. No word yet on whether she plans to run for re-election or rejoin Cousins.

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Matt Towery of InsiderAdvantage is convinced that operatives with the Obama presidential campaign helped scuttle Vernon Jones’ Senate bid by sending out mailers that focused on Jones’ boasts that he voted twice for George W. Bush. The rumor has been picked up by Political Insider, Peach Pundit and other local blogs.

A certain Kenneth Walker, a Jones strategist, claims that he knows “for a fact…that there was a meeting in Sen. Harry Reid’s office with David Axelrod from Obama’s campaign, and there was an agreement Obama’s campaign would help Jim Martin with the direct mail linking Vernon and George Bush.”

That’s strange. We thought Vernon and Barrack were supposed to be tight.

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Tiny to the point of appearing shriveled, Jessica looks much older than her 48 years. Which shouldn’t be a surprise, considering she has HIV, suffers from mental illness and has been homeless perhaps half her life.

For the past several years, she lived in the bushes outside City Hall, which is where former Atlanta Councilwoman Debi Starnes first met her. Starnes estimates that she had suggested to Jessica on at least 50 occasions that she go to a shelter or ask help from a social-service agency – only to be cussed out.

Last week, however, Jessica said she had changed her mind; she was ready to check in to the city’s Gateway Center, where she could be assigned temporary housing and evaluated for treatment as part of a comprehensive program aimed at stabilizing lives gripped by addiction and psychosis. The last they spoke, Jessica told Starnes she must’ve been sent by God to help her.

Such are the incremental victories in the battle against homelessness.

Read the rest of this article here.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Now that we’ve recovered from yesterday’s elections, it’s worth noting a few Legislative seats that will change hands.

In Clayton County, the battle of the Democratic Gails will result in Gail Buckner returning to the General Assembly by defeating first-term state Sen. Gail Davenport. Buckner had left her Jonesboro House seat two years ago to run for secretary of state, but will come back as the District 44 senator.

In a lovely act of karma, right-wing harpy Nancy Schaefer has been ousted from the state Senate by Delta pilot Jim Butterworth. (more…)

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We haven’t seen turnout figures yet for yesterday’s runoffs, but the results in most cases seemed to confirm predictions.

The Democratic Senate nominee, of course, is former Atlanta lawmaker Jim Martin, having trounced DeKalb CEO Vernon Jones 60% to 40%.

Some folks might look at this result as the triumph of funding, since Martin entered the race late, spent little time stumping across the state and instead focused his efforts on collecting enough money from PACs and other sources to wage a TV campaign. That’s all true, but Martin did have high name recognition and none of the negatives that Jones brought to the table.

Martin’s victory opens the door for an aggressive, high-dollar assault on GOP incumbent Saxby Chambliss this fall. It all but ensures that top Senate Democrats will attempt to turn Georgia into one of their key battleground states.

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Just yesterday, we noted what a sorry effort DeKalb Democrats seem to have made to reclaim the House seat lost when former Democratic up-and-comer Mike Jacobs switched parties last year. They began the election season with two potential challengers, but looked to be throwing in the towel with both their candidates disqualified.

Not so fast, says Michelle Conlon, one of the two would-be candidates. (more…)

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