Fresh Loaf

Mike Dobbins, a former City of Atlanta planning commissioner who now teaches at Georgia Tech, urges voters say ‘no’ to Amendment 2.  If approved, the amendment would allow school systems to participate in tax allocation districts. CL recently endorsed Amendment 2 — click here to see why.

There has been a lot of misinformation spread about TADs and what the constitutional referendum is about. Its supporters have been using tax-generated funding to lobby, and I would say mislead, the public to try to get us to vote for it. TADs allow local governmental jurisdictions to sell bonds to pay for public infrastructure in designated areas where disinvestment and blight bring down the neighborhood and discourage private investment. The bonds are supposed to be paid back from the tax value increases generated by development supported by the improved infrastructure. Many advocates imply that without a yes vote TADs won’t be available to local governments to induce prospective developers’ investment.

But TADs are still available. It’s just that the school portion of anticipated tax value increases must be dedicated to school purposes. So voting no on the referendum doesn’t jeopardize TAD programs; it only reduces the amount of proceeds available.

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Guest blogger Charles McNair gives his eyewitness report from the front.

The little community of Flounder sits only a few miles off I-75. Here, short weeks after the Russians pulled out of Georgia, signs of invasion remain widespread.
Morning sunlight streams through a dozen bullet holes in the Welcome To Flounder sign. The town lies in ruins – apparently the Russians caved in most awnings on the old brick buildings along the town’s only paved street, and their cruel vandalism collapsed several roofs. Refrigerators, tires and mounds of valuables — obviously forced from houses by the ransacking soldiers — litter roadsides. The only sign of life is a lean hound, her teats nearly dragging the ground. Is she searching in vain for her newborn puppies, brutally seized by the invaders?

A burned car sits by the road, and other disabled vehicles of all shapes and sizes – pick-up trucks, all-terrain vehicles, even school buses – clutter front yards. Up a wooded hill, a black tornado of vultures circles something dead or perhaps just very smelly. (more…)

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Edward McNally is a guest blogger for CL and is blogging about his experiences as a runner for the press at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver. This is his report on day 3 of the convention. You can read about the first 48 hours here.

Standing surprisingly close to the podium when Barack makes his surprise appearance in the Pepsi Center. Crowd, which was already pumped after Biden’s speech, erupts with cheers and shouts to see the man they’ve been glorifying for 48 hours. His casual remarks have just the right common touch to make the arena of 20,000 feel like the biggest, hottest wedding reception you can imagine. One where everyone feels connected AND pumped.

Bill Clinton completely makes the case that Barack Obama is ready to be president…. and he does so as only a former US President can. Over-flowing convention hall eats it up.

I almost literally “run” into Bill three minutes after his speech, as he talks to Sen. Leahy backstage. I congratulate him on yet another great speech and remind him I was his driver during a brief campaign swing through Atlanta 17 years ago. He smiles warmly, but I know, of course, he has no recollection of this previous encounter. (more…)

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Edward McNally is a guest blogger for CL and is blogging about his experiences as a runner for the press at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.

The past 48 hours are a blur of faces, sounds, sights and physical extremes.

The Democratic National Convention may attract the strangest, widest mix of celebrities from the worlds of film, TV, sports, books, art, news media, underground protest movements and, perhaps the strangest entertainment form of all, politics.

Getting the obligatory name dropping out of the way, I’ve seen, run into, greeted or chatted with: Hillary, Ted & Caroline Kennedy, Sean Penn, Hilary Duff (chatting together at The Brown Palace Hotel, believe it or not), Kal Penn, Richard Wright, Lou Gossett, Jr, Spike Lee, Jacob Dylan, Cyndie Lauper, George McGovern, Tom Brokaw, Katie Couric, Gloria Borger, Mark Shields, Tom Freidman, Sen. Harry Reid, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Rep. John Lewis, Mayor Franklin, and Rev. Joseph Lowery….”to name a few.”

