Mayoral Proclamation Throwdown — the results
Yesterday’s Atlanta Mayoral Candidates Proclamation Throwdown at Candler Park Fall Fest was a lot of fun. It also gave the audience a chance to see the four leading candidates in an informal setting.
I organized the event for Fall Fest (and introduced the candidates as they spoke between musical acts), so this is a bit of self promotion. But, whether you were there or not, you’ll enjoy the videos posted below. Please comment (preferably on the blog rather than You Tube) to tell us who how you think the candidates came across. (Fall Fest continues today noon-8 pm.)
Mayoral Candidates’ Proclamation Throwdown
All four leading candidates have agreed to come to the Candler Park Fall Fest tomorrow for the Great Atlanta Mayoral Candidates’ Proclamation Throwdown.
UPDATE: Here’s the schedule. 1:15 Lisa Borders; 2:15 Mary Norwood; 3:15 Jesse Spikes; 4:45 Kasim Reed.
They’ll be appearing between music acts all afternoon. More details on the times later this afternoon and on Twitter @kenedelstein.
What is a Mayoral Candidates’ Proclamation Throwdown, you ask? I’ve been describing it to the campaigns as an opportunity for each candidate to “suck up to an intown neighborhood.” But really it’s an opportunity for us to see how well each of the candidates performs in an informal setting.
Mayors have to be leaders who people will follow; it also helps if they have a sense of humor.
It’s the 100th anniversary of Candler Park’s annexation into the city of Atlanta, and the theme of this year’s festival is to celebrate that centennial. So here’s guidance I’ve sent each candidate to help them about the Throwdown: Read more
Beltline mayoral forum: Which candidate scored?
One nice thing about a mayoral debate in a city in the midst of an economic crisis is that it’s difficult for candidates to promise the moon.
That was very apparent at last night’s forum in Midtown on the Beltline and its impact on transportation, parks and historic resources. Many of the questions drew caveats from each candidate in the form of fiscal reality checks.
Even the relatively modest idea that Atlanta ought to stop off-loading sidewalk maintenance costs on adjacent property owners drew very careful answers. “The city has to be able to support it,” cautioned Jesse Spikes, a smart attorney who’s generally regarded as the fourth guy in a three-candidate race. “At some point we’re going to get beyond the situation that we’re in today.” Read more
She doesn’t read blogs. *Le sigh*
Ken is handling the coverage of last night’s mayoral debate on the Beltline, but I thought I would take advantage of a break between his postings to stick in my two cents about a few things that have nothing to do with the Beltline.
Before the debate last night, I introduced myself to Lisa Borders and told her that I had written about the mayoral race on this blog.
And she said, “I don’t read blogs.”
I’m pretty thick, I guess, so I said, “Oh because you don’t want to read potentially negative comments?”
And she said something to the effect that no, no, it’s because she’s too busy reading the primary sources and leaves the blog-reading to her staff.
Now, clearly my pride is wounded. But as a journalist, I’m torn between two conclusions:
#1 – Lisa’s a straight shooter and she’s not going to pretend she’s reading this blog or others if she’s not. And besides, she has so much other stuff on her plate that she just does not have the time to read blogs. Both could bode well for her if she wins the election.
Read more
At mayoral Beltline forum, winner is … the moderator
Tonight’s mayoral candidates’ forum on the Beltline and other green issues probably left some asking two questions: 1) Why isn’t Cathy Woolard running for mayor? And 2) did she just lay a zinger on her successor while moderating the forum?
Woolard, a former City Council president, at one point bundled a bunch of audience questions into one: How far did they expect to take the Beltline by the end of their first term?
But each of the candidates gave too tepid an answer for Woolard’s satisfaction.
“I think we are going to get transit done, but it’s not going to be soon,” answered Lisa Borders, the current Council president and one of the frontrunners in the mayoral contest.
After each answer, Woolard goaded the candidates by muttering that she still wouldn’t have transit after four years with such unambitious vision. “I’m still driving,” she’d say, Read more
Mayoral candidate forums past and future
I hate to kick a Chattahoochee baptism out of the top spot on the blog but I finally found Thomas Wheatley’s take on Tuesday’s transportation forum on Creative Loafing’s site and I want to be sure you have all seen it, too.
He also provides a link to what’s essentially a transcript of the event on Atlanta Bicycle Coalition’s site.
