UPDATE 1: Title and article updated with new total numbers (see below for full editorial comment). (APN) ATLANTA — The Atlanta Board of Education has conceded to recouping tens of millions dollars less than the original 162 million dollars promised to the Atlanta Public School system (APS) for its participation in the Beltline Tax Allocation District (TAD). In […]
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(APN) ATLANTA — While there is no end in sight to the Beltline-Atlanta Public Schools (APS) dispute, the Atlanta City Council has set aside four million dollars for a possible eventual settlement. The Council could have made an outright good faith payment, but decided to put it in a contingency fund, pending a settlement agreement. The problem is, […]
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(APN) ATLANTA — At the Wednesday, May 13, 2015 Board Meeting of the Atlanta Beltline, the Board passed the Fiscal Year 2016 budget for the Beltline that does not provide any payments towards the Beltline’s 13.5 million dollar debt to Atlanta Public Schools (APS). This debt reflects two missed payments in January 2014 and January 2015. Based on the […]
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(APN) ATLANTA — At the Full Council Meeting of the City Council of Atlanta, on Monday, April 20, 2015, the fast-tracking of 13 million dollars for Tyler Perry’s real estate transaction deal with the City of Atlanta for a new film studio at Fort McPherson was approved by all except Councilwoman Felicia Moore (District 9). The vote was 11 […]
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(APN) ATLANTA — A dispute over the former George Adair Elementary School property in southwest Atlanta has been lobbed back to Mayor Kasim Reed’s office after the City Council of Atlanta passed two resolutions at the Monday, March 02, 2015 Full Council Meeting. One of the resolutions passed by the Council seeks to evaluate all properties being used by […]
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(APN) ATLANTA — Atlanta Attorney John Woodham was cleared of any wrongdoing by the Supreme Court of Georgia, in an opinion published on Monday February 16, 2015. At issue was whether Woodham violated the rules of the State Bar of Georgia when he offered to drop a bond validation lawsuit if the developers paid him a substantial fee. Woodham later […]
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(APN) ATLANTA — It is time for the City of Atlanta to end the theft from Atlanta Public Schools, to end the “negotiations”–there is nothing to negotiate, unless the subject is how much to steal from school children–and to pay the approximately fifteen million dollars or more, when interest is included, to APS immediately. Hypocrisy on Cheating Scandals […]
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(APN) ATLANTA — At the Full Council Meeting of the City Council of Atlanta, on yesterday, January 06, 2015, Councilwoman Natalyn Archibong (District 5) introduced an ordinance–drafted by Council President Ceasar Mitchell–to make payments to the Atlanta Independent School System (APS) for the amounts–over 13.5 million dollars–owed by the Atlanta Beltline, Inc. The legislation would seek to have the […]
Read moreIssues for 2013 1. Education Georgia public schools have a high school graduation rate of 67.5%, the third worst in the nation. Yet the cost per public school student, $10,587, is nearly $1,000 more than the national average. Charter schools can offer parents and children an alternative to a poorly performing traditional public school. Last summer, Georgians voted to […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — Two companion cases related to the Atlanta Beltline and Atlanta Perry-Bolton Tax Allocation Districts (TADs) are headed to the Supreme Court of Georgia, where the TADs and the Atlanta Beltline are no new topic, Atlanta Progressive News has learned. The first case, John Sherman and Christopher Eichler v. City of Atlanta et al., concerns the bond validation […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — The Atlanta Beltline is not meeting its affordable housing goals and its affordable housing program needs to be refined, according to a report commissioned by the Atlanta Beltline Tax Allocation District Advisory Committee (TADAC), entitled Atlanta Beltline: Five Year Work Plan 2006 – 2010 review. The report is noteworthy because as previously reported by Atlanta Progressive News, […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — CEO Brian Leary of Atlanta Beltline Inc. (ABI) was terminated at a Special Call Meeting of the Board of Directors on yesterday, August 17, 2012, after a week of daily articles in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution newspaper (AJC), revealing over a year’s worth of improper taxpayer dollar expenditures. After a City of Atlanta audit concerning Atlanta’s ten Tax […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — Three different lawsuits, where John Woodham serves as legal counsel, are pending in the courts that challenge various aspects of the Beltline, the Beltline Tax Allocation District (TAD), and the Perry/Bolton TAD, Atlanta Progressive News has learned. One lawsuit–John S. Sherman, on his own behalf and on behalf of all those similarly situated, and Christopher D. Eichler, […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — A recent audit report reveals that the City of Atlanta has failed to exercise sufficient oversight over various Tax Allocation District (TAD) funds, meaning that taxpayer dollars from the City of Atlanta, Fulton County, and the Atlanta Independent School System have been diverted from the operating budgets of these entities, towards purposes for which they were never […]
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