Fresh Loaf

Borders with sinister City Hall puppet-master Tom Bell!

Folks, there are scarcely two weeks left before the Nov. 3 city elections. Two damn weeks! It would seem the mayoral candidates are mindful of this because they’ve shifted into attack mode.

Last Friday, City Council President Lisa Borders challenged opponent Kasim Reed to pledge to “end nepotism” in City Hall, while pointing out that his brother works as a contract compliance officer for the city.

Now, the Borders folks told me about this months ago, hinting at some vague conflict of interest. But it isn’t nepotism because, while  candidate Reed is close to Mayor Franklin, he’s never worked for the city. And if he used his influence to help his brother get the job, that’s not illegal or even, I would argue, necessarily unethical.

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Tuesday’s looking to be one of those days just jam-packed with forums.

While Georgia STAND-UP hosts its City Council candidate forum in Southwest Atlanta, a coalition of transportation advocates will be grilling Mayoral candidates about their stances on transit, bicycles and pedestrian friendly streets — and how mobility options other than automobiles could improve Atlanta’s quality of life and economic potential.

Citizens for Progressive Transit, the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition and PEDS are hosting the 6:30 p.m. forum at the Atlanta Regional Commission. Mayoral candidates Lisa Borders, Mary Norwood, Kasim Reed, Jesse Spikes and Glenn Thomas will give their take on the issues. Longtime business columnist and smart-growth advocate Maria Saporta will moderate the discussion.

For more information about the forum, visit the coalition’s website. For directions, click here. You can also try CfPT’s online transit trip planner. The ARC is convenient to three MARTA stations and Five Points bus transfer center. The coalition’s advocacy team will provide free bicycle valet parking.

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City Hall insiders were whispering on Thursday that Atlanta mayoral candidate Mary Norwood would receive the valuable endorsement from the city’s firefighters. The rumor surprised some, considering the city councilwoman’s vote in June against the three-mill property tax that has helped end police and firefighter furloughs.

But win the endorsement she did, the AJC’s Eric Stirgus reports. Jim Daws, head of the local chapter of the International Association of Fire Fighters and a lieutenant with the city’s Department of Fire Rescue, told Stirgus that the union weighed Norwood’s overall support of the department in making its decision. The official announcement by the union, which boasts roughly 450 members, will be made today.

(UPDATE): Kasim Reed’s campaign chimes in about Norwood’s endorsement:

“Throughout my career in public service and over the course of this campaign, I have made Public Safety my number one priority. While I am respectful of the decision to endorse another candidate, I am unwavering in my support for our city’s firefighters. The men and women of the Atlanta fire department—who place their lives on the line to protect our families—deserve to have a mayor who will fight for them, day in and day out. If elected mayor, I would be honored to serve them.”

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In mid-July, the citizen coalition Campaign for Atlanta held a two-day series of forums with Atlanta mayoral candidates Lisa Borders, Mary Norwood, Kasim Reed and Jesse Spikes at the Carter Center.

Topics covered during the events included Department of Watershed Management issues, creating and maintaining a competent city bureaucracy, and police and fire issues. Candidates were grilled by civil engineer Bob Bunker, Georgia Tech Professor Jim Martin, former Fulton County Manager Sam Brownlee, former Atlanta Deputy Police Chief Lou Arcangeli and former Atlanta Fire Chief David Chamberlin.

All 32 videos of the event, grouped by candidate remarks and responses, were made available today on Campaign for Atlanta’s website. We’ve uploaded each candidate’s opening remarks after the jump.

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City Council President Lisa Borders came back strong this past quarter — fundraisingly speaking — after taking seven months off the campaign trail, besting Councilwoman Mary Norwood by a fair margin. But state Sen. Kasim Reed managed to out-raise them both since the beginning of April, according to the candidates’ campaign disclosure reports, which were due today at 5 p.m.

It’s the first time it’s been possible to make an apples-to-apples comparison of all three top candidates’ fundraising efforts because of Borders’ temporary withdrawal from the race and Reed’s inability to raise money during the General Assembly.

So, here we go. In the last quarter, according to their disclosures:

Borders raised $403,528 and spent $270,866

Norwood raised $307,251 and spent $131,623

Reed raised $507,206 and spent $334,878

Those numbers are only for cash, not in-kind contributions, such as free catering, printing or foot massages for canvassers.

Now, interestingly, all three candidates have spent roughly the same amount — between $525,000 and $550,000 — over the entire campaign.

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Mayor Franklin continues to remind everyone that she has a thin skin. This time, it comes in the form of open letter released minutes ago and addressed to Sgt. Scott Kreher, president of the Atlanta police union, who had publicly scoffed at her proposal to raise taxes to hire more cops.

“Can the mayor be any more full of hot air on that one?” Kreher was quoted as saying in today’s AJC.

Kreher dismissed Franklin’s proposal to add 400 officers to the APD by the end of the year as so much empty political rhetoric. Even if the city had the money, Kreher told the newspaper, the mayor knows it would take longer than that to recruit, train and certify so many new officers.

