At the first city mayoral debate Monday, candidates vying to succeed Mayor Shirley Franklin were asked to grade her performance as mayor.
The average grade was a B+. One candidate, City Council President Lisa Borders, gave Franklin a 90 (A-).
Each of our current mayoral candidates is eager to talk about an aspect of city government they plan to “fix” or “improve,” but none is willing to explicitly blame Franklin for failing to fix or improve them herself.
The good news: Because of her high marks, Franklin won’t be held back to repeat her second term.
As we mentioned yesterday, Mayor Shirley Franklin on Tuesday night rubbed elbows with the Young Democrats of Atlanta at its fundraiser and award ceremony.
Roughly 100 people attended the event at Sweetwater Brewery, including politicos from the local (Atlanta City Council President and mayoral candidate Lisa Borders, Councilwoman and Council President candidate Clair Muller, Councilman Kwanza Hall, and City Hall hopefuls Amir Farokhi and Adam Brackman) and state level (Reps. Rashad Taylor, Kathy Ashe and Pat Gardner, all of Atlanta.)
For nearly 30 minutes, the mayor addressed the crowd on issues ranging from the environment to her online jousting habits. Afterward, she spoke with CL about the recent disputes over how the city’s reacted to what is widely considered — perceived! — to be a rise in crime.
After the jump, a bulletpoint summary of the mayor’s remarks to the Young Democrats crowd.
Mayor Shirley Franklin took an Atlanta City Councilmember to task last night for his noble efforts to reach residents through Twitter.
At last night’s Young Democrats of Atlanta fundraiser at Sweetwater Brewery, Franklin — the night’s honoree — addressed the crowd and took questions.
Attendees noticed the flames of Hades rise, however, as Franklin directed her hatred for new technology at Councilman Kwanza Hall, who was also at the event.
Rebutting a June 5 story by Real Clear Politics naming Atlanta the country’s second least-safe large city, Mayor Shirley Franklin’s office today correctly noted Real Clear Politics jumbled its numbers.
Real Clear Politics claims that the City of Atlanta’s crime rate is over 16%. According to the actual FBI data, the crime rate in Atlanta is only 8.7%. (The FBI shows total crimes in 2008 of 46,381 and a population of 533,016. This translates to a crime rate of 8.7%.)
What the Mayor’s defiant press release neglects to mention, however, is that Real Clear Politics’ rankings are indeed correct.
The “only 8.7%” crime rate Franklin’s office boasts of is, according the FBI, the second-highest crime rate of any American city with more than 500,000 people.
In 2008, Atlanta indeed had more crime per person than all-but-one U.S. city with more than 500,000 people.
The numbers below were calculated by adding the total number of violent crime and property crime incidents in 2008 (not including arson) divided by the population. All of the numbers can be found in an Excel spreadsheet on the FBI’s web site.
As expected, Mayor Shirley Franklin took issue with today’s AJCarticle that cited a Real Clear Politics’ blog post in which Atlanta was tagged as the second most dangerous city in the United States. The mayor says the blog erred in its calculations and failed to take into account the city’s seven-year record for reducing crime, which is roughly the same amount of time Franklin’s been in office.
So sayeth Franklin in a press release:
Real Clear Politics claims that the City of Atlanta’s crime rate is over 16%. According to the actual FBI data, the crime rate in Atlanta is only 8.7%. (The FBI shows total crimes in 2008 of 46,381 and a population of 533,016. This translates to a crime rate of 8.7%.) In other words, the political blog’s Atlanta crime rate is double the actual rate. Also, in the most recent issue of CQ Press’s crime rankings - which is considered the authoritative source for comparative crime data - the City of Atlanta ranked 16th in overall crime rate. Just last week Forbes magazine issued a list of the 15th most dangerous cities in the country. Atlanta was not on it.
