Politics & Government

Political Heavyweights Attend North Buckhead Civic Association Meeting

Active group draws strong list of speakers

The North Buckhead Civic Association's annual meeting Tuesday night drew a big roster of political heavyweights.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed was scheduled to address the active group, but had to be in New York City to negotiate a multimillion-dollar grant for the city from a foundation. Any loss in political wattage was overcome by his replacement, city COO Peter Aman, who runs most of the city departments on a daily basis. Aman is a resident of Chastain Park in Buckhead.

The speakers also included State Rep. Ed Lindsey (R-54th District) and Councilman Howard Shook (District 7).  Denise Starling, executive director of Livable Buckhead and BATMA, spoke along with AECOM landscape architect Carlos Perez on the initiative to increase green space in District 7, which has the lowest number of parks in the city.

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Nancy Jones of the Blue Heron Nature Preserve called for increased neighborhood support of the 25-acre preserve, which is seeking a Park Pride grant to remove invasive plant species and build a trail and overlook at the pond at Lakemoore Drive and Roswell Road.

Outside of speakers, the event drew Police Chief George Turner, Zone 2 Commander Maj. Robert Browning and Buckhead school board representative Nancy Meister.

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Here is a summary of each speaker's talk:

Ed Lindsey

Lindsey said his major bill increasing penalties for human sex traffickers had passed a Senate Committee and is scheduled to be voted on by the full Senate next week. It already passed the House 168-1. The bill also provides ways for young victims of human trafficking to escape. Atlanta is the capital of interstate sex trafficking of underage victims, he said.

Hope scholarship legislation will result in 90 percent of college tuition being covered for high school students with a 3.0 grade point average and 100 percent for those with a 3.7 average and at least a score of 1,200 on the SAT.  Lindsey said the changes were needed because tuition has increased 200 percent, while the state lottery "simply hasn't kept up."

Although the state has seen "a slight uptick in our revenues," the state budget will still be reduced so that there's less per capita spending than in 2001. He said education and public safety are priorities to have funding preserved.

Peter Aman

Atlanta's COO said that under Mayor Kasim Reed, the city has improved its financial situation, increasing its reserve balance to $56 million from $7 million. He said the balance should rise to more than $70 million by July.

He said the city is proposing "a hard freeze" on new employees joining the overburdened pension plan and requiring them to join a 401-k type plan in which they would assume the risk of investing in the stock market. The pension plan now is only 53 percent funded and has a $1.5 billion liability, which he said would rise to $4.5 billion under the current system. "It is not a problem the city of Atlanta can solve," he said. ""It exceeds our ability to tax by a significant measure." He said that to fund the present system in the future, the city would have to take such measures as getting rid of the fire department. He also said that the city would achieve significant savings from overturning an open amortisation system.

Aman said the city is engaged in a ratings system for middle management and seeks to attract fresh talent to the positions. While the city has a strong corps of front-line employees, he said "we have problems in mid-level management, all kinds of bad practices."

Denise Starling, Carlos Perez

Starling presented Perez, who presented a slide presentation on efforts to develop more green space in Buckhead's council district 7.

Perez said the initiative, under the Buckhead CID, is looking at such places as flood-prone areas, underused parking decks and public-right-of ways for places to develop parks. He said the area needs public plazas and big gathering spaces, as well as smaller parks, trails and athletics fields.

Starling said the plan is also seeking to incorporate the area's art and historic resources.

Howard Shook

Speaking on the pension reform plan, Shook cautioned that "we have to choose an option that's not going to be overturned in court."

He said the initiative to bring more green space into District 7 is "already being translated from blueprint into action."

In regard to the plan to increase the police Zone 2's size, he reiterated his call for the zone to receive two additional detectives and another "umbrella" car to handle the crime burden expected from Cheshire Bridge Road's adult entertainment district. He asked residents to e-mail Turner in support of his proposals.


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