Sen. Reid wouldn’t stop shaking my hand as he vowed to help Jim Martin beat Saxby Chambliss in the GA Senate race. “We’re gonna send him money and get Chambliss back for what he did to my friend!” Reid declared, looking me straight in the eye. By friend, I assumed he meant Max Cleland, whom the GOP smeared in 2002 by running ads showing Osama Bin Laden, to make the claim that Max was soft on terrorism.

I can tell you that the Denver Police Department is absolutely NOT soft on terrorism — or groups of 20-somethings in jeans and T-shirts standing together on the street without DNC credentials. The shock troops here are in full all-black riot gear from helmeted head to steel-footed toe. (more…)

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This is a Soapbox submission by a guest blogger.

Trouble in Paradise

By Hannah Palmer

When ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” came to Stumptown, I was just as excited as everyone else at the office. The project site was one block from my high school, on a street where I had trick-or-treated, babysat and toilet-papered houses. Ahyoka Drive was one of the nicest streets in a low income neighborhood, which, by 2005, wasn’t saying much.

During the shoot, I cruised by to get a glimpse of the action. It was winter and through the naked trees I could see the construction zone, surrounded by cranes and lit up like a movie set. People with bullhorns and Starbucks were moving about purposefully. People from LA!

I even tuned in to the Sunday night broadcast to get a look at the interior, “meet” the family and share in the community-wide freakout. And I’ve cruised by a few times since the “dream house” was finished and the cameras cleared out. With its turrets and archways and copper gutters, the place looks like nothing else in Clayton County. It inspires gawking.

So now Lake City’s “Extreme Makeover” home is making the news again. I saw the headlines and thought, great. One more embarrassing story to put Stumptown in the national news. I was worried by the grouchy remarks of Lake City Mayor Willie Oswalt who said, “It’s aggravating. You do that much work, and they just squander it.”

He’s “aggravated.” The Harper family is losing their home. I thought a touch more compassion would be appropriate. And what did he think would happen? That they would live happily ever after? (more…)

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This is a Soapbox submission by a guest blogger.

Is the southside ready for rural renewal?

By Hannah Palmer

When you drive south on I-75 from Atlanta, heading out of the city and into the sprawl, you’ll pass Southlake Mall on your right. This is “The Mall” of my childhood – destination for Christmas shopping, gift certificate spending, giant-cookie-cake pickup and Glamour Shot sessions. There is no lake at Southlake, but there is a patch of woods between the mall and the interstate.

Over the past few years, and many trips down 75, I’ve watched the progress of a strange development on this site. One by one, these huge historic-looking houses were wheeled in on flatbed trucks and reassembled in the swampy no-man’s land between the Sears parking lot and the expressway.

They seemed so forlorn and out of place. Who was doing this? I wondered. And what for? I stopped to take a photo in September of 2006.

So I just got back in town after 6 weeks in the mountains, and had to make the rounds of Stumptown: Anne & Bill’s Restaurant, the Library, and of course, I pulled over to check out the progress at “Olde Morrow.” It’s fancy!

I called the City of Morrow’s Economic Development office to get the lowdown. Lawanda told me it’s going to be a 17-acre development that will include taverns, retail, restaurants and a bed and breakfast. The central fountain and gardens will host receptions and outdoor events. Here’s the craziest part: they’re building the lake. As in “Southlake.” It’s about goddam time! (more…)

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By Janisse Ray

I remember one Sunday when my son Silas was 6 years old. He and I spent the entire day in the woods.

That was before he cared that there wasn’t television or video games at our house.

Later, when I heard the term “nature-deficit disorder,” I would remember days like that Sunday and think maybe I hadn’t, as a parent, done everything wrong.

Silas and I slid down the deep ravine behind our house and headed toward the creek, a silver glint beneath magnolia trees. When we got to the only spot that was deep enough to bathe, two red-shouldered hawks commenced to call nearby, alarmed.

“They must be nesting,” I said. “Let’s see.” Silas and I plunged through cinnamon fern and dog hobble until he spotted the nest, 50 feet up.

The parent birds, wild with worry, never stopped circling and crying.

“Let’s leave them alone,” I whispered.