Don’t trust Forbes’ list-icles, as they are mined from a bottomless pit of census data to generate pageviews.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s 2008 crime statistics, released on Monday, add weight to the argument that, contrary to what some folks in City Hall might’ve said in the past, Atlanta’s crime concerns aren’t about perception but about people actually entering your car or home and taking your possessions.
Although the bureau’s stats show violent crimes in Atlanta decreased 8.3 percent compared to 2007 (that’s good!), property crimes such as burglaries, thefts and larceny jumped 7.6 percent (that’s bad!). That’s quite a leap in just a year and a stark contrast to the 1.6 percent decrease in property crimes enjoyed by the rest of the country.
Real Clear Politics crunched the bureau’s statistics and concluded Atlanta had a 16 percent per capita crime rate, thus earning it the distinction of being the second least safe city in the United States. Memphis, Tenn., earned top honors. San Antonio, Texas, Detroit and Milwaukee rounded out the bottom five.
Celebrate our dubious honor by locking up your flat screens, supporting your local patrolman, and keeping valuables in your car out of sight.
AJC Political Insider Jim Galloway posted a video this morning I suspect Mayor Shirley Franklin doesn’t want you to watch.
The video shows five men and women severely wounded while on duty as Atlanta police officers. Each claims the city is denying them medical benefits they need, and to which they are entitled.
Why do I assume Mayor Franklin doesn’t want you to watch it?
Simple.
Because she’s spent the last week dodging questions about the video’s subject matter.
During the same week, however, Franklin has somehow found the time to launch an administrative, legal and public relations assault against APD union leader Sgt. Scott Kreher, the man who presented the video the city council.
Admittedly, Kreher made himself an easy target.
While speaking to city council last week about Atlanta’s alleged poor treatment of police officers severely wounded while on duty, Kreher said he’s so frustrated with Mayor Franklin’s intransigence that he feels like hitting her on the head with a baseball bat.
It was an ugly figure of speech for which Kreher apologized. But Franklin won’t move on.
She has evidently decided to use Kreher’s slip-up to once-and-for-all silence Kreher; one of her most persistent and (until last week) effective critics.
First, Franklin told Fox 5 she interprets Kreher’s statement as a literal physical threat meant to intimidate her and her family, even though it clearly an ugly metaphor for extreme frustration. Franklin says she wants a local, state and, FEDERAL investigation into Kreher’s comment.
Strange. When Atlanta residents express their fear of actual crimes, the mayor mocks them with cherry-picked stats. Hurt Franklin’s feelings, however, and she’ll summon federal help.
But wait. There’s more.
On Saturday, Franklin’s APD toady Chief Richard Pennington suspended Kreher from active-duty pending a psychological examination. Using a mental health bureaucracy and the stigma of mental illness to destroy a political opponent is a time-honored political tactic — in Russia.
Why is Franklin bending over backward to destroy Kreher? My guess is that she’s desperately hoping you won’t pay attention to his message.
So watch the video.
And if you still feel like blaming someone for drawing attention away from the important issue of benefits for wounded cops, go ahead and blame Kreher or Franklin if you’d like.
But remember, Kreher distracted us by accident. Franklin is doing it on purpose.
You can spend all day wagging your finger at Atlanta Police Union chief Sgt. Scott Kreher for his inappropriate comment last week. You know, the one he said at City Hall about wanting to hit Mayor Shirley Franklin in the head with a baseball bat?
You can debate whether Kreher’s frustration over delayed compensation claims to five injured Atlanta police officers forgives such an outburst by a 17-year veteran of the force.
But to do all that does nothing to address the problem that Kreher says has festered in City Hall, one that’s reportedly led to back-and-forth legal challenges and injured officers allegedly being stonewalled for medical treatment.
What this issue needs is a little bit of sunlight. Let’s take a quick look at the contracts the city’s signed — and re-signed — with NovaPro Risk Solutions, the San Diego-based company that’s handled employees’ compensation claims since 2004, back when it was known as Ward North America Inc.
Just so, you know, we’re up to speed when this issue comes back up for discussion.
