Fresh Loaf

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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At a well-attended town hall meeting on the subject of public safety Thursday night, Council President Lisa Borders put forth an interesting idea that could hold promise for oft-burgled Southside residents: a community improvement district to help fund extra security.

Borders, who hosted the gathering at Cascade United Methodist Church, suggested that money for surveillance cameras, community patrols and other security measures could be generated by creating a self-taxing district to which commercial property owners would contribute.

It’s an intriguing idea. There are a number of very successful CIDs around metro Atlanta — the Galleria and Perimeter areas and central Buckhead, perhaps most prominently — that fund everything from landscaped medians to shuttle buses to fancy lamp posts.

But I believe I heard Borders say there are no CIDs south of I-20. If that’s the case, it’s surely because there’s simply not the concentration of commercial property to support such an effort. It’s one thing to talk Perimeter Mall, Cousins Properties and Barry Real Estate into ponying up to spruce up the neighborhood. But when you’re dealing with a bunch of mom-and-pop businesses, as well as a hefty number of vacant storefronts — well, that’s a tougher sell.

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