Here’s what Silas and I did the rest of the day. We gathered stones, looking for fossils, then skimmed them. We rubbed clay on our faces. We built a sand fort and floated magnolia-leaf boats downstream. We crossed the creek balanced on a high log.

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By Ron Marshall

It does not surprise me that Grady voted to go private. This has been in the plan to privatize all major funding resources in America to control how money is being spent and who receives it. Look at Iraq — since when do we hire a private force to protect public interest? This has never happened in the history of war. Who benefits from privatization?

Grady changes have started the wheel of genocide. A whole community will perish (poor people and poor accident victims) in the name of profits. Not to mention the land deals that will be made. We have put a price on human life. Not only have we put a price on the life of an individual, we allow the health care system to pick and choose who gets treated and how much treatment they as humans receive. Animals get treated better than people. Throw a dog in the street and see what happens.

Our governor had the nerve to pray for rain. The prayers should be for humanity as well as for the salvation of human life and for the protection of our planet. Now we have really fallen off the path of survival.

What’s still hidden is how this happened and who is responsible for what happened. This has never been asked. If it has, there sure has been very little said about the accountability of the officials who oversee Grady and the officials who appoint the board that put Grady in this position. Why is the public being denied access to records that will show where all the money went or is going and who is receiving it? This is not new, and it seems to happen like the migration of geese heading south every year.

Only one person was sent to prison for stealing from Grady: Charles Walker. Walker did not steal all that money by himself. He had to have help. Somebody signed the checks and somebody got paid to keep it quiet. Why wasn’t there an investigation conducted to find the accomplices? This is like a private (secret) Mafia, they sacrificed one to save the rest. I notice Walker has not turned on his accomplices. Is there money waiting for him when he is released?

Does cover-up money pay for a pass, as Emory has shown? It has clearly had its way with Grady’s funding with a sweet heart contract. Does being a politician automatically give you a pass, when crisis after crisis’ shock after shock costs tax payers millions, without having them be accountable time after time?

Now we had an explosion in South Georgia and no other but Grady is in the front again. The needs are clear — human lives are at stake. Is there no other real-time event that shows Grady at its best?

So to feel anything is like watching killings and brutality between 6-11 p.m. live on the news or a television program. You get used to it. The fight for justice and accountability has only hit a bump in the road; we must be protectors of justice and righteousness and we will accelerate ahead of corruption. Buckle up.

Ron Marshall is chairman of the New Grady Coalition.

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By Allie Wall

What could be scarier than a serious car accident with a driver who has little or no insurance? Thousands of dollars in medical bills and an insurance company that won’t give you the coverage for which you’ve faithfully paid each month.

In December 2006, Sandy Sloat, a West Georgia College student, survived a major head-on collision caused by an uninsured driver using a friend’s car with $50,000 in liability coverage. Sloat was hospitalized with serious injuries, at a cost of over $300,000.

Sloat’s insurance policy included $100,000 in additional “uninsured motorist” coverage. UM coverage is designed to pay for the medical bills and property damage of a car-accident victim when the at-fault driver is uninsured or underinsured.

However, Georgia law allowed Sloat’s insurance company to deduct the at-fault driver’s $50,000 liability coverage from their UM policy. Even though the Sloats had faithfully paid monthly premiums for $100,000 in UM coverage, the family was only able to access $50,000 of the policy to put toward the medical bills. Their insurance company kept the rest.

Michael Sloat, Sandy’s father, believes that current state law lets insurance companies exploit drivers who want the extra security of the UM coverage. Why shouldn’t drivers like Sloat receive the full face value of what they’ve been paying when they are hit by an underinsured driver – which is exactly what Sloat was insuring himself against?

Just like Sandy and Michael Sloat, many Georgia drivers would be shocked to learn UM coverage doesn’t “stack,” or add to, liability coverage. Because state law prohibits UM stacking, drivers covered by a UM policy cannot access all of their coverage in certain scenarios, such as when at-fault drivers have the bare minimum of liability coverage.

In fact, Georgia drivers only receive the full benefit of UM coverage if hit by an uninsured motorist.