A couple weeks ago, I said Mayor Shirley Franklin owes an apology to Atlanta Police Department Sergeant and union chief Scott Kreher for some nasty and factually incorrect comments she made about him.
Well, yesterday Kreher told the city council he gets so frustrated with Franklin sometimes he wants to beat her head with a baseball bat.
Grayson Daughters spoke with Atlanta Police Union President Scott Kreher at the most recent Atlantans Together Against Crime rally in Midtown. Topics included how the organization will endorse a candidate in the Atlanta mayor’s race, what role the community plays in fighting crime, and what’s needed to end police furloughs.
In March, the Atlanta City Council unanimously passed a resolution urging Mayor Shirley Franklin to introduce a budget that ended police and firefighter furloughs. Last week, the mayor granted its request. Council is expected to vote on the budget in June.
“I requested the air unit for assistance but I was advised they were furloughed tonight.”
Those chilling words are from the police incident report written by APD Officer Nicholas F. Parete after Monday’s robbery and shooting of Georgia Tech student Patrick Whaley outside his apartment near campus. A Georgia Tech police officer spotted the suspects, but lost track of them when they ditched their stolen car and ran behind houses near the campus.
“Let’s not lose sight of the fact that ultimately it is the level of crime that is important, not the number of police officers.”
And those chilling words are from a February 12, 2009 AJC opinion column written by Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin.
MAYOR SHIRLEY FRANKLIN OWES APD SGT. AND POLICE UNION LEADER SCOTT KREHER AN APOLOGY: He's waiting. (Photo by Joeff Davis)
Shirley Franklin owes Atlanta police union head Sgt. Scott Kreher a public apology.
Speaking at the Atlanta Press Club in January, Mayor Franklin announced her intention to grow the Atlanta Police Department from 1,633 officers to 2,000 officers by the end of 2009.
In October 2007, the city claimed to have 1,833 police officers. By January, the force was down to just 1,633 officers. And the city’s police union says the police force’s attrition rate is accelerating.
If Mayor Franklin couldn’t grow the force to 2,000 officers during her first seven years in office, it was implausible and laughable of her to suggest she might pull it off in her final year.
The Mayor’s suggestion was so laughably implausible, in fact, Atlanta police union chief Sgt. Scott Kreher laughed and called it implausible when the AJC asked him what he thought.
Kreher’s laughter so irritated the notoriously thin-skinned Mayor, she published a bizarre open letter calling his comments “divisive.” Furthermore, she suggested his criticism could undermine efforts to rally the city residents behind growing the police force — a slimy, roundabout way of insinuating Kreher’s attitude is a threat to public safety.
As we blogged on Tuesday, Mayor Shirley Franklin appeared before the City Council this morning to propose a 3-mill tax increase for the city’s 2010 budget, which kicks in on July 1. If approved as proposed, the unpopular furloughs for the police and fire department would end in three months.
How much is 3 mills? Franklin told the Council it was roughly a 7-percent increase for taxpayers. According to her, the way it would work out that if you own a $200,000 house, you’ll pay an additional $200 this fall. For anyone with a $1 million home, the hit is closer to $1,200.
The mayor is actually proposing less spending than was approved in the current budget — $541 million, compared to $573 million. That’s because city revenues have been steadily falling. Unfortunately, budget projections suggest the city will only collect about $485 million next year — hence, the proposed tax hike.
Last year, the Council voted unanimously to reject a much smaller tax increase, asking Franklin to instead cut personnel and services. The result was the furloughs. It’s already quite clear that this time around, it’s a whole new ball game.
Mayor Shirley Franklin is expected to deliver a proposed 2010 budget to Council members tomorrow that includes a 3-mill tax increase. The tax hike is designed to end the police and fire department furloughs and cover an anticipated $40 million shortfall for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. The budget needs to be approved by the Council by the end of June.
