Lighting up the Atlanta Beltline with "gigabit" Internet
The City of Atlanta is considering lighting up the 22-mile corridor with "gigabit Internet" — ultra-fast Internet access via fiber optic cable. FTTP (fiber-to-the-premise) technology delivers Internet speeds of between 10Mbps and 300 Mbps
Source: Atlanta Business Chronicle
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Atlanta Streetcar grows more costly
The MARTA Board of Directors on Monday authorized spending nearly an extra $7 million to build the Atlanta Streetcar.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Reed aide to move into Hartsfield job
Reese McCranie, one of Atlanta’s deputy communications directors and Mayor Kasim Reed’s former campaign media director, will assume a similar role next month at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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City’s iconic buildings face wrecking ball
It was a hard, bleak winter for historic preservationists in Atlanta, a city already infamous for not saving the sign posts of its past.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Downtown Atlanta parking study launched
The downtown Atlanta business organization Central Atlanta Progress (CAP) is updating a seven-year-old parking study to adapt to today’s conditions in the area.
Source: Atlanta Business Chronicle
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Mayor Reed’s budget holds line on spending, taxes
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed this week unveiled a $539 million fiscal 2014 budget that would slightly cut spending while maintaining the same level of city services.
Source: Atlanta Business Chronicle
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Coke could move suburban jobs downtown
Coca-Cola expects to relocate at least 500 workers from suburban Cobb County to downtown Atlanta in the largest single move of private sector employees to the city’s core in recent memory, individuals with knowledge of the company’s plans said Thursday.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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City proposes $539 million in spending for 2014
The Atlanta City Council on Thursday got its first glimpse at a proposed $539 million budget for the 2014 fiscal year Thursday, setting the stage for a summer’s worth of debate and budget negotiations.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Atlanta streetcar’s wait time prompts concern
As excitement builds around Atlanta’s first modern streetcar, concern is building, too, among its biggest fans over what they call a potentially crippling flaw.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Vine City hopes for more from new stadium
As Atlanta lays plans to build a new $1 billion downtown stadium, people in the poor neighborhoods nearby hope for a better outcome than they saw the last time a stadium arose nearby.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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New stadium could be impetus for King street improvements
With the new billion dollar stadium all but a done deal, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed is hoping that the added attention and focus to the area will serve as a launching pad to spark growth and development along one of the city’s most important, yet ignored, avenues - Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.
Source: Augusta Chronicle
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Sandy Springs pushes school board to open up school deliberations
Sandy Springs is miffed at Fulton County Schools over future plans for Heards Ferry Elementary School in the city’s Riverside area. The city says it’s being shut out while the school board discusses whether to relocate or refurbish the school.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Invest Atlanta ready to vote on stadium deal
An Atlanta city agency will hold what is likely the final public vote on a Falcons stadium deal at a specially-called meeting on Thursday morning.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Tested by flames and prejudice: city’s first black firefighters honored
A black-and-white photograph in a 1963 edition of the Atlanta Inquirer newspaper shows 16 smiling African-American men, dressed in the uniform of the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department. They became the city’s first black firefighters in modern times.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Atlanta vendors shut out on Opening Day
At Monday’s Braves home opener against the Philadelphia Phillies, the areas and parking lots around the stadium were decidedly vendor-free.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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City begins crackdown on sidewalk vending in Atlanta
Atlanta police Thursday began enforcing a ban on sidewalk vending, four months after a Fulton County judge struck down the city’s plan to allow vendors to sell t-shirts, snacks and beverages on public property while operating through a private company.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Blank: Stadium deal a “commitment” to Atlanta
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and Falcons owner Arthur Blank took what looked like a victory lap at Thursday morning’s Central Atlanta Progress Annual meeting, a little more than a week after the City Council approved a deal for a new $1 billion retractable roof stadium.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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City on lesbian and gay rights: 'We follow state's lead'
As the U.S. Supreme Court begins weighing the issue of gay marriage at both the state and federal level this week, officials at in Albany say, for the meantime, that their lesbian and gay employees will have as many rights as the state gives them.