Nearly two dozen other states – including neighbors Alabama and South Carolina – allow UM stacking when the at-fault driver has minimum coverage. State Farm Insurance, the state’s largest car-insurance carrier, estimates that the cost of UM policies in Georgia would increase on average between $2.50 and $4 a month if stacking were allowed.

According to State Farm’s data, Alabama drivers pay an average $28.75 premium for a six-month policy of $25,000 of UM coverage that will stack on top of an at-fault driver’s liability coverage. For the same UM coverage that doesn’t stack, Georgia drivers currently pay an average $13 premium.

During the 2007 General Assembly, state Sen. Cecil Staton, R-Macon, introduced Senate Bill 276, which would authorize stacking in Georgia and give Georgia drivers guaranteed access to every penny of UM coverage they pay for when it is needed for medical bills and property damage. SB 276 easily passed the Senate by a margin of 46-3, and will be eligible for action on the House floor during the 2008 General Assembly.

Allison Wall is executive director of Georgia Watch, a consumer advocacy organization.

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By Nadia Ali

I was talking to a young Turkish student at Georgia State the other day, making light conversation and asking about his experiences here in this country — and in Atlanta in particular — and his responses got me thinking. He mentioned many positive things about the United States and about Atlanta, but also compared our city to other big cities in the country — New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. He noted that Atlanta does have a diverse international community, albeit not as large as some of those other mentioned cities — yet he also reflected a little sadly on how hard it was to break into any community here other than one’s “own” ethnicity. Even among the student population, ethnicities tended to clump together more often than not, though there were exceptions among individuals. While this is true in the other big American cities, it seemed to be particularly true for him in Atlanta.

I can’t help remembering that conversation. Maybe because my own father first came to this country in order to go to college, back in the 1960s. He’s been here ever since and has given back to his alma mater (his medical school in particular) as well as to his community, ever since. He doesn’t need someone to reach out to him anymore, but I imagine he did when he first got here. Or maybe because I’ve traveled myself a little bit and know how much it can mean to have someone reach out to you when you are somewhere other than where you were born, on those occasions when you can’t help feeling like a little bit of an outsider. I do know of one group here in Atlanta, the Atlanta Ministry with International Students Inc., which “provides friendship and hospitality to the more than 5,500 international students from 140 nations studying at colleges and universities in the metro-Atlanta area.” Maybe there are other groups here in Atlanta that share that goal and I’m simply not familiar with them. It’s been awhile since I’ve been in college myself, after all. All I know is that it’s a good goal, that of welcoming those who come here to study and to live.

One of the things we pride ourselves on here in Atlanta is that we are always growing, the major, most diversified city of the South (Miami not included!). I think it would be worth our while to make more of a conscious effort to get to know those students and other folks who are choosing to make Atlanta their home and help us grow.

Nadia Ali is the co-producer of the WRFG-FM (89.3) radio show “Just Peace.”

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By Matthew Cardinale

Atlanta Housing Authority’s plan to destroy all remaining Atlanta public-housing communities in the city is a massive atrocity that will tragically displace families, destroy communities, decrease Atlanta’s affordable housing supply and eliminate a precious safety net we’re going to continue needing for some time.

Make no mistake, developers are salivating over this land, and that’s what this is all about. AHA’s role is to confuse, distract and deceive the people of Atlanta, especially the residents, that somehow tearing down public housing is the best thing, even the only thing, possible.

Most Atlanta residents don’t realize that when 5,500 public-housing units are removed from a city’s housing stock, those people are either pushed into the low-income rental market – either here or in the suburbs – or into homeless shelters.

That means those of us who are already struggling with housing-cost burden – i.e., monthly fear of coming up short on rent — due to the critical lack of affordable housing in Atlanta will now have around 5,500 fewer units to compete for.

Yes, you may say, but the new “mixed-income, mixed-use developments” will surely contain affordable housing, won’t they? AHA implies this, but its definition of “affordable” comes from a parallel universe.

To most people, affordable means what’s actually affordable to working people in terms of how much they earn and what their other costs of living are.

Instead, AHA’s Renee Glover calculates housing policy based on the Area Median Income (AMI). For a family in 2000, the Atlanta AMI was over $55,000.

