Fresh Loaf

Well, not quite yet, but Michael Wagoner, president of the Berkeley Park Neighborhood Association, tells me that their local station at 1545 Howell Mill Road is scheduled to reopen on Thursday, thanks to Monday’s approval of a $541 million city budget that included a 3-mill tax increase.

Station 23 was ordered closed by Mayor Franklin late last year as city revenues continued to dip. The administration said then that the closure was temporary, but that didn’t seem to satisfy the neighbors, who gathered hundreds of signatures to persuade the mayor to re-open the station.

Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran laid out the benefits of the tax hike in an e-mail to Wagoner:

For citizens, the measure restores services that were reduced or eliminated due to furloughs by restoring personnel to normal work hours and work schedules. Atlanta Fire Rescue will have the capacity to staff Engine 23 and Truck 12. For employees, the tax increase benefit will restore 10 percent of their salary, which is a tremendous blessing and morale booster during these tough economic times.

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Environmental news site Grist has an interesting post today questioning whether the controversial parking deck in Piedmont Park is as “green” — or LEED-certified — as its proponents have claimed.

But the pro-parking deck forces point to its green attributes, and even named it “SAGE”—for Safety Access Greenspace and Expansion. Per the Conservancy’s website, the garage was built to LEED standards, with shaded areas for cars to reduce heat island effect; increased access to the park for visitors; a “virtually invisible” structure within several years, when the potted trees finally blossom; special parking spots for hybrids and such; a top-level bike rack; and rainwater capture to irrigate the gardens.

Hm. Other than the last two ingredients, pretty much none of its touted green factors are particularly green, nor are they part of the LEED system. In fact, the U.S. Green Building Council has no record of the SAGE parking facility—it was neither registered (the first step toward certification) nor certified. And a parking garage isn’t eligible for LEED certification—a building, says Scot Horst, senior vice president of LEED, must have at least one resident to even be considered.

Foes of the parking deck weren’t mollified by the LEED claims—“Putting trees in pots on a concrete monstrosity didn’t transform the essential nature of the beast,” says [Friends of Piedmont Park board member Jack White]—but the even more troubling thing, at least to the folks who oversee LEED, is the misuse of their carefully crafted system. LEED has endured a lot of criticism in its 13-year history—for being too complex, not accounting for regional differences, costing too much to achieve, etc.—and has responded with a user-friendlier version, dubbed LEED 3.0, this year. But, says Horst, if a project isn’t officially certified, “you have no idea what [developers] mean” when they use the term. (The Piedmont conservancy did not return email requests for comment.)

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Erick Erickson, editor of Peach Pundit and RedState, has gotten all Lawnmower Man up in this and rappelled into the darkest depths of the Internet to do some good-ole fashioned sleuthing.

Erick Erickson

For several days, Erickson’s had a sneaking suspicion that someone close to state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine has been vandalizing Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel’s Wikipedia entry. Handel and Oxendine are considered front runners in the race that’s still more than a year away.

A few readers — some of whom it’s safe to assume are supporters of Das Ox — questioned Erickson’s motives. (It’s worth noting that he’s a fan of Handel.) But now he’s uncovered some more evidence.

So while I realize the Oxendine supporters will use this as a forum to go after me again for daring to speculate based on the circumstantial evidence at the time, as the Oxendine campaign seems intent on doing, the Oxendine campaign is not out of the woods by a long shot.

I now have the IP address from which RomneyGingrich12 made the changes to Karen Handel’s biography.

That IP address is a State of Georgia IP address that, I understand, connects from the Sloppy Floyd building. Unfortunately, it is also my understanding that it is pretty difficult to tell from there which computer, in fact, uses that particular IP address or it may rotate.

Read a list of more clues over at Peach Pundit.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Ivory Young

One says she’s had trouble sleeping because of anonymous threats. Another received a nasty phone message described as “the most disgusting, vulgar thing I’ve ever heard.” Others have gotten e-mails labeling them the “Hate Eight.”

Yes, the eight Atlanta City Council members who voted Monday to approve a 3-mill property tax increase have been reminded over the past few days that, no matter how sincere your intentions, you can’t please everybody.

For weeks now, most of the folks who voted for the tax hike — Carla Smith, Ivory Lee Young, Jr., Natalyn Archibong, Anne Fauver, Felicia Moore, C.T. Martin, Joyce Sheperd and Ceasar Mitchell — have said most constituents indicated a willingness to pay more in taxes in return for an end to police furloughs.