Source: Albany Herald
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City cuts apartments’ water, will relocate residents
A northwest Atlanta apartment complex used as a gritty urban backdrop for an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie had its water cut off last week and has been deemed unsafe by the fire department.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Invest Atlanta approves streetcar study funds
The board of Atlanta’s development authority on Tuesday approved a total of $1.4 million for Atlanta BeltLine Inc. to study expansions of the city’s streetcar network, the first leg of which is expected to be operational next year.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Atlanta council clears stadium plan
The Atlanta City Council late Monday voted to approve a funding plan for a new downtown Atlanta Falcons stadium, pushing the project over its biggest political hurdle.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Favored Falcons stadium site hinges on churches
The biggest stumbling block remaining between Falcons owner Arthur Blank and the $1 billion retractable-roof stadium may not be approval of a plan for the public portion of funding. It could be working out deals with two churches near the site he covets.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Stadium tickets promise raises council concerns
The city of Atlanta’s economic development arm would get free seats at some events at a new downtown stadium for the Falcons, a provision in the proposed deal that drew questions Thursday as key votes loom on the plan.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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City, utility bicker over construction costs
As Georgia Power continues to relocate equipment and miles of wires from under Auburn and Edgewood avenues to make way for the Atlanta Street Car project, authorities in the city and at the utility giant might have hit a 48-year stumbling block – who is going to pay for the $2 million project.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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ParkAtlanta ticket dismissals investigated
Nearly 100 parking tickets — issued by ParkAtlanta to officials at the agency and high ranking members of the Atlanta Department of Public Works — were summarily dismissed in what a city official is calling a “secret shopper” program.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Groups want public vote on new Falcons stadium
With the Atlanta City Council set to vote soon on a funding plan for a new downtown stadium, several local tax organizations, led by Common Cause of Georgia, want the council and Mayor Kasim Reed to put the proposal before the public in a referendum.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Falcons raise ante as stadium moves ahead
The Atlanta Falcons committed another $65 million toward a proposed downtown stadium as the team and the city unveiled agreement on several key issues Thursday, moving the project closer to a final deal.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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New bill looks to restart Macon-to-Atlanta train
A bill by an Atlanta legislator would put together a team and give it the authority to do everything it needs to set up passenger rail between Atlanta and Macon. But it would take both leadership and money to get the project on track.
Source: Macon Telegraph
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Reed: Stadium deal coming this month
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said he expects the city council to have an Atlanta Falcons stadium deal on its plate by the end of this month.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Stadium neighbors to Atlanta City Council: Hear us, protect us
With an air of inevitability that Atlanta will eventually build a new stadium to replace the Georgia Dome, residents in the neighborhoods near the proposed site pressed City Council members Wednesday to have their backs in the final negotiations.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Atlanta agency debates Falcons stadium
The plan to build a new $1 billion retractable-roof stadium in downtown Atlanta spurred sharp debate at a regular board meeting of Invest Atlanta, the city’s economic development agency that may be charged with lining up about $200 million in bond financing for the project.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Atlanta Falcons stadium debate continues at City Hall
Several members of the Atlanta City Council, which now holds the fate of a proposed $1 billion Falcons stadium in its hands, said Wednesday they want some projects and concessions included in the funding deal before they give their support.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Atlanta to install $1 million of security cameras at parks
In response to vandalism and thefts, Atlanta will pay $350,000 per year for three years to install security cameras to help police officers monitor park facilities, including pools, recreation centers and other areas that host after-school programs.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Falcons vow to be in new stadium by 2017
The Atlanta Falcons will consider moving to the suburbs if the team does not get a new $1 billion downtown stadium built by 2017, a team executive told a packed City Council meeting on Wednesday.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Beltline project spending before Georgia Supreme Court
Whether statutes ruled unconstitutional by the Georgia Supreme Court can be rendered legal by a subsequent constitutional amendment was at the crux of a hearing Monday before the state’s highest court.
