Category — You Can Fight Dirty Against City Hall

[Do you think Rachel Ray might know how to balance a budget?]

1. The AJC has a report on a poll saying that metro voters would pay higher sales tax for more public transport.  We have a better idea, how about apportioning some of the already existing state transportation budget to methods of transportation other than roads.
2. Creative Loafing has details on the impending city budget cuts and tax hike.  Shirley Franklin - at midnight she turns back into Bill  Campbell.
3. Bloglanta talks Castleberry Hill.
4. How can you tell Forsyth is the new Gwinnett County?  They are getting an AMC Movie Theatre.  Colonial 18 4-eva yiggity yo.

[Just gorge yourself.]

1. Braves and Birds talks state of the Thrashers nation. Some of the facts are quite damning.
2. Yesterday we discovered (only in the same sense as Columbus discovered America) a great Gwinnett blog called Exurban Adventures. With nearly 800,000 residents we question Gwinnett’s exurbanity. Here is their take on the “gang fight” at Mill Creek High School. The battle for control of the Mall of Georgia is getting intense, huh?
3. Rusty from RGM has a great piece of Georgia Legislatature history. Did that elicit yawns? It involves booze. See, we knew you drunkards would be into it.
4. FEMA teat, as predicted, available for suckling.
5. Peach Pundit has an interesting local perspective on the Obama race thing. We will not call it a “controversy,” unless, of course, we can say it the British way.
6. Former SEC basketball official going to prison for running a Ponzi scheme. The SEC official was initially investigated by the, uh, well, SEC. Who is investigating yesterday’s crew for the Georgi-Xavier game?
7. AJC gets around to discussing Moreland Avenue development. So, they are only about 2-3 months behind on the story. If this related to Buckhead we guess the response time might have been quicker.
8. CL has a review of the Glenwood, a restaurant in East Atlanta. The EAV was hit hard by the tornado. Make you way over and support the neighborhood with your patronage.
9. GT Sports Blog has the world’s quickest”Where are they now?” Info on Taylor Bennett.
10. Mixed-use development in Henry County. We are guessing that there is no public transportation element. Don’t be fooled by terminology into thinking something is green, or smart development, or whateve.
11. GrifDrift talks about Shirley Franklin defending her daughter’s light sentence via internet pseudonym. If we had caught the same charge as Kai Frankin we would be servicing our prison boyfriend at this very moment.
12. Tondee’s says an elected official was caught whilst being serviced by a staffer. No names yet.
13. Magic City, the Atlanta strip club known throughout the hip hop world, has been repurchased by its original owner.  We once heard Dennis Scott say the club was a favorite spot to take GT basketball recruits.
14. UGA VI was named top mascot in the NCAA tournament.  Yeah, not much consolation.
15. Rep. Stephanie Stuckey Benfield is upset that she was called out for missing so many votes.  Decatur Metro with her excuses.
16. Terrell Pryor to Ohio State.  You are officially the last college football fan to know.
17. South Atlanta High School basketball wunderkind Derrick Favors is the Georgia Player of the Year, according the official beverage of jortsporters.  How can Georgia get this kid?
18. Kudos to Creative Loafing for putting a reference to the Wire in this headline.
19. The Tour de Georgia starts in 31 days.  Why can’t they call it the Tour of Georgia.  The “de” seems silly outside of French speaking countries.  Euro teams Saunier-Duval, CSC, and Gerolsteiner are among the competitors.
20. Tondee’s has an excellent summary of the 2008 Georgia US Senate race.

[Cheap Beer Available.]

1. Pop Death Squad is having its monthly free Big Trouble in Little 5 Points show. Dancin’ shoes required. Drive a Faster Car with details.
2. Slapppy Kingston continues to shine in his role as Republican Hatchet Man - Obama Division.
3. Preston at kissatlanta says is refocusing his blog. He says he is moving away from electronic music and returning his focus to our fair city. We couldn’t be happier. See if you can catch what we guess is a Michael Pollan reference in the post.
4. GT Sports has range. Info on the GT Presidential search.
5. Remember how that sales tax hike you voted on was supposed to prevent hikes in water rates? Whoopsie.