I haven’t heard back from the mayor’s spokespeople, but this all seems quite credible. I’ve also been told that Franklin is confident that she can get the eight Council votes needed to pass her budget — a turnaround from last year, when the Council rejected her call for a much smaller tax increase and unanimously approved a budget that actually included a microscopic property tax cut.
Does she really have the votes? Well, earlier today my colleague Thomas Wheatley was interviewing Councilwoman Anne Fauver about her decision not to run for re-election. He asked if she had any regrets.
Answered Fauver: “Had I been better educated by the administration about the financial state of the city, I would’ve voted for a small tax increase last year to help cover the pending budget shortfall and the impact of changes in the pension system. I was not fully educated and I would’ve gone along with a small tax increase if I had known all there was to know.”
Young Thomas then asked if there was any chance she might get to revisit that decision this year.
Said Fauver: “There is.”
The public-safety furloughs have taken a huge political toll on the denizens of City Hall over the last year. Groups like Atlantans Together Against Crime, which yesterday held a rally attended by the top three candidates for mayor, have put a great deal of pressure on the Council to find a way to return cops and firefighters to work.
In other words, the opposition to a tax increase is certainly weakening. It remains to be seen if it’s weakened enough to give Franklin the eight votes she needs.
One of President Barack Obama’s campaign promises was to promote a “green economy” — essentially, helping create jobs in such professions as energy-efficiency and clean energy. Not only could these jobs put people to work, but they’d also help the environment. (This week’s cover story will touch more on the topic and what we’re seeing in Georgia, a state that’s traditionally been all-coal, all-the-time. Many men and women are making strides and trying to capitalize on the momentum. But as you probably know, there are challenges.)
On Thursday, April 16, the City of Atlanta, Morehouse College and several national and local community organizations will host a town hall to discuss Atlanta’s potential for green jobs and sustainability.
The event will feature a diverse representation of community leaders in a panel discussion designed to educate the community about impending environmental issues and inform the audience about existing and developing career opportunities within Atlanta’s green economy. Panelists include City of Atlanta’s Director of Sustainability, Mandy Schmitt; Julian McQueen of Green for All; and Nia Robinson of Environmental Justice Climate Change Initiatives.
“The purpose of this event is to get individuals interested in the environmental industry and demonstrate to the rest of the country that Atlanta is a proactive environmental leader in helping to support the nationwide development of environmental jobs,” said Mandy Schmitt, Director of the Office of Sustainability for the City of Atlanta.
Mayor Shirley Franklin and the U.S. Congressman John Lewis have been invited to participate. The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held at the Martin Luther King, Jr. International Chapel on the Morehouse campus. The event starts at 6 p.m. For more information visit the event site.
MARTA officials recently asked the Georgia General Assembly to ease a state-mandated spending restriction on the transit agency’s main source of funding — a one-cent sales tax in Atlanta, Fulton County and DeKalb County. If not, the cash-strapped agency could face drastic service cuts. Some lawmakers responded that the agency instead needs to change its governance structure and raise fares. In the op-ed below, Mayor Shirley Franklin, Fulton County Chairman John Eaves and DeKalb CEO Burrell Ellis echo MARTA’s plea.
For more than 30 years, visitors and residents of Atlanta and Fulton and DeKalb counties have paid an extra penny in sales taxes so our region might have mass transit. Needless to say, the benefits of mass transit have extended far beyond the borders of Atlanta, Fulton and DeKalb. Can you imagine the Centennial Olympic Games choosing Atlanta without a means of moving millions of people? Or that major conventions, the lifeblood of our local economy, would locate here if their attendees were unable to move around? MARTA has been a major economic generator not just for Atlanta, Fulton and DeKalb, but for our region and the entire state.
Which is why we are asking, in a time of severe economic crisis, for the Georgia General Assembly to help MARTA. This year, we are not asking that the General Assembly commit one extra dime to help MARTA — though other state governments across the nation promote the economic benefits of public transit and routinely appropriate millions for both operations and expansion. We are only asking the Legislature to give MARTA the ability to use the funds it already has at its disposal during this time of great economic need.