With the city bean-counters expecting only $490 million in annual revenues — down from nearly $650 million a couple years back — the alternatives to a tax increase, according to Mitchell, would’ve been cutting back on weekly trash pick-up, eliminating the recycling program, closing more rec centers and parks or, perhaps, additional employee furloughs.

But now the Eight are catching hell from people whose top concern was higher taxes.

Once the dust settles on the vote and the hate mail subsides, Council members agree, the newly un-furloughed city workers are going to need to step up their game in order to meet heightened taxpayer expectations.

“There can be no excuses now for poor service delivery,” says Young. “From here on, it’s zero tolerance for mediocrity.”

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The race to represent Morningside, Druid Hills, Virginia-Highland and Midtown residents at City Hall gets bigger by the week.

The Southern Voice reports that Miguel Gallegos has officially entered the contest, joining Liz Coyle, Alex Wan and Steve Brodie. Councilwoman Anne Fauver has said she would not seek a third term in office.

We’re hearing another potential candidate has been seen handing out campaign information in Piedmont Park. That mystery person hasn’t officially filed their papers yet. When she does, however, be prepared for this race — which is already spinning with political dynamics — to get even more interesting.

Gallegos, who the Voice reports is openly gay, doesn’t have a website just yet. Hey, Miguel! Send us a line sometime!

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Much like its subsidiary Georgia Power did under the Gold Dome with its controversial Plant Vogtle bill earlier this year, Atlanta-based Southern Co. has cranked up production in its lobbyist factory and ordered more than 60 well-dressed foot soldiers to march through the halls of Congress.

Their mission: Twist lawmakers’ arms about the global warming bill that last week narrowly passed the House and is on its way to the Senate.

From the Center for Public Integrity:

Southern Company, the nation’s largest electric power generator, also had the largest force of lobbyists among the hundreds of businesses and interest groups that were seeking to influence the landmark climate change legislation that just passed the House.

With 63 lobbyists, the Atlanta-based energy giant had nearly twice as many climate lobbyists as any other company or organization, according to registration statements filed with the Senate Office of Public Records for the first quarter of 2009. (The second quarter filings won’t be available for a few weeks.) Eleven of Southern’s climate representatives were in-house, while the rest came from a dozen different lobbying shops.

It’s for good reason, too. The center reports that “more than 80 percent of the 200 million megawatt hours of electricity [Southern Co.'s] plants generate annually is fired by fossil fuel — the main source of greenhouse gases.” Should the bill pass, it could greatly impact Southern Co.’s — and in the process, your — bottom line.

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• There goes the good news: Job losses rise in June as unemployment hits 9.5 percent.
• We pull out in one place, we push in the other: U.S. marines press Taliban fighters in Afghanistan in a new offensive.
• Sad way to go: A French probe concludes Air France flight 447 crashed “almost vertically” into the water.
• Instigatin’: North Korea reportedly test fires four missiles.
• Apparently, Saddam’s WMD bluff was aimed at Iran.
• European scientists have developed a swine flu vaccine.
• Forget bagel Friday, how ’bout nekid Friday: Staff members at a design firm in Newcastle, England worked one full day in the buff in order to “boost” morale.
• Don’t forward the kiddie pr0n: The GBI issued a warning about a suspicious email circulating that may contain child porn, and in turn, incriminate people that open it.

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U.S. Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., recently said she’d protest the upcoming census survey by only filling out the number of people who lived in her household. (Bachmann said ACORN, which is a census “community partner,” wanted to eat her home. She was wrong. Earlier this week the Libertarian Party’s DeKalb County party issued a press release in support of Bachmann’s stance.)

U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Uppity, and some fellow elephants are asking their cosmos-dwelling colleague to come back to Earth.

From the Washington Post’s Federal Eye blog:

Republican colleagues have now called her boycott illogical and illegal.

“Every elected representative in this country should feel a responsibility to encourage full participation in the census. To do otherwise is to advocate for a smaller share of federal funding for our constituents,” Reps. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) and John Mica (R-Fla.) said in a statement. The trio is members the House Census Oversight Subcommittee.

They argue that her boycott only increases the likelihood of political interference, because Census staffers and volunteers would have to visit her home to do a followup interview.

“Anyone who completes and returns their census form will remove any need for a census taker to visit their residence,” the group said.

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The Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless has met a court-ordered deadline for making a $15,000 payment to its wildly delinquent water bill — kind of.

A Fulton County judge last Tuesday ordered the city to reinstate water service to the huge Peachtree-Pine homeless shelter, on the condition that the Task Force pay its April and May bills by June 30.

According to Department of Watershed Management spokeswoman Janet Ward, the group dropped by on Friday with a check for $1,000. Then, yesterday, they sent over another check for $13,809.82, which left them short. Finally, today, they brought a third check for the final $190.18.

So, could the city have shut off the water again last night, when the Task Force still owed a couple hundred bucks?

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The biggest story on AJC.com main page today is a report about Georgia’s high rate of obesity.

John Robinson (known to many ’round these parts by as Gnosis) spotted elsewhere on the same page a possible explanation for our state’s collective girth.

Click to enlarge.

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OK, that may be a little over-dramatic, but it’s essentially true.

Two days ago, the City Council passed a $541 million city budget for fiscal year 2010 —  beginning, well, today, actually — which is $100 million less than the $640 million budget adopted in 2007. Now, that comparison is a little misleading because the FY2008 budget was based on some rather hinky accounting. Still, the city had to do a lot of heavy lifting to cut the budget down to $541 million, including staff layoffs, employee furloughs and a 3-mill tax hike.

Perhaps you’ve heard something about this. Well, what you likely hadn’t heard much about is a re-amortization of the city’s pension obligations, a provision buried within the budget.

I don’t mean to suggest anything sneaky about the action. It was certainly discussed at length in meetings that were open to the public, if poorly attended. But it was somewhat controversial among Council members because it carries a certain financial risk.

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A boat belonging to Cynthia McKinney (seen in this CL file photo) was detained by the Israeli Navy off the coast of the Gaza Strip.

• Not quite: Al Franken’s victory in the almost-never-ending Minnesota Senate Race doesn’t really give Democrats a filibuster-proof majority.
• Kerfuffle: Cynthia McKinney’s boat was seized by the Israel Navy as it approached the Gaza Strip with humanitarian aid.
• Mission Accomplished? As U.S. troops pull out from Iraqi cities (and Iraqi oil fields are opened for business), a huge car bomb kills 35 in Kirkuk.
• Old-fashioned coup: The Organization of American States (like the U.N. only smaller) threatened Honduras with suspension if it did not restore deposed president Manuel Zelaya.
• No porn and… no chicken? China expected to ban U.S. poultry imports.
• When California sneezes… The Golden State faces tough budget choices as revenues evaporate due to the recession.
• Oh the humanity: Paleontologists brought to tears, laughter as they visit creationist museum.
• If you’re not using FireFox, we need to talk: Version 3.5 is a vast improvement over an-already awesome web browser.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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A new AP report on census figures shows Atlanta is among the 25 fastest growing cities in the U.S.

The bureau found the population shifted from 520,368 persons in July 2007 to 537,958 in July 2008, about 3.4 percent.

We’re all so accustomed to gridlocked traffic and construction cranes that “Atlanta is growing” doesn’t seem like news.

It is.

Remember, despite the metro area’s half century of uninterrupted rapid growth, City of Atlanta lost population from the 1970s until the 1990s.

Also of noted: Last week the Atlanta Regional Commission released a report showing metro Atlanta is the second fastest-growing metro area in the country this decade after Dallas. By 2040, metro Atlanta is expected to be home to 8.3 million people.

Good thing local and state leaders are working so well together to meet our transportation and water needs.

(Correction: A previous version of this post incorrectly stated the 2000 U.S. Census showed a decline in Atlanta population from 1990. Here are the correct numbers.)

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Georgia roadbuilders — well, Marietta, Ga.-based C.W. Matthews, in particular — had something to smile about yesterday. Gov. Sonny Perdue, flanked by newly elected Georgia Department of Transportation Commissioner Vance Smith and U.S. Deputy Transportation Secretary John D. Porcari, made the smoggy skies rain with Obamabucks on Tuesday as he kicked off the Peach State’s first foray into stimulus spending.

On Tuesday state and federal transportation officials gathered in Hapeville to celebrate the first stimulus-funded road project to go under construction in metro Atlanta, a repaving expected to pump $940,841 into the Georgia economy.

The project is to pave 4.2 miles of Ga. Hwy. 3, a commercial corridor in Clayton and Fulton counties near Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Contractors said work is scheduled to begin Monday night.

C.W. Matthews scored the project because it is God.

Now, you can argue about the stimulus all day long. Hard truth though is that it’s here, so you best spend it wisely. And a new study by self-explanatory think tank Smart Growth America and its partners says, whoa, Georgia’s made some good choices in how it spends the cash.

The rest of the country? Meh.

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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.

…

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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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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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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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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