(APN) ATLANTA — There were a few surprises Friday, as the Municipal Clerk’s Office wrapped up a full week of qualifying at Atlanta City Hall: several new candidates, a dropout and endorsement, a race switch, and a cliffhanger. New candidates to pop up during qualifying week include: Rachele Fruit for City Council President; John Paul Michalik for Council […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — How is it that in Atlanta, Georgia, the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement, the powers of corporate wealth and the bourgeoisie have managed to destroy public housing, decimate low-income communities, privatize public schools, privatize Grady Hospital, enact draconian anti-panhandling legislation, and carry out a war upon low-income people, despite the presence of so many non-profit […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — On Monday, March 18, 2013, the City Council of Atlanta approved the extension of the Hotel Motel tax through 2050, in order to provide public funding for the construction of a new stadium for the Atlanta Falcons football team, in Atlanta’s Vine City neighborhood, in a vote of 11 to 4. As previously reported by APN, the […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — A new report by Environment Georgia identifies some opportunities that the City of Atlanta, not just the government sector but as a whole, can pursue to increase the proportion of solar energy in the city’s overall energy portfolio to ten percent by the year 2030. The report, “A Bright Future: Building a Solar Atlanta,” was prepared by […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — Angela Green, a former City of Atlanta employee and member of the Board of Trustees of the City of Atlanta General Employees’ Pension Plan, has filed a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Atlanta Progressive News has learned. The complaint, filed on January 18, 2013, alleges that the investment consultant for the Pension Fund, Larry […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — This week Mayor Kasim Reed circulated a statement to Members of the City Council of Atlanta, and perhaps to others, denying a report in the Atlanta Progressive News that he had been recruiting Councilman Lamar Willis (Post 3-at-large) or Councilwoman Keisha Lance Bottoms (District 11) to run against Council President Ceasar Mitchell in the 2013 Municipal Elections. […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — Mayor Kasim Reed is pushing for either Lamar Willis (Post 3-at-large) or Keisha Lance Bottoms (District 11) to challenge Council President Ceasar Mitchell in the 2013 Municipal Elections, Atlanta Progressive News has learned. Three independent sources over the last three weeks have told APN of the plan that is in the making. The sources include two political […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — Fulton County Superior Court Judge Shawn Ellen LaGrua has ruled in favor of street vendors in Atlanta who were negatively impacted by the City of Atlanta when the City entered into a contract with a private firm, U.K. – LaSalle, LLC, to manage the City’s street vendors. The case was Larry Miller and Stanley Hambrick v. City […]
Read moreBy Scott Brown, Staff Writer (APN) ATLANTA — Over fourteen months after Occupy Atlanta protesters set up camp in downtown Woodruff Park, the fifty-two people who were arrested the night of October 25, 2011, for refusing to leave the park, finally had their day in court. The defense team of ten volunteer lawyers, headed by attorney Mawuli Davis, have spent […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — At a press conference at City Hall today, Friday, December 21, 2012, activists with Occupy Atlanta alleged that the City of Atlanta deceived them and the Atlanta Municipal Court with respect to eight hundred pages of documents that the activists say they subpoenaed months ago. In addition, recent court proceedings have revealed a significant spying operation by […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — Mayor Kasim Reed is using a high-priced law firm to attempt to silence a national website, Lipstick Alley, after some of its users on an open forum published comments that Reed claims are libelous. On October 08, 2012, J. Randolph Evans, an attorney with McKenna Long & Aldridge, sent a cease and desist letter to an Internet […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — Just over a year since the Board of Commissioners of Fulton County rejected pay-to-play reform, and just a few months since Mayor Kasim Reed bashed the notion of pay-to-play reform during remarks before the City Council of Atlanta, Common Cause Georgia and its ethics reform partners have made great strides in gaining support for pay-to-play reform, both […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — Mayor Kasim Reed said that he was vetoing legislation that passed City Council concerning aggressive panhandling because it was cruel, harsh, and inhumane; however, Atlanta Progressive News has learned that the Mayor’s proposal in fact provides for the same maximum jail sentence–180 days in jail–for any offense of aggressive panhandling, and adds a minimum jail sentence for […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — The Committee Briefings of the City Utilities Cmte of the City Council of Atlanta are now open to the public, Atlanta Progressive News has confirmed. As previously reported by APN, for the past several years, all seven Council Committee Briefings have been closed to the public, until in June of this year, when Chairwoman Felicia Moore (District […]
Read more(APN) ATLANTA — At the Full Council Meeting of the City Council of Atlanta on Tuesday, August 04, 2012, the Council approved legislation allowing Mayor Kasim Reed’s administration to move forward on negotiating a controversial sole source contract with a company called Fogfuels, Inc., to convert cooking grease into fuel for the City. The proposal, introduced by Councilman Lamar Willis […]
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