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.
Alabama, home to Space Camp and not much else, lacks the cash to fund plans for a proposed New Orleans-Atlanta high-speed rail line. The proposed route, which could potentially receive federal funds as part of President Barack Obama’s proposed rail network, would be served by trains operating at 110 mph.
The chairman of the Southern High-Speed Rail Commission says Alabama’s refusal to pay its dues to the organization could cost the Deep South a shot at a high-speed train that would run from New Orleans to Atlanta.
Preliminary work to plan for the line already is complete in Louisiana and Mississippi, Alabama’s partners on the commission, said Chairman Richard Finley of Birmingham. But Alabama - a member of the commission for 26 years - refused to pay dues after 2007, and Finley contends that is standing in the way of the Southeast getting a high-speed corridor.
“The problem is the state of Alabama is blocking us,” Finley said. The state owes $120,000 to the commission for its dues for 2008 and 2009.
That’s depressing, especially since the article says that, if it were funded, the rail line could begin operation in three years. And it looks like Alabama’s not entirely to blame.
The answer: 540,000 metric tonnes, equivalent to the household energy use of 150,000 Atlanta residents or 98,000 passenger vehicles. That’s according to Georgia Tech professors and students who helped the city analyze its annual greenhouse gas emissions.
Mayor Shirley Franklin announced the city’s carbon footprint in conjunction with the inaugural report by Sustainable Atlanta, the city’s partner project with a consulting firm. Franklin has set a goal to reduce the city’s carbon emissions seven percent by 2012. The next step involves creating an Atlanta Climate Action Plan.
Some goals — as well as some hopes for Obamabucks — are after the jump.
Excitement builds for Mike Huckabee's April visit to Atlanta.
Former presidential candidate and rodent chef Mike Huckabee will visit Atlanta next month to speak as part of the Urban Land Institute’s 2009 Spring Council Forum.
The former governor of Arkansas, who now hosts a bizarre television show on a comedy network, will be the event’s keynote speaker. Other notables scheduled to speak at the forum include Mayor Shirley Franklin, Charlie Rose and some guy I’ve never heard of but who looks very, very smart.
Jokes aside, ULI organizes thought-provoking events, and this forum’s schedule is worth a look if you’re a lover of urban environments. On the agenda are a variety of seminars and break-out sessions, as well as mobile sessions where attendees can learn about the Beltline, Atlantic Station and Buckhead. Thursday promises a presentation about the current economic crisis.
For more information, visit ULI’s event website. Any welcome gifts of sautéed teriyaki opossum will be immediately incinerated, so don’t even try it!
Lovers of gourmet food and booze rejoice: That quaint store where you could buy luxurious-sounding grub — but not wine — may soon be able to legally stock booze.
Yesterday, the Atlanta City Council passed legislation that would allow such gourmet food shops as the Cabbagetown Market and the Mercantile on DeKalb Avenue to stock beer, wine and malt beverages. The legislation, which essentially now gives those and similar stores a legal classification in the city’s code, was penned by Councilmember Natalyn Archibong and passed 8-2. Such stores won’t be allowed to sell lotto tickets or “other games of chance,” gasoline or tobacco. They also can’t operate drive-thru windows or cash checks. But bring on the booze!
If she chooses, Mayor Shirley Franklin has eight days to veto the bill.
To peruse Archibong’s bill, laden with good ole fashioned legalese and multiple uses of “whereas,” click here. Keep in mind that an amendment — supposedly a minor tweak — was added to the legislation. I’m waiting on Archibong’s staff to return a call and clarify what in entails.
UPDATE: Here’s the “specialty food store” legislation as passed in Monday’s council meeting. I received some emails from folks who said they had problems opening the file I posted yesterday. If this one fails to open, shoot me an email and I’ll send it to you directly.
