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Poll: Mayor’s race a dead-heat

Monday, November 16th, 2009

A new 11 Alive/Survey USA poll of the Atlanta’s mayor’s race shows State Sen. Kasim Reed with 49 percent, and City Council Member Mary Norwood with 46 percent. Reed’s three-percent advantage falls within the poll’s 4.5 percent margin of error.

In other words, according to this poll, it’s a dead-heat.

Norwood and Reed finished first and second in November 3’s mayoral election. They will face one another in a run-off election December 1.

Assuming it’s an accurate snapshot, of course, this poll suggests Reed has been far more successful than Norwood at winning over the 9,829 Atlantans who voted for third-place finisher Lisa Borders.

Mayoral candidates air new TV ads

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

These are a couple days old, but I’m just catching up with them. Before I saw the Lisa Borders ad, I heard it described as a dramatization featuring a “group of women talking together in a kitchen whom you’d never see talking together in a kitchen”:

After seeing the ad, I’d have to agree it’s fairly contrived, in the same way that most political ads using actors tend to be. Of more interest is what they’re saying. After the women express their concerns about crime, they offer these choice bullet points:

  • “It’s time for these things to change.”
  • “We need new leadership.”
  • “What we need is a Democrat.”

OK, first the obvious: This ad is clearly aimed at female voters and, judging from the cast, specifically African American women. I assume it’s mainly intended to siphon women away from Kasim Reed. Take note of the line, “My girlfriend, she was out walking her dog, and someone came up behind her.”

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Race looms large in Atlanta’s upcoming mayoral election

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
Tom Houck, state Rep. Ralph Long, and Aaron Turpeau discuss race at Uptown Lounge

Tom Houck, state Rep. Ralph Long, and Aaron Turpeau discuss race at Uptown Lounge

Over the past few months, the leading candidates for Atlanta mayor have dutifully taken part in dozens of public forums across the city, giving the impression that no interest group is too obscure or any issue too unimportant to be addressed.

Last week, however, a politically oriented event was held downtown without a single office-seeker in sight. But this was hardly surprising. Most candidates would prefer being waterboarded than to go on the record discussing the evening’s chosen subject: race.

It didn’t help that one of the participants in last Wednesday’s panel discussion at Uptown Lounge was Aaron Turpeau, the longtime political operative associated with a controversial memo calling for coordination among black leaders to elect a black mayor.

When the memo surfaced in August, City Council President Lisa Borders quickly denounced it. State Sen. Kasim Reed labeled it “racist.” Even Mayor Shirley Franklin weighed in, dismissing it as “bigoted.”

But like it or not, where the mayor’s race is concerned, race remains the mastodon in the room. Although few have discussed it openly, it’s quite possible that no single factor will have as much impact in determining Atlanta’s next mayor — although not necessarily in ways that seem obvious.

Continue reading “Race looms large in Atlanta’s upcoming mayoral election”

Borders, Reed turn up heat on campaign rhetoric

Monday, October 19th, 2009
Lisa Borders with evil puppet-master Tom Bell!

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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Bidness group ‘endorses’ Lisa Borders for mayor

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

lisa bordersIt shouldn’t be shocking news to anybody, including her opponents, that Council President Lisa Borders has received the highest candidate evaluation score from the Committee for a Better Atlanta.

As a protege of uber-developer Tom Cousins, Borders is certainly the favorite of Atlanta business community. But the Metro Atlanta Chamber decided a while back to keep its favoritism at arm’s length by creating the CBA to rate candidates by how they score on a questionnaire and in a face-to-face interview.

Today those scores were released (PDF) and, no surprise, Borders came out on top, with a 95 percent. Frankly, the only real surprise was that state Sen. Kasim Reed scored so closely behind her, with a 93.

For the Council president’s race, Council members Ceasar Mitchell and Clair Muller tied with 92.

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Mayoral forum offers limited insight into candidates’ strengths

Monday, September 14th, 2009

Picture 27Last night was the couch-sitting public’s first window onto the Atlanta mayor’s race, courtesy of a semi-televised forum by WSB-TV. I say “semi-” because the station inexplicably showed only the first half-hour of a 90-minute event. Apparently, it was deemed more important that viewers be able to see “America’s Funniest Home Videos” than their next mayor.

Anyway, even those who didn’t bother to switch over to radio or the Interwebs to catch the final hour didn’t miss a great deal. No clear winners or losers emerged, but the candidates’ relative strengths and weaknesses do tend to become more visible the longer you see them in action.