Source: Atlanta Business Chronicle
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Statewide influence grows for Atlanta's mayor Reed
With one metropolitan area so much larger than the state’s other cities, Georgia can’t escape the influence of Atlanta, giving its mayor the opportunity to play a statewide role on par with the constitutional officers.
Source: Augusta Chronicle
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Atlanta’s aging assets: Underground, Civic Center, Cyclorama
Inside a darkened amphitheater in Grant Park, the 127-year-old Atlanta Cyclorama — a panoramic painting weighing nine tons and stretching nearly 360 feet around — is starting to wrinkle. The painting of the 1864 Battle of Atlanta needs more than $8 million in restoration, according to one estimate.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Atlanta Falcons stadium plan may depend on City Hall
Backers of a new downtown stadium for the Atlanta Falcons are trying to keep the project alive by re-crafting the deal to avoid a legislative vote on whether to enable $300 million in public funding.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Atlanta’s property tax collections drop yet again
Atlanta’s property tax revenues slipped yet again in the most recent fiscal year, highlighting what promises to be a budget-crafting session full of tough decisions about which city services get top priority in a time of squeezed resources.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Atlanta’s legislative wish list includes higher alcohol taxes
The city of Atlanta’s legislative wish-list for the 2013 General Assembly includes changes in state law that would allow the city to increase taxes on alcohol, sell condemned and blighted property to private parties, designate sales tax revenue disbursements by tenths of a cent rather than a full penny, and charge the public school system for the cost of running school board elections.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Atlanta seeks volunteers for citywide survey of homeless
As part of an effort to place hundreds of homeless residents in permanent housing by December, Atlanta has launched a registry of the homeless and is calling for as many as 300 volunteers to scour the city and determine which services are needed.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Reed Still Backing Port Expansion
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed says the next step for the Savannah harbor deepening is landing an earmark for the funds in the federal budget.
Source: GPB News
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Reed narrows focus on infrastructure upgrades
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed Thursday narrowed the potential scope of an upcoming plan to start fixing the city’s deteriorating roads, bridges and sidewalks.
Source: Atlanta Business Chronicle
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Mayor Reed confident Atlanta will get new stadium
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said he is confident that an agreement will be reached to build a new Falcons stadium in the city, despite widespread public opposition to using hotel-motel taxes to subsidize part of the proposed facility’s roughly $1 billion cost.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Atlanta increases cash reserves to $127 million
The city of Atlanta’s cash reserves have grown to nearly $127 million, a sum that could help the city pay for a variety of projects, including sidewalk reconstruction and bridge repair.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Ruling throws Atlanta vending plans into confusion
Atlanta’s plans to give one company control over the management of vendors who sell t-shirts, snacks and beverages on public property — mostly sidewalks — has been struck down by a Fulton County judge.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Atlanta energy-efficient building challenge spreads fast
With many construction crews on the sidelines and few major projects on the horizon, city officials are backing an effort to put them back to work by retrofitting Atlanta’s aging office buildings to make them more energy-efficient.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Atlanta City Councilman to donate 200 bicycle safety lights
Michael Julian Bond, chairman of the Atlanta City Council’s public safety and legal administration committee, will donate 200 bicycle safety lights to the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition for distribution to city cyclists.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Atlanta’s taxicab industry might see changes
Taxicabs in Atlanta could soon be newer, with mandatory credit card machines and access for handicapped people and more courteous drivers.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Atlanta Civic Center faces red ink, should be updated, consultants say
The Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center is on pace to lose about $400,000 annually over the next five years, and immediate action needs to be taken to stop the facility from becoming a drag on the city’s finances, according to an outside consultant’s study.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Counties, cities eye on-site clinics for employees
Thousands of Atlanta area government employees and their families may soon be able to receive basic health care treatment at on-site clinics designed to reign in rising health care costs and increase worker productivity.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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City puts the clamps on PARKatlanta
PARKatlanta, the company charged with enforcing Atlanta’s parking rules, will no longer be able to write tickets where parking signs are missing or blocked by foliage or other obstacles, and where meters are not functioning, after the Atlanta City Council amended the controversial seven-year contract.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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