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Pan Handling and vagrancy are becoming more burdensome through out Metro Atlanta.  They’re not just downtown anymore, but in Midtown, Decatur, Marietta, and other metro areas as well.

Recent studies have shown that laws designed to prevent pan handling and vagrancy are ineffective and not being enforced.   Further, no one municipality has the resources to assist those who are homeless and mentally ill completely.

A carrot and stick approach is needed here, but tax payers won’t pay for the carrots and law enforcement is nervous about swinging the stick.

The problem needs a state wide solution.  No one jurisdiction should be able to solve its vagabond problem by shifting the people onto the turf of another governmental authority and wiping their hands clean of it.

The  State needs to pay for the carrot.  Perhaps half the state’s Hotel/Motel tax portion could be applied to actually providing a stronger network so that the mentally ill have a post office box, someone to monitor that they’re taking their medication regularly, and have access to medical, banking, and social support resources.

That alone will free up thousands of annual law enforcement hours to really help patrol Georgia cities, and dissuage pan handling and other uncouth behaviors.  Law Enforcement needs to know that they can be confident in their preventive measures and that they can put really troubled people into a safe system that will take care of them.

Will it cost money?  You bet.  Short term, it will cost more.  But over a decade or two, it will make money because we won’t rank near the bottom of America’s Great Cities when it comes to feeling safe!

People will help pay for it!  Metro Atlanta Cities should copy what Athens did.  They put up clearly labeled parking meters urging everyone to give their change to social service agencies rather than pan handlers.  The money does go to those agencies and it lets people feel they are making strong choices.

With people helping and donating, the business community can then go to the Governor and those running in 2010 and demand more effective action.

Walk around Castleberry Hill these days and you can see it’s a neighborhood in transition.  Galleries are closing and Nightclubs are moving in.

The influx in restaurants is not a bad thing, but the squeeze on the galleries is.  A thriving art scene helps the city and downtown in particular.  That it was a 5 minute walk from MARTA was even better.

Some galleries moved.  Some, such as Romo, are gone forever.   The question is where the artists and galleries will go now?  What’s the next recoverable neighborhood?

Moreover, is there a mechanism to assure that artists who are renting and help a neighborhood don’t then become the victims of their own success?

Whether our legislature is effective or not in dealing with transportation problems, the planning is coming.  You can help shape it.

The Transit Planning Board, which is made up of ARC, GDOT, GRTA, and MARTA representatives has a plan for transport throughout the region.  They are taking general public input!  You can make a difference by taking this survey.

As you take it, I urge you to think not in accounting terms, but in economic terms.  In other words, consider the opportunity costs of the choices you’re making.  Think about your answers as though you had to travel from one part of the metro region to another on a Friday at 4:15 P.M.

What are you unwilling to give up to have a better trip at that time.  What trade offs are you willing to make?

A tiny percentage of the Metro population will take the survey.  Ten minutes of your time will make a difference.

Apparently, the Georgia Legislature thinks that the best thing you can do for Georgia’s citizens is not to fund better transport, but let people add an arsenal to the transit system.

Both houses have passed legislation that legalizes the carrying of concealed weapons on trains.  The only caveat is that you cannot have been drinking and posses the weapon.

How should MARTA fight this silly legislation?  The MARTA police should plan sobriety check points for firearms.  After a Braves game, they could scan anyone for a weapon and check them with a breath test.  Same thing after a big concert or New Years at Underground.  MARTA will get the money from the fines, lower the number of weapons on the system, and dissuade people generally from bringing firearms onto the system.

Until next year, when upon seeing this, the National Rifle Association will bribe Republicans into legalizing the discharge of Firearms  on trains even if you have been drinking…  Then be careful about wearing a Mets jersey on the train.

The City of Atlanta wants to hear from you!

They are conducting a survey about your transportation uses and You should participate!

The survey will take 10 to 15 minutes.  It will ask about how you get from place to place and what your priorities are as the city goes forward.  It also asks about finding versus building.

The survey is not perfect.  It’s not statistically valid stratified random sample.   However, among the people who are concerne, it will give expression to the zealous.

Hopefully, they will publish the results, but even if they don’t, you should participate.

Jim Martin is Job.  He sacrifices, he gives, and he does so with a faithful smile on his face knowing the pain and suffering he will endure.  After running for Lt. Governor with a Candidate whose loss was assured, he has volunteered to run for Senate.

God love him; he must see Dulcinea in every Georgia Voter.  What makes this so sad is that it isn’t Martin who is crazy, it’s everyone else.  The guy is qualified all over the place.  He’s run a state department, he’s been a legislator, and he has worked in the private sector, and yet people don’t elect him.  They hate the result.  He runs again.

He’s dealt with big time inner city problems, he knows the importance of getting the budget balanced and getting funding of essentials such as better child care, transportation, and public safety.  Yet, people don’t elect him.  They hate the result.  He runs again.

