No go on the Peachtree Streetcar
Ariel Hart of the AJC reports that Atlanta will not receive federal funds to build a streetcar line here.
As Ariel puts it, “The loss for the streetcar is one more drop in the bucket of metro Atlanta’s mass transit misery.”
She has all the details here.
It’s times like this that I like being a blogger. Because it would have been hard to write the story Ariel had to write.
What’s gotten into Sonny?
Gov. Sonny Perdue seems to be cramming for his finals.
“Too little, too late” never seemed more apt.
After doing not much more than grumbling about metro Atlanta’s growth problems for seven years, Sonny Perdue finally is pushing lawmakers to pass water conservation and transportation funding bills. Not only that, last week he proposed converting four statewide elected offices into appointed positions — a bold idea that any good government type should be celebrating.
The perplexing thing is that Perdue’s doing all this in his eighth and final year as governor, when his influence is surely too low to bend the Legislature to his will. He won’t have any way to followup to ensure that his ideas are implemented effectively, either. Read more
How Tea Party rumors gain traction
Ostensibly, the Tea Party meeting I attended Tuesday night in Peachtree City was about the “cap-and-trade” climate change bill that Congress is now considering.
But a passing reference to an unrelated rumor was more interesting. And it said a lot more about the way the Tea Party rank-and-file gets worked up over things that aren’t even happening.
This week’s baseless rumor apparently is that President Obama is planning to ban protests on the National Mall. “Treason,” one Tea Partier responded when he heard that. Another yelled something about “revolution.”
Here’s the video. Below’s my explanation of why the rumor appears to be totally baseless.
Maybe Oxendine was hunting for water
The John Oxendine shooting accident had nothing to do with this man.
Aha! Now I’ve figured it out. That “not a Dick Cheney” hunting accident involving John Oxendine, his sons and some guy straight out of an episode of Petticoat Junction wasn’t an accident after all.
It was a reconnaissance mission on behalf of the thirsty people of Georgia.
Think about it: Yesterday, Oxendine announced that, if elected governor, he’ll take up with the U.S. Supreme Court a Georgia request that Tennessee let us pipe water from the Tennessee River to metro Atlanta.
Could it be mere coincidence that someone in Oxendine’s hunting party peppered a northwest Georgia man with buckshot just one week earlier?
Hear me out: The incident occurred on Walker County property owned by a man whom the current insurance commissioner is supposed to be regulating Read more
So many good ideas for Mr. Reed!
Do I wish I had thought to write/solicit ideas for a to-do list for the new mayor, as Atlanta magazine did in its January issue, or do I wish I had thought of some of the actual ideas?
Needless to say, both.
It doesn’t look like you can access the whole article online but you can read a taste of it here. (It’s worth getting your hands on a copy of the actual magazine to take a look at the whole piece).
The suggestions were published in conjunction with the proceedings of a roundtable the magazine convened to discuss Atlanta’s problems and what we can do to fix them.
The magazine solicited ideas from people all around Atlanta, and while many of the ideas are a bit self-serving — someone involved in a volunteer organization thinks every Atlantan should start volunteering — all of the suggestions merit consideration.
I think the best single comment comes from Creative Loafing’s Andisheh Nouraee. (You may think we are biased in favor of Creating Loafing folks here since Ken worked there for so long but I never worked there and I don’t even know Andisheh. I just like good ideas).
While I don’t agree with every idea, I love the way he presents his thoughts in a very no-nonsense way that just says, “Let’s get going.”
Here’s his comment:
“Treat critics with respect instead of as enemies. Honor responsible homeowners by cracking down on serial code violators whose derelict properties are magnets for criminals. Create an Office of Transparency and empower citizen watchdogs by putting every new government report and document online in real-time. Admit the BeltLine is a park with a bike path, not a mass transit project. Require large parking lots to install secure bike racks. Mobilize Atlanta business leaders against rural GOP lawmakers who revel in hurting the city. Hire more cops, and tell the ones directing traffic at Hartsfield-Jackson to stop being such dicks.”
Alright so let’s get going!
Copenhagen: A big success for Obama
Those casually watching this month’s Copenhagen climate conference — and the activists passionately involved in it — may have concluded it was a failure. I just posted an article on My Green ATL that argues otherwise.
One of the biggest winners coming out of Copenhagen was Barack Obama. And, depending on what happens over the next 12 months, we could all turn out to be winners, because Copenhagen at least kept that possibility open.
That’s not the conclusion you’d get by listening to screaming cable anchors and reading a mainstream press obsessed with “balancing” opposing sides and hyping failure. Then, again obsessing on balance and hyping failure don’t often produce an accurate view of truth.
Check out the article at My Green ATL. It’s, ahem, brilliant.
My predictions for today’s city elections
No polls. No interviews. Not much thinking. Just seat of the pants guesses. What are yours?
MAYOR: Reed 52, Norwood 48
COUNCIL PRESIDENT: Mitchell 54, Muller 46
CITYWIDE POST 2: Watson 63, Farokhi 37
DISTRICT 6: Wan 59, Coyle 41
OK. Share please.
Georgia Tech prof engages skeptics on climate dispute
The last time Georgia Tech hurricane expert Judith Curry drew attention from the popular media she was a little miffed.
In 2005, Curry and a colleagues testified before a Senate committee on a study they’d authored, which found that global warming was making hurricanes stronger. An aide to Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., responded by accusing them of “espousing minority views that a vast majority of scientists dispute.”
Curry, who chairs Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, was puzzled afterward that the press focused on the politics surrounding the aide’s outrageous comments rather than on the groundbreaking study, which after all was published only days after Hurricane Katrina had struck New Orleans. She still says climate-change deniers “slandered” and “libeled” her and her colleagues.
Now, however, Curry’s diving willfully into the eye of the media storm surrounding the politics of climate change — and she’s again drawn attention from national media…
See the rest of this article at my environmental website My Green ATL
Atlanta 911 callers placed on hold
I tweeted eight days ago that Atlanta 911 placed me on hold for six minutes while I tried to report a fire I happened to see in the Old Fourth Ward. But WSB’s really got the goods on the story
The Atlanta Police Department’s own records show that 30,813 calls were placed on hold for more than 40 seconds in two-and-a-half months this spring and summer, which city guidelines say would be an “unacceptable” length of time. Jodie Fleischer interviews at least three people who faced critical emergencies and were put on hold.
The response from city officials? “They don’t think their own numbers are accurate” — so they’re refusing to share upated data with the public. Fleischer also said city officials refused to allow the station to tape inside the 911 center or wouldn’t do an on-camera interview. The city also says it’s hiring more operators.
Watch this excellent report on WSB-TV’s website.
SaportaReport: Time for Chambers to move on
Maria Saporta of SaportaReport speaks with authority when she says that Rep. Jill Chambers (R-Dunwoody), who chairs the Georgia legislature’s MARTA Oversight Committee (MARTOC), and the rest of the naysayers need to move on now that the state has given MARTA a clean fiscal bill of health.
Below is a short excerpt, but please read the full column here.
From SaportaReport:
“This audit review should be enough to silence Chambers once and for all. She has made MARTA and the state jump through time-consuming hoops on her witch hunt for evil and wrongdoing.
“And now it’s time for her to stop.”
(end)
I will reiterate that I don’t think everything MARTA does is great. For example, I still want to know why there isn’t a bus that goes all the way up Boulevard and Monroe!
But using the transit service as one’s own punching bag is wrong. What are we doing to do, stop the trains, pull up the tracks, bulldoze the stations?
I don’t think so, so let’s work on building on the transit system we have.
Our new website!