Where the music makes you drop to your knees
There is no other place I’d like to be
A-T-L, A-T-L (get ‘em up, get ‘em up, get ‘em up, get ‘em up…)
Ah, who can forget such deathless lyrics, as penned by Atlanta’s hometown super-producer Dallas Austin? Well, actually, I had to look them up to refresh my memory because I hadn’t heard anyone play “The ATL” in recent months.
And you probably won’t be hearing it much any time soon. On Monday, Mayor Shirley Franklin announced that Brand Atlanta, the city’s flashy marketing arm, was being mothballed after three years due to the lousy economy. The marketing effort will no longer have a budget or a staff.
But that doesn’t mean you’ll never see the familiar bright red ATL bullet hole again. All of Brand Atlanta’s existing designs, slogans and other self-described “assets” are city property and can be trotted out any time, Franklin said.
On only a couple of hours’ notice, Mayor Shirley Franklin called a surprise press conference Thursday to “discuss the current state of the city.”
After a cryptic opening statement in which she invoked Shakespeare and the “Ides of March,” Herronor told the assembled print, radio and TV reporters: “I came here today for no other reason than to answer your questions.”
And with that, she opened the floor for a no-holds-barred Q&A session. One guy asked about an Atlanta Police Foundation report comparing the size of the APD to other cities’ police forces. Someone else wanted to know the schedule for paying back funds borrowed from the Watershed cash reserves.
But the question that seemed to set Franklin off came from this reporter. I observed that some Council members (cough, cough, Mary Norwood, cough) had publicly blamed the mayor for the current police furloughs, while she has criticized the Council for rejecting her suggestion to raise property taxes – a move she says made the furloughs necessary. My question had something to do with what it might take to break this stalemate, but I never quite got to finish asking it.
The killing of John Henderson sparked Atlanta resident awareness about crime.
Kyle Keyser is a founder of Atlantans Together Against Crime, a grassroots citizen group that raises awareness about the city’s growing crime problem. In an open letter to Mayor Shirley Franklin and City Council that Keyser asked CL to publish, he says the community is fully engaged, but residents’ trust in their elected officials is slipping. On Feb. 23 from 5 to 7 p.m., ATAC will hold its second monthly rally at the corner of Martin Luther King and Joseph E. Lowery Boulevards.
An Open Letter to the Mayor and Council of Atlanta:
Lately, it seems, when you can’t fight crime with police officers you fight it with numbers.
“Things are better today,” you insist, and you reach back over the years to compare crime rates. Never mind the property crime increase here or another senseless murder there. You act as if this is all in our heads, perhaps being exacerbated by neighbors – and neighborhoods – too quick to react.
Madam Mayor & Council members – with all due respect – stop patronizing us. We are not children who are scared of the dark for no other reason than its darkness. Criminals are lurking in our streets and perpetrating horrible crimes on all sides of Atlanta. Maybe they are not killing or assaulting us as much as they did in your comparison years but they are breaking into our homes and our cars, they are robbing us of hard-earned possessions, and they are stealing our privacy, our peace, and our sense of safety with alarming frequency.
Over at City Hall, the second-quarter revenue figures are in – and, surprise, they’re grim. The notorious police furloughs (remember them?) that began about a month ago were part of an effort by the Franklin administration to slash spending by $40 million. But, according to the latest projections, the city may need to cut another $40 million to avoid a year-end deficit.
If this situation sounds dire, you bet your ass it is. Franklin herself was scheduled to deliver the bad news to the Council Finance Committee, but for reasons unexplained, she left the unpleasant task to COO Greg Giornelli.
To bring you up to speed: The city began its fiscal year on July 1 with a $570 million budget. By the end of the first quarter, revenues were already running $14 million lower than anticipated – which meant the city was looking at a $55 million budget shortfall, providing the downward trend held steady. So the mayor announced city-wide furloughs and closed City Hall on Fridays to save money.
What we learned today, however, is that the downward trend hasn’t held steady – it’s gotten worse.