 This from a meeting of the Grant Park Neighborhood Association:

Margaret D. Kaiser, Georgia state representative from District 59. Kaiser introduced her initiative to raise the homestead exemption on property from the current $15,000 to $50,000, phased in over five years. She encouraged members to sign up for legislative updates and asked residents to host yard signs proposing the homestead exemption bill. The original intent of the homestead exemption, said Kaiser, was to protect lower and moderately priced homes, adding that inflated property taxes have increased exponentially. She said she is also working to log all vacant properties in District 59 to be taken into context when property reassessment is done. She asked for volunteers to walk and help log vacant houses, which, along with foreclosures, also contribute to declining property values.

[Dame Kaiser]

Kaiser is right to worry about assessments. Cities throughout the country use assessments as a back door tax hike. To raise taxes this way is both deceptive and economically inefficient.

People need help out there, but is this just straight pandering? It seems a tad irresponsible to cut tax revenues when the city is facing a budget shortfall. Of course, Kaiser is not part of the city government. One thing is for sure if this tax cut comes to pass; Margaret Kaiser’s star will be rising.

After a flurry of articles about how the Georgia Supreme Court’s decision will affect the highly anticipated and highly popular Beltline, there has been a relative silence. Without the TAD money there is little chance this project can go forward. Nobody seems willing to admit that this is the case.

[Too bad this old bastard gave all his money to Vandy. Mayor Franklin could use it.]

An excellent Los Angeles Times article suggests that the mayor is interested in finding alternative funding from private and philanthropic sources. We guess these would be the same public slash philanthropic partners the city has been begging for Symphony Center money to no avail. That is $500 million project, the Beltline has an estimated cost of $8 billion. [Read more →]

[William Henry Harrison. Whig. Get it? Lame.]

1. The Whigs played Letterman the other night. Cable & Tweed has the video.
2. The city has a $70 million budget shortfall. One of the budget cuts involves the reduction of travel expenses. Shirley Franklin travel related irony ensues.
3. Chick-fil-A is a fast food business beast. The Atlanta Business Chronicle has the details.

[Maybe they will build a cool modern stadium. Sometimes we say crazy things.]

Three friends are walking through the Mall of Georgia. Traffic is slow even for a weekday, and there is much browsing and little buying.

Gwinnett: The thing is Fulton you should really be planning and investing in your money, not wasting it at a mall. Look at me; I build new schools every year. They say the children are our future.

Fulton: Who are they?

Gwinnett: You know.

Fulton: Whitney Houston?

Gwinnett: Stop it. You understand what I am saying. Fiscal conservatism is the only way to survive in this world. You need to stop spending money on larks like public transportation. People have cars for God’s sake.

Cobb: Hey! Seriously guys, cool it on the blasphemy. Does the sporting goods store sell guns?

Fulton: What about our new water system?

Gwinnett: That is smart, but if you had planned better, maybe you wouldn’t need a new water system. Also, you need to stop dating all these losers. That guy Bill stole all your money, and Shirley is out of town so much you could hardly call it a relationship. [Read more →]

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently published a vignette discussing a proposed park between Oakland Cemetery and the State Capitol. The proposed park is supposed to be a mall, similar to that in Washington, DC, with an ambitious attempt to go up and over the downtown connector.

While I wholeheartedly support the creation of more parks in a city which ranks near the bottom in land dedicated to parks, it seems as though city hall is more interested in telling us about the parks they are planning rather than actually constructing those parks. The Beltline, the proposed park near City Hall East, and the proposed park on Boulevard south of Grant Park are other examples of projects the city is in the process of developing.

[Do hippies throwing frisbees cost extra??]

[Read more →]