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By Bill Crane

There’s nothing quite like a drought of the century to focus one’s attention on water use, conservation and consumption. As federal, state and local officials grapple with any possible solution to meet the water demands of Georgia, Alabama and Florida, now is the time to begin planning to prevent such a drought from impacting this region ever again. Water covers more than 70 percent of the globe, but 97 percent of that is salt water not fit for drinking, irrigation or most any commercial purpose.

Western states long ago harnessed the Colorado River to help handle the water needs of Las Vegas and Los Angeles — both without a natural water supply. Today, our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as sailors in the nuclear navy, daily consume desalinated water.

The world’s largest desalination plants are logically located near some of the world’s largest deserts, including the largest at Jebel Ali in the United Arab Emirates. Water desalination plants in Saudi Arabia currently account for nearly 25 percent of the world’s total desalination capacity. Perth, Australia, now operates a wind-powered desalination plant capable of producing 40 million gallons of clean water per day.

Israel is producing desalinized water at 53 cents per cubic meter, and Singapore is down to 49 cents. Desalination in all forms requires significant energy, to separate and remove the sodium and other sediment from the fresh water. One of the processes most energy-efficient for desalination is called co-generation, combining the use of electricity production and producing heat. This heat is then recovered and re-used. In the Middle East and North Africa, there are co-generation plants that produce both electricity and water, with the combined facility consuming less fuel than would be needed by two separate facilities.

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By Sam Massell

Much has been written about the “Village” in Buckhead, an area of about six blocks on the east side of Peachtree at Paces Ferry. It was the center of commerce for this community before Buckhead was incorporated into the city limits of Atlanta. In the 1980s, it became the city’s nightclub district, at one time numbering as many as 100 establishments with alcoholic licenses. Problems numbered as many.

After years of effort by the Buckhead Coalition and others, a new local government administration brought about reform with the needed police presence, plus ordinance enforcement by the fire marshal, building director, health inspector and others. We then saw the transformation to seedy vacant properties where rowdy nightspots had operated. These properties are now being demolished to make way for very fancy midrise multifamily and office buildings with high-end retail at street level, plus two to three boutique hotels and appropriate parking decks. It is being called “The Streets of Buckhead.”

Since this dramatic change, there has evolved the misconception that our nightlife is a thing of the past. Fortunately, what we had in the “East Village” has gone the way of all bad ailments … before it killed us! Nevertheless, Buckhead indeed does still have ample places of entertainment for those who want a late-night cocktail, dancing and fellowship.

There are two dozen — yes, 24 — operations that have alcoholic licenses in our “West Village” at Peachtree and Roswell, diagonally across from the old “East Village.” In addition, there are three alcoholic package places offering bottled spirits.
Equally important, though, is that this West Village is much more than a nightlife district, as there are an equal number of non-nightclub businesses in those few blocks bound by West Paces Ferry, Roswell and Andrews. Here we have a real hidden treasure unknown to the casual visitor. It’s a historic and eclectic shopping destination with its array of quaint shops, galleries, restaurants and other businesses.

This district has a real “village” atmosphere artfully combining the beauty and tradition of the Old South with the needs of sophisticated style-seekers, offering something for everyone. There’s clothing, accessories, jewelry, lingerie, furnishings, antiques and more.

So Buckhead has bragging rights for yet another dimension — a “village” with which not many have been familiar. It’s right in the heart of Buckhead, yet it’s hidden away to be discovered. It’s the 24-hour part of Atlanta that young and old will enjoy, with delightful “mom and pop” businesses; safe, orderly and sensible nightlife; and convenience of location at the Buckhead Triangle Park. This is where the community came into being about 169 years ago, where the name changed from Irbyville to Buckhead, when a trophy buck’s head became the meeting place of friends.

For those who want to know more about Buckhead and other treasures in its 28 square miles, check out the Buckhead Guidebook (from the Buckhead Coalition or area bookstores). You won’t find much in print about the West Village, however, so now you know one of our best-kept secrets!
Sam Massell is the president of the Buckhead Coalition.

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