Super useful, because I really cherry-picked the comments I chose to write about, leaving out that, for example, Mary Norwood drives an old Buick or that Jesse Spikes still has the bike he used in his college days, which is very heavy, he said, and probably lives in the garage 24/7.
I’m thrilled to say there is a core group of Atlantans who are paying very close attention to the mayoral race.
I found a list of upcoming mayoral candidate forums on Kasim Reed’s site. Very helpful, Sen. Reed!
Here’s a sampling:
Read more
Mayoral candidate forum from other perspectives
I want to share with you one of the other perspectives from the mayoral candidates forum last night on green transportation.
Joeventures: wow, you have articulated your opinions very clearly, have very high standards, which I applaud, and you seem to know your way around the issues.
Readers, please check out Joe’s thoughts. He’s really thorough!
And please, please keep posting your comments. This discussion is great, and in particular I am really eager to hear from the folks who disagreed with me.
So far, I’ve really just skimmed the surface. As one commenter wrote, whether the candidates live downtown or not really doesn’t matter, and I can see that point of view. I think Jesse Spikes, for example, would clean up the city’s finances if he lived in Savannah. He’s determined.
In the meantime, are there other reports out there in the blogosphere about the forum?
I’ve checked SaportaReport and Creative Loafing several times and so far they have not posted anything. I’ve also stopped by several other political blogs, but have come up empty.
Tick, tick, tick we need to discuss all this stuff quickly! Nov. 3 is not that far away. (For that matter, neither is Christmas so you may want to start your shopping!).
No sidewalk, no bike, no MARTA but we love Atlanta!
As I wrote last night, Maria Saporta’s questions at Tuesday’s mayoral candidates forum shed much-needed light on who the candidates are.
Not what they say, what they DO.
And to recap, they pretty much live outside of the core of the city in subdivisions or suburban areas.
In fact, City councilwoman Mary Norwood said she lives on a three-quarter acre plot with a creek in Buckhead. She later said there’s not much suburban territory in the city.
I would say wherever you have three-quarter acre plots, you have suburbia.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that!
Atlanta is a city with incredibly varied topography.
But I would posit that the city is struggling to be a city, and that it’s made some great strides toward filling in the areas that have been staked out as urban strongholds.
And so I just wonder how committed one would be to that movement if one lived in a subdivision or a suburban neighborhood.
Because it means that none of these candidates did what I did — which was specifically stake out a neighborhood, a block and a house that would allow me to walk to coffee shops, retail stores, restaurants, transit and parks.
They also don’t appear to take MARTA regularly. Maria asked them when was the last time they took MARTA.
I sat there in the auditorium at the Atlanta Regional Commission and answered for myself: Yesterday.
But the candidates had much vaguer answers.
Read more
E Pluribus Unum
A month or so ago, I posted my vision of development in Atlanta via a video clip of an old Robin Williams comedy routine.
I fantasize that it would be great if we could push all of Atlanta’s city neighborhoods together and make one good city.
In the 1980s, Williams joked about how men, during intercourse, were always pushing women’s breasts together “to make one good one.” (See the jump for the video clip).
I was reminded of this metaphor last night at a mayoral forum that was held at the Park Tavern.
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Atlanta mayor free-for-all
From Tom Houck and GONSO:
There’s gonna be a runoff.
Atlanta is just seven months from a mayoral election, where for the first time since 1973 and the election of Maynard Jackson, there is no clear favorite.
There’s no shortage of candidates. Twelve or more have already declared and none has name recognition above 40 percent among the electorate.
Let’s call the roll: a feisty white women in tennis shoes; a polished Rhodes Scholar attorney; a member of an icon Atlanta religious and civil rights family; a state senator close to Barack Obama; a half-dozen “change” agents who are just throwing-their-hats-in-the-ring types; and a possible Fulton Commissioner who has been down this road unsuccessfully before.
One thing is a given – Atlanta is broke. The city is tired of lackluster delivery of services, of crime all-too-prevalent in its neighborhoods, and of being a four-day-a-week city. In all fairness to our current mayor Shirley Franklin, Atlanta is not unlike every city in America. Many are facing financial crises not seen since the great depression.
Nevertheless, Franklin will be an issue front-and-center. The darling of Peachtree Street has lost her veneer in the neighborhoods. Her “Philly girl” in-your-face, take-no-prisoners approach has turned off even many of her most ardent backers. And five chief financial officers in seven years haven’t exactly made her a steward of the city’s finances.
Read more here.
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