Fresh Loaf

Atlanta City Councilwoman Anne Fauver’s unexpected exit from the District 6 race yesterday took nearly everyone in the politically active and tight-knit neighborhoods she serves by surprise.

In a Tuesday interview with CL, Fauver said the decision, which she’s wrestled with for the last two months, largely came down to two things: frustration with city politics and the desire to try something new.

“[Atlanta] once had a strong council and a weak mayor,” Fauver said. “That’s been reversed. That can be very frustrating because council is supposed to determine policy…As of now, we don’t.”

Fauver added that it’s difficult to juggle a career and serve in City Hall. The job of a councilmember, which pays $39,000 a year and is supposed to be a part-time gig, is more like a round-the-clock position.

“It’s four years,” she said, referring to another term. “Four years on top of eight years is a little bit longer than I want to do it. I’m frankly looking forward to a new challenge and I don’t know what that will be.”

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Anne Fauver readily concedes her proposals for bringing in new city revenue amount to rummaging for change between the municipal couch cushions.

The Atlanta councilwoman estimates her two suggestions could raise upwards of $3 million. That’s not much compared to the half-billion-dollar city budget, but until someone comes up with a better idea, Council will take what it can get.

Fauver has proposed legislation to allow the city to expand its 911 tax to include users Voice-over-Internet phone service. The monthly tax, which currently applies to cell and land-line phones, is used to fund the city’s 911 system. Closing the Internet-phone loophole could net the city an additional $1.5 million, Fauver says.

Her other proposal is aimed at reclaiming costs for false burglar and fire alarms, which most folks likely assume the city already collecting. Though police collected false-alarm fines totaling about $1.4 million in 2000, Fauver was surprised to discover that number has tapered off. Since 2005, almost no fines have been collected, even though 90 percent of all 911 calls reporting possible break-ins and fires are caused by faulty home-alarm systems or homeowner error.

“We just basically stopped collecting,” says Fauver, whose legislation would shift collection duties from the cops to the city court. Under her proposal, the 911 system would report false alarms to the city Solicitor’s Office, which would issue warnings and citations.

Homeowners would get one free false alarm a year; fines would start at $100 for the second alarm and go up from there. Unpaid fines would be turned over to the same private collection agency that hounds people for delinquent water bills and license fees.

Fauver’s confident the effort could bring in $1.5 million a year. “Gradually, we could reduce the number of false alarms because people would learn to be more careful,” she says.

If approved by Council, the new programs would kick in Jan. 1.

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