Fresh Loaf

An Atlanta councilmember once told me the quickest way to determine whether a neighborhood could be considered scuzzy and low-rent is to drive around and see how many dogs are chained up in front yards.

Well, soon, we may need a different rule of thumb.

Today’s AJC has an article about a recent decision by the Forsyth County Commission to limit the chaining of dogs. According to the new rules, which were approved on a close 3-2 vote, dogs can be tethered on a temporary basis, but can’t be left outside on a chain permanently.

Fulton County, however, passed an even stronger ordinance back in March, although it won’t go into effect until next month. The delay, it seems, was to give dog owners time to build a fence or housetrain their beasts. Beginning Sept. 4, dogs cannot be chained or tethered to a fixed object unless held by an attendant or by the owner. That doesn’t leave much wiggle room. It should be noted that the Fulton ordinance enjoyed unanimous support from commissioners.

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Last month I put up a post that, shall we say, somewhat indelicately made light of the notion that anyone might actually still care whether one-time City Council President and Fulton County Commissioner Robb Pitts was planning to run for mayor of Atlanta. The language I used to express my doubt that Pitts still possessed the political clout to shake up the mayor’s race was, in retrospect, perhaps overly blunt.

Anyway, my post came in response to a press release Pitts had mailed out — that’s snail-mail for you young’uns — on May 26 on fancy colored stationary in which he announced in bright red all-caps:

PITTS TO DECIDE ON MAYORAL BID BY JULY 3

Pitts went on to tout himself as a “proven vote-getter [who] has always recieved a cross section of city-wide support.” In conclusion, he promised: “During the next several weeks, Pitts will be meeting with key supporters and analyzing poll data to arrive at a final decision.”

Way to leave us hanging, Robb. Anyway, I came across the letter yesterday and realized that July 3 had come and gone seemingly without a public announcement as to whether Pitts was planning to insert his vote-getting self into the mayor’s race. I checked my old e-mail. Nothing. Then I checked the AJC archives. Again, nothing.

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Alright, that’s not exactly true. OK, OK, so it’s not even remotely true. But it is true that Fulton County Commissioner Robb Pitts sent out a press release announcing that on July 3 he would announce to the world his decision on whether to run for Atlanta mayor. He says he’s been urged to run “by a cross-section of citizens”:

“I am flattered by the encouragement and must agree that the city needs an experienced hand. It’s not the time for on-the-job training. The city needs a mayor who can hit the ground running and build on Mayor Franklin’s positive initiatives.”

Actually, Pitts released that nugget on May 26 — nearly a week ago and while I was on vacation — yet I haven’t been able to Google up any evidence that his missive has been reported by so much as a neighborhood e-newsletter. I take this as confirmation that nobody, with the possible exception of Pitts’ immediate family, gives a cold shit whether or not he runs for mayor.

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Borders, Norwood and Reed, oh my!

The stage is set. The field is fixed. The race is on.

Although qualifying is still nearly four months away and the election itself not until Nov. 3, few if any political observers expect the next mayor of Atlanta to be anyone who hasn’t already joined the race. In fact, conventional wisdom holds that, come a year from now, the office will be occupied by one of the three apparent front-runners: Council President Lisa Borders, Councilwoman Mary Norwood or state Sen. Kasim Reed.

It won’t take anywhere near that long, however, for the rest of us to be sick of hearing about the mayor’s race. Typically, yard signs for city races start to appear sometime in late summer. You can thank Norwood for kicking the effort off early, peppering Atlanta lawns with her campaign logo last month.

“If you can find a neighborhood in the city where she doesn’t have a yard sign, it’s because someone stole it,” jokes one local politico.

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Just yesterday, I blogged that “the Council president’s job … seems suited to someone who excells at process and mediation.” Well, one such person has just filed her paperwork.

Now in her 20th year in office, Clair Muller has served on Council longer than any current member save for Jim “40 Winks” Maddox. During that time, she’s become the Council’s reigning technocrat, with expertise in virtually every aspect of public infrastructure. It was Muller who persuaded then-incoming Mayor Shirley Franklin to put fixing the city’s sewers at the top of her agenda.

Temperament-wise, Muller would fit in well with the list of previous Council presidents, from Lisa Borders to Robb Pitts, stretching back to the days when a young Wyche Fowler presided over Atlanta’s Board of Aldermen. The Council president has typically served as the adult in the room during Council meetings: calm, steady, unruffled, non-reactionary, even a little boring. That’s not to say the Council president couldn’t be a firebrand, but for whatever reason, Atlanta has opted to elect even-keeled types over the last few decades.

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Here at CL we LOVE receiving letters. (So tangible!) But sometimes they make us sad. And Fulton County Commissioner Robb Pitts wins most depressing mailer of the day.

This morning, CL’s A&E assistant Wyatt Williams handed me a letter from the pro-gambling politico. Then he handed me a stack of about 20 more. I was delighted to discover a folded piece of paper that read “Casino Gaming Can Help!” accompanied by a bunch of headlines about foreclosures, unemployment and the current tidal wave of economic pain.

I don’t know which is more depressing — the collection of headlines or imagining Pitts’ staffers cutting every one of them out. Either way, thanks, sir! We received the memo!

More photos of Pitts’ letter after the jump.

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If you happen to see a crowd on the steps of the state Capitol at midnight this Friday, relax – you haven’t missed the release of the newest GameBoy console.

Instead, it’s what I consider to be the starting whistle of the Atlanta mayor’s race. Just after the stroke of midnight will have brought the 2009 General Assembly to a merciful close, state Sen. Kasim Reed, D-Atlanta, is scheduled to convene a campaign rally on the steps on the Capitol.

At that moment, all three (or four, depending who’s counting) of the leading candidates will be firmly in the race:

• City Council President Lisa Borders will have just announced her return to the race a day or two earlier (we’ll let you know when it happens…)

• Councilwoman Mary Norwood undoubtedly will have conducted her 5,712th community meet-and-greet that afternoon

• Reed will be done with the legislative session and able to raise funds again, assuming he doesn’t get mugged this Friday on the Capitol steps (hey, that can be a rough neighborhood after dark)

• and attorney Jesse Spikes will, presumably, still be trying to tell Atlanta who he is

Frankly, with Borders about to re-enter the race, I don’t see any more room for  Johnny-come-lately candidates. That includes such folks as Fulton County Commissioner Robb Pitts, who would have to share whatever constituency he still has with Borders (the business community); Norwood (Buckhead residents); and Reed (people who want to vote for a black man).

No, my guess is that the field that hits the campaign trail this weekend is what we’ll see on the November ballot, minus whoever drops out along the way.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Rumors have been building since last fall that Atlanta City Council President Lisa Borders was contemplating her re-entry into the mayor’s race. Well, the rumors are more or less true. She confirms she is “reconsidering” a run for mayor.

In other words, it’s a definite maybe.

You’ll recall that when Borders withdrew from the race last August, she said she needed to care for her elderly, ailing parents. Since then, the circumstances have changed somewhat. Another family member is helping care for her father and Borders discovered a previously unknown health insurance policy that will ensure professional care for her mother.

As far back as last fall, Borders was privately expressing ambivalence over her decision to get out of the mayor’s race and discussing possible routes of re-entry. One such possibility was the chance that Shirley Franklin would receive an appointment in the Obama administration and be forced to leave office early, but that didn’t happen. In recent weeks, Borders says, she has received requests from many supporters asking her to jump back into the race

“I’ll make a decision before the end of the month,” she tells CL.

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