Fortunately, last night’s forum was sponsored by the Atlanta Police Foundation, a law-and-order support organization, so the candidates didn’t waste time pandering to special-interest groups, as has been the custom at several previous forums. Instead, they got right down to the first order of business: bashing Chief Richard Pennington.

It usually goes without saying that every new mayor brings in his or her hand-picked police chief, but it didn’t go unsaid last night. Everybody, most conspicuously Council President Lisa Borders, was sticking the boot in Pennington’s ribs, claiming how they would hire a top cop who’s responsive, visible, accountable and doesn’t fancy himself too good to mingle with common beat cops — unlike you-know-who.

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The mayoral ‘machine’ goes haywire, Reed fires back — UPDATED

Thursday, August 27th, 2009
Sen. Kasim Reed is not happy

Kasim Reed is not happy with memo

The Atlanta mayor’s race has just blown up with a controversy whose fallout could well linger over the rest of the election season. Sometime yesterday, an incendiary bomb in the form of an e-mail went out calling on African American leaders across town to throw their support behind a single black candidate for mayor  in order to head off a victory by Councilwoman Mary Norwood, who is painfully white.

The e-mail cites WSB polls showing Council President Lisa Borders gaining support to trail closely behind Norwood while state Sen. Kasim Reed remains trailing in the single digits. On the strength of the numbers, the e-mail author invites the recipients to join him in supporting Borders for mayor.

Reed is taking the missive seriously enough that he quickly retaliated with a statement calling the e-mail’s message “divisive,” “vitriolic” and “racist.”

And who is author? None other than Aaron Turpeau, a longtime political operative who could be considered the most prominent remaining gear in the old “Maynard Machine.” Turpeau worked on Jackson’s first two campaigns for mayor, then for both of Andrew Young’s successful bids, and then for Jackson’s third go-around.

But Turpeau, wasn’t simply Jackson’s appendage. Despite his longtime boss’ endorsement of Bill Campbell, Turpeau worked for both of Campbell’s opponents, Michael Lomax and Marvin Arrington. He later jumped on board Shirley Franklin’s campaign, which gave fuel to critics who dismissed Franklin as the “machine candidate.”

Turpeau hadn’t signed on to work with any mayoral hopefuls this time, a fact which stirred the curiosity of many political observers.

Obviously, however, Turpeau isn’t content to sit on the sidelines. In a follow-up memo (view PDF here), he elaborates on his position, which he calls, in a striking display of candor, the “Black Mayor first” approach:

1.    There is a chance for the first time in 25 years that African Americans could lose the Mayoral seat in Atlanta, Georgia, especially if there is a run-off;
2.    Time is of the essence because in order to defeat a Norwood (white) mayoral candidacy we have to get out now and work in a manner to defeat her without a runoff, and the key is a significant Black turnout in the general election;
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Lisa Borders up in latest mayoral poll, FWIW

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

According to the tirelessly self-promoting pollsters over at Insider Advantage, Council President Lisa Borders has moved up in the estimation of registered voters, while Councilwoman Mary Norwood is maintaining her lead. Here’s the lowdown:

An InsiderAdvantage survey conducted the evening of Monday August 17 among registered voters who said they were likely to vote in the November race to replace outgoing Mayor Shirley Franklin showed City Council Member Mary Norwood continuing to lead the race, with 30% saying they would vote for Norwood. But statistically tied with Norwood was City Council President Lisa Borders with 28%.

Lagging behind the two women were state Sen. Kasim Reed with 8% and attorney Jesse Spikes with 2%. The rest said they were undecided.

Borders was quick to send out a press release:

“We’ve almost tripled our support in just three months. That’s tremendous,” Borders said. “Everywhere that I’ve gone in the City, Atlantans have been eager to hear solution-based answers to how our next mayor will get Atlanta back on track. They want a plan for enhancing public safety, and they want to know where the funds will come from. I hear the need for a budget that gets our money’s worth and responsible government that cares for our community. Atlantans want a city that works. I welcome this news and look forward to speaking with more citizens about solutions to the challenges that we face.”

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Campaign for Atlanta mayoral forum videos go live

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

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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Mayoral forum on public safety — yes, another one

Friday, July 24th, 2009

Last night, the four leading candidates for mayor — Council President Lisa Borders, Councilwoman Mary Norwood, state Sen. Kasim Reed and attorney Jesse Spikes — semi-debated each other at a forum at GSU sponsored by the city’s police and firefighters’ unions.

