Fresh Loaf

Add one Jesse Spikes to the long list of folks planning to run for Atlanta mayor next year.

No, we weren’t familiar with Mr. Spikes, either, so we gave him a call. Spikes, 57, is a former Rhodes Scholar and a senior partner with McKenna Long & Aldridge, one of the city’s largest law firms. Although he served for a time as Evander Holyfield’s business attorney, he is not a well-known figure in Atlanta – but he does have an interesting back story.

Born on a farm in Henry County, the youngest of 13 children, to parents who never went to high school, Spikes’ future seemed understandably limited. But he was sent to school in New England by A Better Chance, a private educational foundation. Spikes went on to attend Dartmouth College, Harvard Law School and, courtesy of a Rhodes Scholarship, Oxford University.

Spikes, who specializes in business law, says he’d always expected to go to work in the public sector to give back to society, but hadn’t found the right opportunity. He now believes he’s found that chance.

“I think I’m the manager the city needs,” he says. “I’m someone who intends to focus on the nuts and bolts, day-in-day-out job of running the city.”

As someone who’s never run for public office, Spikes has his work cut out for him. So far, the field of mayoral candidates looks to include a number of seasoned political veterans: Council President Lisa Borders; State Sen. Kasim Reed; Council members Caesar Mitchell and Mary Norwood; and Fulton County Commissioner Robb Pitts.

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Good news for burglar alarm and pepper spray salesmen. Bad news for the rest of us.

Crime was up 11% city wide in 2007, according to statistics recently posted on the Atlanta Police Department web site.

Last year there were 129 homicides in Atlanta, up from 110 in 2006 and just 89 in 2005. The biggest increases were in robberies, up 21%, and burglaries, up 20%.

Each of the city’s six police zones experienced overall crime increases with Zone 1 (west Atlanta), Zone 4 (southwest Atlanta) and Zone 6 (east Atlanta), experiencing the highest increases.

At-large council member Ceasar Mitchell says, outside of worries about the economy, increased crime is the issue he hears about most often from constituents.

Both Mitchell and at-large council member Mary Norwood blame police recruitment and retention problems for part of the increase, as well as the de-activation of the city’s narcotics squad for much of 2007 – a move that followed the killing of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston during a botched November 2006 drug raid. However, both stop short of criticizing Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington or his leadership.

District 12 Council Member Joyce Sheperd, who represents several Southwest Atlanta neighborhoods in the Zone 4 police district, is more direct.

“He’s not a community-oriented police chief. He’s more of a stats man,” Sheperd says.

“Even though we may not be happy with him, trying to look at someone else at this point is not practical,” she says, blaming the city’s budget crisis and what she calls the city’s “strong-mayor/weak-council” structure, which means that any replacement might not survive in the post past the end of Mayor Franklin’s term in January 2010.

“Who could we get to come to Atlanta at this point?” Sheperd asks.

Charles Pippin, a resident of Southwest Atlanta’s Capitol View neighborhood (in Sheperd’s district), complains the city’s failure to increase the force size has left his neighborhood under-patrolled. Pippin and a group of neighbors formed a group called Capitol View Security Alliance last year. With membership dues, the group pays off-duty Atlanta police officers to patrol the neighborhood’s streets.

“Why can’t the city hire more officers?” Pippin says. “They’ll say it’s money, but if you get people feeling secure about these neighborhoods, more people will move in and your tax base will increase.”

Neither the mayor’s office nor the police department were available for comment.

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Buckhead City Councilwoman Mary Norwood – she of the first-lady-style suits and helmet hair – today kicked off her long-expected run for Atlanta mayor with an apparent makeover. Judge for yourself:


Before                After

OK, so her new look isn’t the big news here, but it will certainly be noted by anyone who’s grown accustomed over the years to Norwood’s dependable Talbots-and-Aqua Net aesthetic.

Anyway, the energetic councilwoman announced the rollout of a 120-member “exploratory committee” to survey the prospects of a Norwood mayoral campaign. Since she’s spent the past year holding town-hall meetings in virtually every neighborhood in town, we assume the committee is a formality and she’s already made up her mind to run in next year’s race.

Her likely opponents include Council President Lisa Borders, Councilman Ceasar Mitchell and state Sen. Kasim Reed. Possibles include Fulton County Commissioner Robb Pitts and talk-radio host Clark Howard.

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