His temperament is low key, he’s highly professional, and he actually gives a care.  That’s why he keeps running against seemingly unbeatable foes.  Regrettably, that means he may well be tilting at windmills in this state.   Still, his is a dream worth chasing…. even if it might be impossible.

Rarely do the tornadoes actually come through a central city.  Now that they have, the effects could be scary.  We may be abandoned.

Amazingly, the death toll from the entire storm system seems to be two.  However, the property damage is estimated to be hundreds of millions of dollars.

A significant portion of this was suffered directly by the state as the Georgia Wold Congress Center was damaged.  The good news is that they have already begun fixing the place.  The bad news is that it will cost the state millions in tourist dollars and we’ll have to fight like hell to get them back.

When Katrina went through New Orleans, we benefited by picking up conferences that came here instead.  Now, the Big Easy and other southern cities are going to ‘return the favor’.  Getting that business back will not be easy.   On top of a recession, this is not good.

Moreover, the number of buildings which need repair has led to a large swath of downtown being closed.     This means that except for repairs, economic activity in much of downtown will grind to a halt.

There are two silver linings here.  One is that construction workers will certainly be back in the economy.  All across the state, the storm hit hard.  Hail up to three inches destroyed cars and damaged buildings.  Much of that will be covered by insurance, and one would think that Governor Perdue could get us some disaster funding here to help poorer folks pay for the rest.

The second silver lining is that with much of downtown closed to vehicular traffic, lots of people will be taking MARTA, which apparently was not effected.  The more people who get in the habit of taking it, the better.

What can you do?  First, donate to the Red Cross.  Second, come this weekend, you can support the communities that were hit.  Go see a show at Theatrical Outfit and eat downtown.  Help the local economy get back on it’s feet.

All around North Georgia on March 08, young people were having snowball fights, but not in Atlanta.  If you looked at the weather channel radar loop, you saw that the snow moved toward Atlanta, but the hotter air let the moisture remain in the air and so though it snowed north of Atlanta, East of Atlanta, West of Atlanta, and South of Atlanta, the snow could not make it through our heat bubble.

This is not, per se, evidence of global warming, but it does show the kind of heat generated from the city.  What that means is less weather.  Weather is good.  We like weather.  If you think “Dude!  It’s Cold!  You’re Crazy!”  Let’s remember a few things:

1) It’s winter.  It’s supposed to be cold, and you’re supposed to be able to have a good snowball fight.

2) July is coming and then you’ll be complaining about the heat and your electricity bill.  I’ll happily accept the cold now for less heat later.

Most important though is that the inability of weather to get through Atlanta does show we are having an environmental impact.  When it’s that visible, one has to wonder what less visible effects there are, and how we can fight them.

Several Georgia State Students have produced a great experiment:  What would happen if you had a group of people who Actually Drove 55 miles an hour on I-285.

Their experiment yielded a great video!  What’s telling is not the picture of of the cars spread across I-285 all going 55, but the space preceding them.  For all intents and purposes, there was a regular moment during the day when 285 was empty.

Key here is not that the 55ers slowed traffic but that we’ve become so conditioned to thinking that would couldn’t possibly drive that slowly.  They felt threatened.  One of them literally thought that he was going to he hurt.

Essentially their sentiment was that obeying the law was dangerous on our roads.  There are two conflicting takes on this.  Clearly, accidents at lower speeds are less damaging and people have more time to avoid them if everyone is going slower.  On the other hand, we’ve conditioned ourselves to deliberately not going the speed limit and in cases where the speed limit is absolutely lower than drivers are willing to go, accidents increase because of the total net difference in speeds.

Watch the video…then take the train.

Georgia and Tennessee are fighting over water and land.  This is nothing new.

Technically, Georgia’s case is solid.  The Tennessee line, as currently marked, is about a mile south of where it’s supposed to be.

No state, however, wants to give up its sovereignty over any land any time, ever and with substantial natural resources at stake, resolving this will be even harder.

This is however, an argument to be made that losing the battle here is winning the war.  Winning the war means more money.

Atlanta is the engine the drives not only Georgia, but the entire region.  If Atlanta dries up, economic activity in Chattanooga, Tennessee’s fourth largest city and one of the fastest growing Metro areas will dry up too.  All of the tax revenue we provide will dry up with it.  Fighting Georgia also means the support we provide directly to Schools such as UTC and Chattanooga hospitals will have to be replaced directly be citizens of Tennessee.  That’s a lot of money.

Now,  is Tennessee likely to give up the land?  Almost certainly not.  Politically it’s impossible.  However, Tennessee might be wise to recognize the value of Atlanta’s impact and that Georgia has a case and cut a deal.

We get water rights and they get continued support from Georgia.  Heck, I’m sure a sum can be worked out for eternal leasing rights of the water.  The result will be that the region will keep growing, Chattanooga will keep growing and it will let Tennessee be good neighbors.  After all, neighbors don’t let neighbors die of thirst.