Not surprisingly, in an auditorium polpulated largely by cops and firemen, all of the candidates voiced strong support for full funding of both departments and competitive compensation for public-safety employees. And they all supported the idea of hiring the next fire and police chiefs from within the ranks — while still saying they’d launch a national search to find the best candidates.

But a few stray ideas did rise from the fray, helping set the candidates apart. Here’s a sampling:

  • Reed would push for a special public-safety tax district to generate additional revenue — mostly through property taxes — that would be dedicated to enhancing public safety in Atlanta. He’d proposed something similar during the recent General Assembly.
  • Borders wants to raise funds by offering the services of Atlanta’s public-safety training facilities to other jurisdictions.
  • Reed wants to give police more time to write citations, which, in turn, generate revenue through fines.
  • Both Borders and Reed aim to offer housing incentives to make it affordable for cops to live inside the city limits. Reed wants to go a step further and exempt cops from city property taxes.
  • Reed wants to overhaul the city’s worker’s comp program, which he indicated could be more fair to employees.
  • Norwood wants to create a WPA-style work program for Atlanta’s homeless and says the city could raise revenue by arresting aggressive panhandlers. Swear to God. I don’t understand how you make money from locking up guys who are flat broke.

If I’ve left out Spikes it’s because his answer to nearly every question was a variation on: “We have to get the city’s financial house in order.”

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Kasim Reed tops Borders, Norwood in mayoral cash scramble

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

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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Join Jesse Spikes as he kicks off mayoral campaign

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

Who is Jesse Spikes, you ask? Well, here’s your chance to find out.

Spikes is a former Rhodes Scholar and a senior partner with McKenna Long & Aldridge, one of the city’s largest law firms. He’s also running for mayor, having announced his candidacy a little more than a year ago, just before City Council President Lisa Borders — temporarily — dropped out.

Over the past year, I can’t say that Spikes has made many waves in the mayor’s race, but I’d comfortably rank him first among second-tier candidates. At the end of the last disclosure period, he had about $125,000 in his campaign war chest — far short of the amounts being raised and spent by the three first-tier candidates: Borders, Councilwoman Mary Norwood and state Sen. Kasim Reed. In fact, in the first quarter of 2009, Reed raised more in a week than Spikes raised in three months. The next round of disclosures should be out in early July.

Anyway, if you like underdogs or are simply not satisfied with the folks leading the field, you can check out Spikes this Saturday at his official campaign kick-off. The event begins at 11 a.m. in front of the large pavilion on the west side of Grant Park near the entrance on Boulevard. The speechifying is scheduled to begin around noon. You can study up on Spikes beforehand at his campaign website.

Mayoral candidates: Gay for votes

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

Did you know Atlanta has the third-highest LGBT (lesbian, gay and both teams) population per capita of any major U.S. city? San Francisco ranks first, of course. But then, apparently, we’re right behind Seattle (not to imply that Seattle’s a bottom or anything). Excuse me, Seattle? I could see Miami or San Diego, but why would Seattle be a gay destination? There can’t be that many jobs at Starbucks. If you’re a straight woman living in Seattle, does that make you a fog hag?

Sorry, it appears I’ve allowed myself to become distracted by a piece of trivia included on a flier for a bipartisan political forum this Thursday. The local chapters of the Stonewall Democrats and Log Cabin Republicans are teaming up to host a meet-and-greet for the Atlanta mayor candidates.

The three leading candidates — City Council President Lisa Borders, Councilwoman Mary Norwood and State Sen. Kasim Reed — have all confirmed, and you’re more than welcome to play a version of road trip bingo using any other declared candidates who show up.

The two-hour event begins at 6 p.m. at the Amsterdam Atlanta restaurant and bar at 502 Amsterdam Ave. There will be light hors d’oeuvres and drink specials. (I recommend the Zima and Red Bull — it’s delish.)

BTW, has anyone else noticed the weird construction theme going on with the Stonewall Democrats and Log Cabin Republicans? What’s next, the Stucco Libertarians?

Last week’s top posts

Monday, May 11th, 2009

Erick Erickson

1. Ga. governor candidate hates abortion, loved animals – Thomas Wheatley reminds us of Neal Horsley and his, uhm, passion for all of the dear Lord’s creations.

2. Atlanta mayor race is leading up to fall runoff – Scott Henry drops science on the race for Atlanta mayor, which will presumably be decided amongst three candidates: Council President Lisa Borders, Councilwoman Mary Norwood or state Sen. Kasim Reed.

