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According to an AJC story that cites a mysterious “20-city index,” home prices in Atlanta are down:
From September 2007 through September of this year, Atlanta’s prices have fallen 9.5 percent.
But they’re also up:
Despite declines in 11 out of the past 14 months, Atlanta’s home prices are still up 22.7 percent since January 2000.
Annual salary that an adult with one school-age child needs to earn in Fulton County to be considered self-sufficient: $33,200
Amount that a parent in Fulton County earning $33,200 should spend on transportation, monthly: $53
Cost of a 30-day MARTA pass: $52.50
Percentage of Fulton County’s working population that uses public transportation: 9.3
Maximum hourly wage that an adult with one child could earn and still fall below the federal poverty line: $6.75
Federal minimum wage: $6.55
Hourly wage that an Atlantan raising two children would have to earn to be self-sufficient: $19
Hourly wage a Bostonian would have to earn: $30
Rank of Atlanta among 11 cities surveyed for highest cost of self-sufficiency: 9
Rank of Boston: 1
Percentage increase in the number of Fulton County residents who filed first-time unemployment claims in October 2008 versus October 2007: 66
Percentage increase in both Cobb and Gwinnett counties: 83
Sources: 2008 Self-Sufficiency Standard for Georgia, Georgia Department of Labor
Just about every year, the city of Atlanta asks the state Legislature to create a local gaming authority, presumably to explore the possibility of bringing some kind of gambling to town. The item has been on the city’s legislative wish list so long that it rarely raises eyebrows anymore. Could this year – as cash-strapped governments everywhere cast about for new sources of revenue – be different?
Mayor Shirley Franklin has again added it to her list and yesterday had a chat with local lawmakers who seemed open to considering gambling as an option.
“There’s a general sense that we’ll see gaming within the city limits and I concur,” Franklin said.
OK, not exactly an impassioned plea for casinos, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Not one to put lipstick on a pig, Franklin pithily summed up the city’s financial picture: “We’re in a downward spiral.”
Nearly all of the mayor’s other requests focused on small tax and fee increases that would bring the city an additional million or two here and there. A casino licensing agreement and vice taxes on gambling could, on the other hand, add tens of millions to city coffers, in addition to helping jump-start redevelopment of Downtown south of Marietta Street – assuming, as most folks do, that a casino would be located at Underground Atlanta.
Shirley Franklin finally used the “F word” today in the face of a bleak city revenue forecast.
Unfortunately for municipal employees, that word is “furloughs.”
Starting next month, through the end of the current fiscal year next June 30, all city workers – including police officers and firefighters – will have their work weeks trimmed by four hours. Department heads and managers will be responsible for determining how to reduce staff hours by 10 percent without slashing city services, Franklin announced at a hastily called afternoon press conference.
Still, the mayor conceded, the cutbacks likely will have “some implications” for services.
Franklin’s actions came in reaction to financial reports showing city revenues have been steadily falling for months. Through the first quarter of the fiscal year, she said, collections of sales taxes, property taxes and license fees – the city’s largest revenue sources – have all declined, pulling general fund revenues down by 12 percent.
Atlanta is one of more than 80 cities where protests are planned against California’s recently approved gay-marriage ban, Proposition 8.
Judging from traffic on Join the Impact, the website that gives the protests’ details, there’s major interest in the nationwide event:
Our community has come out in such large numbers to this site that we are actually crashing the server!! This is a fantastic problem to have when you think about it! Basically, this has become such a huge thing, that a server that is meant to handle 10K visitors/hour just can’t handle us!!
In the next 24 hours you will probably see the site switch to a cheesy placeholder… be patient, it’s just temporary.
Georgia outlawed gay marriage in 2004 (even though the act already was illegal) and is among 30 states to do so in recent years.
The Atlanta protest will be held at City Hall East, 675 Ponce De Leon Ave the State Capitol, 214 Capitol Ave., on Saturday, Nov. 15, at 1:30 p.m.
Ann Louis Nixon Cooper, the 106-year-old Atlantan whom President-elect Obama referred to in his victory speech, turns out to be quite a lady.
The Shelbyville, Tenn., native moved with her dentist husband to Atlanta in 1922 — when she was either 19 or 20. She knew W.E.B. Du Bois, John Hope Franklin and other 20th African-American intellectuals. She also was active in community activities, including a tutoring program at Ebenezer Baptist Church.
Obama used the sweep of Cooper’s life to launch into a call-response evocation of his “Yes We Can” mantra:
And tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America — the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can’t, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.
Local grassroots arts organization Idea Capital has tapped Shana Robbins, Jason Kofke and Rory Golden as its fall 2008 awards recipients. Robbins will receive a cool grand, and Kofke and Golden will get $500 and $250, respectively, to pursue experimental art projects.
From today’s press release:
Ms. Robbins will use the cash to fund a multi-media performance-based work
dealing with the “Monstrous Feminine,” while Mr. Kofke has proposed a city-wide
street art campaign titled “Everything Will Be OK,” which includes both permitted
and guerilla art tactics. Mr. Golden will create a fictional visual narrative
installation titled “You Think I Can Eat All That Chicken Here?” which includes a
150-year-old ex-slave, food addiction, and an extreme religious conversion.
Idea Capital was founded by Susan Todd-Raque, Stuart Keeler, Pam Rogers, Louise Shaw, and Cinqué Hicks “to encourage experimentation and investigation with funds designed to give artists permission
to pursue new ideas.” Visit the group’s website for more info on membership, donations and future grants. See examples of their art below.
Full disclosure: Hicks is CL’s freelance visual arts critic.
1. Early voting becomes advanced next week By Scott Henry
2. Why early voting scares Eric: The untold story By Scott Henry
3. DA’s flawed Troy Davis argument By Mara Shalhoup
4. Bishop’s Eddie Long commits sin of pride on Real Housewives of ATL By Andisheh Nouraee
5. Freaks and veeps: The L5P Halloween Parade By Andisheh Nouraee
The Humane Society of the United States is bringing to Atlanta an anti-dogfighting program that it says was successful in Chicago. The idea is to use people from the community as advocates against dogfighting; to show that pit bulls and other breeds frequently targeted by dog fighters are better as loving companions; and to help law enforcement crack down on fighting rings.
More in the press release after the jump. (more…)
Two recent elections — 2002, when Republicans captured the state Senate, and 2004, when they took control of the House — brought sweeping changes to the state Legislature.
Don’t expect any such drama this year, especially when it comes to the incumbent-friendly state legislative districts in Fulton County. Politicians have gotten very good at tweaking district lines to create seats that are solidly Republican or Democratic; that’s particularly true in Fulton, where there’s a clear divide between relatively upscale suburbs and more economically diverse urban areas.
For instance, state Sen. Dan Moody, R-Alpharetta, may have built an unimpressive record that includes sponsoring Gov. Perdue’s toxic bill to allow private developers to condemn private land. But his Democratic opponent, Pakistan-born businessman Akhtar Sadiq, who’s run several times in recent years, represents a meager threat in North Fulton’s District 56.
Likewise, in Alpharetta’s House District 47, that city’s former mayor, Republican state Rep. Chuck Martin, likely has little to fear from his Democratic challenger, businessman Tony Patel.
Despite their lack of political experience, we’d urge you to vote for the Democrat in either of those races. Before you think that’s unduly partisan, consider two things: 1) Neither Sadiq nor Patel stands a chance at winning, but we as voters can help ourselves by letting elected officials know that they might someday be vulnerable — particularly if there’s a message we want to send them; 2) Both Martin and Moody need to be sent a message. They’ve largely followed the state’s Republican leadership in failing to come up with serious solutions to Georgia’s mounting transportation, environmental, fiscal and educational problems.
If officeholders ever have earned a protest vote, it’s the partisan foot soldiers who have marched this state into swamp filled with mosquitoes.
Check out CL’s 2008 Voters’ Guide and add your comments to races you care about. On Oct. 21, come back to find a handy cheat-sheet to guide you — especially on the obscure races.
Short on cash? Can’t get a loan? Want to sell that stereo, television, or peg leg? There’s always the pawn shop. Stop by Jerry’s Pawn Shop on the corner of Prior and Decatur. Dave Adelman owns Jerry’s Pawn Shop at the corner of Prior and Decatur streets downtown.
Where are you from originally and how did you get into the pawn shop business?
Originally from New Haven, Conn. I moved here in the 1970’s. How I got into the Pawn business was I got married in 1975 to my present wife, and her father was in the pawn business. But I never thought about getting into the pawn business — I had never been in a pawn shop before. I was in between jobs, and we were offered jobs in other cities but we wanted to stay here. So he had an employee in the hospital, and he needed somebody in the store just to help him out. So he asked me to come down and help him in between my job search and the rest is history. I kinda just fell in love with it. That was 30 years ago. It will be thirty years in ’09. (more…)
Gov. Sonny Perdue’s plan for fixing a hemorrhaging state budget would cost Georgia homeowners upward of an extra 200 bucks a year — but it could end up costing Republicans even more.
With revenue collections now clogging the toilet, Perdue announced earlier this month that projections were indicating a $1.6 billion (yes, that’s a “B”) shortfall in the $20 billion current-year state budget. Part of his proposed remedy – eliminating the state Homeowner Tax Relief Grant – can be viewed as an affront to hardworking Georgia families struggling to make financial ends meet.
Or, if you’re a Democratic strategist, you can dance a jig and thank your nondenominational deity for yet another in a string of priceless political gimmes from a state Republican Party that seems determined to shoot itself in the foot with an AK-47.
But let’s back up a moment for a remedial course on Georgia taxes. The tax-relief grant in question was an initiative passed 10 years ago by then-Gov. Roy Barnes, under which the state reimburses cities, counties and school systems for a large chunk of local property-tax bills. The program has much the same effect as a homestead exemption, saving the typical taxpayer between $200 and $300 a year.
Read the rest if this article here.
(Photo by Joeff Davis)
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.
The growth of the Atlanta metropolitan area is finally slowing. Not so for Atlanta proper, though. This is coming from the Atlanta Regional Commission.
First the bad news (or, depending on your opinion of sprawl, the good news):
The population of the 10-county region increased by 70,200 people between April 1, 2007 and April 1, 2008, the smallest increase since 2003 and 16 percent lower than the annual average increase of this decade.
Now, the part that really gets Gwinnett’s goat:
Despite the slowdown in the rest of the region, growth in the City of Atlanta remains robust with its largest single-year population gain in almost 40 years, up 13,100 people. The City’s annual growth also marks the first time in at least four decades that the City added more new residents than Gwinnett County.
— The good news is that the Shelbinator appears to be back from writing some dissertation or another. And wh