Here are some excerpts from Shirley’s fairly lengthy reply:

I have your public comments and I faithfully appreciate the frustration you must feel as you advocate for the officers and the International Brotherhood of Police Officers members in recent weeks. In spite of the divisive comments you have made about me I believe we share a common goal, which is a safe city. I think we both recognize the essential role our police officers contribute to achieving this goal.

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A Jan. 7 killing and armed robbery at the Standard Food and Spirits sparked community outcry — and questions over who’s to blame for a rise in Atlanta crime.

“The idea that we have a city where this kind of violence can happen is completely unacceptable. … What we have seen is cuts [in police hours] made [by Mayor Shirley Franklin] without consultation and collaboration.”

— Atlanta Councilmember Mary Norwood, who attended a Thursday morning vigil for victim John Henderson, in a Jan. 8 AJC article.

“I proposed a modest tax increase [in early 2008] dedicated to public safety and the Council chose to roll back taxes in spite of our warnings. … [Norwood] has never sought to discuss the budget recommendations with me and I find her remarks today to be ludicrous and irresponsible.”

— Franklin’s response to Norwood, in a Jan. 8 press release.

“i would be happy to pay more taxes for a safer community. but our family can and will leave if the city doesn’t address this problem.”

— Adam Bartolett, in a post on the Atlantans Together Against Crime and Cutbacks’ Facebook page.

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OK, I’ve covered Franklin’s speech. Now for the dish, Peach Buzz-style.

Former mayors Sam Massell and Andy Young were both seated at the front table. Ex-jailbird Bill Campbell, however, freshly released from his stint in a Florida halfway house, was nowhere to be seen — probably because the Omni doesn’t have craps tables.

Norwood harshes Shirley's buzz

Cobb Commission Chairman Sam Olens and new DeKalb CEO Burrell Ellis were also present, as was former CEO Liane Levitan. Ellis told me he’d received a surprise message from his predecessor, Vernon Jones, apologizing for missing his swearing-in ceremony this past Monday. (Apparently, Vernon was out of town and didn’t want Ellis to take his absence as a dis.)

Of course, the event was packed with movers and shakers from the business community, from Coke CEO Muhtar Kent to Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce President Sam Williams and all the usual suspects.

The mayor even took a moment to acknowledge her adult children, son Cabral and younger daughter Kali, adding that for all her supposed power and authority, they still treat her like “just mom.”

Finally, all of this year’s mayoral candidates were working the Omni ballroom like bears in a salmon spawn. Sighted were Sen. Kasim Reed, attorney Jesse Spikes, and Council members Ceasar Mitchell and Mary Norwood, as well as Council President Lisa Borders, who has dropped out of the race, but you never know…

Ever the omnipresent gadfly, Norwood had just come from Grant Park and the pre-dawn vigil for slain Standard bartender John Henderson, where she publicly implied that the murder was a result of Franklin’s budget-driven cutbacks in police man-hours.

As soon as she got back to City Hall, Franklin e-mailed out a response:

Councilmember Norwood has never sought to discuss the budget recommendations with me and I find her remarks today to be ludicrous and irresponsible.

And thus was the mayor’s good mood irretrievably squashed.

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There’s a parlor game going on these days down at Atlanta City Hall. Here’s how you play: Imagine that President-elect Obama invites Mayor Shirley Franklin to join his administration; then figure out who might move over to take her place, and who’d take that person’s place, and who’d take that person’s place, and so on.

I’d heard about this swirl of speculation a couple weeks back, but decided it would be irresponsible to write about because it’s so, well, speculative. But I’ve changed my mind because: 1) polls are predicting an Obama victory; 2) City Hall is still buzzing with this talk; and 3) the AJC has already jumped on board the speculation train.

So here goes: If Shirley heads to Washington next spring, then a special election would have to be called to replace her. The collective assumption is that City Council President Lisa Borders – who abandoned her campaign for mayor for personal reasons in mid-August – would get back into the race. In a campaign cycle lasting only a few weeks, Borders would have to be considered the front-runner due to high name recognition.

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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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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 and………….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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Mary Norwood has announced she’s dipping her toe into the Atlanta mayoral race waters. Below is the press release:

MARY NORWOOD ANNOUNCES FORMATION OF EXPLORATORY COMMITTEE FOR MAYOR OF ATLANTA

Mary Norwood, an Atlanta City Councilwoman serving in her second term as a representative elected citywide, announced the formation of an Exploratory Committee for a Mayor’s race today.

“It’s official. I have filed the papers to form an Exploratory Committee for Mayor,” she said. “People all over the City have asked me to run for Mayor, and I am asking for your support and for your endorsement, too. I hope I can count on you. You can count on me.”

The Exploratory Committee consists of over 120 citizens from 88 neighborhoods throughout the entire city of Atlanta, with representation from every Council District and every NPU. “I am thrilled and honored that so many people with such an impressive cumulative history of building better communities have agreed to introduce me to their neighbors. With their help, I will be everywhere in Atlanta,” says Norwood. A complete list of the Exploratory Committee is available at www.MaryNorwoodforMayor.com.

Rest of the release available after the jump.

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