3. Standard murder: One suspect in custody, three more to go – The top brass at the APD held a news conference last week to announce an arrest in conjunction with John Henderson’s murder case. Scott Henry breaks it all down for you.

4. Erick Erickson calls Souter ‘goat f**cking child molester’ – Andisheh retracts himself from calling Erick Erickson (of Peach Pundit and RedState.com fame) a “bright light in the local blogosphere” after the blogger posted some choice words about retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter.

5. UGA professor George Zinkhan’s body found, investigators say – Update on the UGA professor-murder case.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

Atlanta mayor race is leading up to fall runoff

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

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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Mayor’s race begins in earnest at witching hour Friday

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

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)

Senate passes Atlanta ‘public safety’ tax

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

The state Senate passed legislation today that would allow Atlanta residents to decide if they want to pay extra for more police officers and firefighters.

State Sen. Kasim Reed, a Democrat from Atlanta who’s also a front-runner in the mayor’s race, sponsored the bill.

Dave Williams of the Atlanta Business Chronicle reports:

Legislation asking Atlanta voters to tax themselves to pay for additional police and fire protection cleared an important hurdle in the General Assembly Thursday.

The Senate voted 30-23 to hold a referendum in the city in November on a plan to raise property taxes to hire more police officers and firefighters.

Reed said the legislation is modeled after a bill the General Assembly adopted allowing a sales tax referendum in Atlanta to pay for water and sewer improvements, which won approval from 71 percent of city voters. He said the property tax increase would expire after four years unless reauthorized in a subsequent referendum.

The bill now moves to the House. If approved, Reed says the owner of a $250,000 home would pay an additional $6 a month on their property taxes. The senator received some guff from his colleagues, who said Mayor Shirley Franklin and the City Council could resolve the dispute over raising taxes vs. cutting public safety themselves. But Reed says the problem can’t wait for a new administration in City Hall.

Lisa Borders ‘reconsidering’ run for mayor

Friday, March 6th, 2009

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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State of the City, people-watching edition

Thursday, January 8th, 2009

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.

Musical chairs, City Hall-style

Friday, October 31st, 2008

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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Mayoral bombshell #2: Here come de judge

Friday, August 15th, 2008

Being a Superior Court judge is a pretty sweet gig. You set your own hours. Everyone calls you “Your Honor.” And when you hold people in contempt, they go to jail. It’s not just the job of a lifetime – it’s the job for a lifetime.

So what would induce someone to voluntarily leave these perks behind and jump back into the job market? Well, in one case we can think of, the goal would be to trade a seat on the bench for the throne in City Hall.

Yes, it seems that Marvin Arrington, former City Council president and current Fulton Superior Court judge, is planning to make his second bid for the city’s top office.

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Lisa Borders bows out of mayor’s race

Monday, August 11th, 2008

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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Reed: General Assembly looking at TAD rules and Beltline funding

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

Just got off the phone with state Sen. Kasim Reed, who himself just walked out of a meeting about yesterday’s state Supreme Court ruling and its impact on the Beltline. He said the Office of Legislative Counsel is poring over Monday’s ruling and is at work “in real time” examining how the General Assembly could return funding to the Beltline and other projects that would stand to be affected in the future. While it’s early in the process and he couldn’t offer more specific details, Reed said citizens should expect to see “something substantive” in the next 72 hours.

The two options would be either a state constitutional amendment or a bill. The former is the strongest of the two because it could not be invalidated by the Supreme Court, Reed said. If the General Assembly passed it, Georgia voters would ultimately decide the issue in November.

Reed said he would discuss the issue tomorrow in Democratic caucus as well.

Word: ‘What I like about Obama’

Monday, January 14th, 2008

Atlanta’s African-American leaders are impressed by Sen. Barack Obama’s ability to energize and inspire presidential primary voters.

“What I like about Barack Obama is that he’s energizing a population that is not typically energized. And that he is providing inspiration.”

— Mayor Shirley Franklin, endorsing Obama on V-103’s (WVEE-FM) “Frank and Wanda in the Morning” on Jan. 9.

“. . . I believe he gives Georgia Democrats our best chance of retaking the White House in 2008 and building the coalition necessary to bring change as President.”

— Rumored Atlanta mayoral candidate and state Sen. Kasim Reed, endorsing Obama on Jan. 7.

“Thank goodness for what Obama has been doing in Iowa and New Hampshire. It’s historic. He’s tapped into a part of the electorate looking for something different, something new.”

— Rep. John Lewis, speaking to the AJC on Jan. 8. Lewis has endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton.