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It looked as though a constructive re-formulation of Grady might be in the works with a new governance system, a new board, and new money.  Meetings were happening and even the Speaker of the House was in attendance.  But those already in power at Grady saw their livelihoods in danger and so they pulled the race switch.  This, of course, has thrown the train off the track.  Whether it derails is yet to be seen.

Part of the Grady issue is about race.  The people who use Grady is disproportionately minorities.  People without health insurance in Georgia are also disproportionately minorities.  Grady also has a stigma of race left over from past decades when people referred to the hospital as “The Grady’s”.   Morehouse, one of the few African American medical schools has said that if Grady Closes, they too may have to shut their doors.

Still, race here, while legitimate, is only an issue.  It’s not The Issue.  The issue is that letting Grady close is flat stupid and no one seems to have the courage to step up and say “Grady will not close, it’s too important an asset, we’ll all accept changes to make it happen”.  If there were a real disaster and Grady was closed, we’d have lost the best level one trauma center south of DC to handle the emergency.  People with real traumas would also lose their access to good care.  Without Grady, more people will die.

Yes, there are racial concerns if Morehouse close, but the real issue of Morehouse closing is that we need Doctors.  Georgia needs all they can get and keeping Medical schools open is important.  Again, if Grady closes and Morehouse closes, there will be fewer Doctors and more people will die.

The Chamber of Commerce recommendations (with which everyone has a complaint, so you know they did something right), suggest keeping the operating authority in place and it’s board in place to address governmental oversight, long term strategic issues, and a link to the communities which Grady primarily serves.  Under that board, would the be board of the Non Profit Corporation which was responsible for running the hospital and health system day to day and doing the general strategic and tactical management necessary to keep the enterprise financially stable.

Who should be on the two boards?  On the Authority board, there should be elected representatives from the City of Atlanta, Dekalb County, and Fulton County.  They should make a bare majority.  Then, representatives from the State, Atlanta Regional Commission, and community groups should also be represented.  Lastly, members of the Corporation Board should have voting power on the new Authority board.  This way, the tax payers who have carried the bulk of the load for Grady will still make a majority of the board and they, via election, would have to be responsive to the people most likely to use the hospital.

The Corporation board will need to be made up of dedicated professionals.  Members of Emory University, Morehouse, business leaders, and experts in financial stabilization such as Lisa Cremin must be on this board.  A balance of financial experts and medical professionals is needed to keep Grady Running.

Further, the goal of both board must be the same:  To financially stabilize and increase the quality of care for all those using the system, regardless of ability to pay.

Grady, perhaps more than any other institution in Georgia calls for a Deming style approach to improve the excellence in the care it provides.  To accomplish this, the focus has to be on the customers.  To make the customers happy, efforts will be needed to make effective use of staff time, to give them incentives to improve things, and guarantees that the system will still be in place.

So far, one politician seems to get this, and he is Lt. Governor Casey Cagle.  Much to the surprise of everyone, he has been out front and recognizing Grady’s importance, keeping it open to those it currently serves, and suing state resources to help fund the transition to a more stable structure that wastes less money.  Working with Senator David Shaeffer, there will be enabling legislation for the changes envisioned by the Chamber Report in the coming session of the Legislature.

As for those who still harp about the loss of ‘Black Power’, this is worth pointing out.  Power, in and of itself, is pointless.  Unchecked, it merely leads to inefficiency… witness the current system at Grady.  The key is not power, but actually doing something to help the people who the hospital serves:  those in great medical need and those without insurance.  A majority of the people using Grady are minorities and so if the system is fixed, the majority who will actually benefit, will also be minorities.

On the outside, the color that matters here is green.  On the inside, the color that matters is red.  If all you can see is Black or White, you’ll never capture enough green to stop the red from hemorrhaging.

That Grady Hospital is in trouble is nothing new, but after talking to physicians that work there, there is new information to add to the mix.

Just in case, you’re unaware, Grady Hospital is in big trouble.  It is again on the verge of closing.  One physician who asked to not be identified said she expects Grady to close before October.  It will simply run out of money and Emory will be financially forced to stop providing free services.

There are several causes here.  One is clearly mismanagement, but that’s not the whole ball of wax.  The Board is at fault, but so are Fulton and Dekalb County who have bickered over funding the hospital and providing alternate clinics for non emergency health care for the uninsured.  Uninsured and Indigent patients make up 60% of the workload of Grady.  Also, as discussed previously, the suburbs leach off of Grady for the most severe cases and don’t provide any funding on their own. Some working at Grady even allege that indigent patients from Cobb, Gwinnett, Henry, and Clayton Counties are brought to Grady and dumped so that hospitals in those communities don’t have to take the hit.  Lastly, as with MARTA, the state has provided nothing but regulation.  They have provided no funding.

Letting Grady close would be a tragedy of untold proportions.  Grady is the best level one trauma center in the country.  If you suffer severe trauma, you want to go to Grady.  Not only is it the best, it’s the only Level One Trauma Center for 100 miles in any direction.  No other hospital in Metro Atlanta can match it’s emergency resources.  If Grady closes, we’re a lot less prepared for a terrorist attack or major disaster.  Keeping Grady open is a matter of Homeland Security.

Doctors working a Grady are disheartened.  Many departments are working on Doctors who are not getting paid.  They are working pro-bono.  As well intentioned as they are, if the choice is going to put in hours a Grady or going to see their kid’s soccer game, Grady is going to lose some hours.  Moreover, Doctors complain of staff shortages, security concerns, and the notion that once an emergency is over, the goal is no longer to give good care, but passable care.  “It’s not what I signed up for” opined one Doctor, “But I have to do something.”   Is that they attitude we want from Doctors?

Asked about solutions, Doctors want a new board and new governing structure.  While there is some skepticism, the opinion seems to be that the Grady Task Force Plan is better than other alternatives out there.  They also want action from the Governor.  The Governor apparently appoints a substantial portion of the Grady Board but has not held those members accountable.  Doctors would like to see a sign that the Governor is aware of the problem and is ready to do something about it.

The irony is that Governor Perdue is perfectly situated to help right now.  He has a surplus of tax revenues which are unassigned.  Right now he can create a Grady Hospital Rainy Day Fund and pledge to help the hospital recover from its current financial crisis in return for reforms that will improve the quality of care and let the hospital reform its structure.  He doesn’t even necessarily have to spend the money.  Simply guaranteeing the Hospitals Debt would go a long way toward helping it come out of the woods.  Even if the bonds came due, he could invest the money and likely not even use half of it.  The problem is that he is unwilling to offer money even if changes are made!  This will not help his political legacy or future.

Allegedly, Perdue has Vice Presidential aspirations.  If he lets the best trauma center close, he won’t be chosen.  If, instead, he shows some leadership and creates a successful program that ensures that Grady Hospital thrives long term, that will get him some notice… and he’d actually do something as Governor!  How about that!

Alabama Governor Bob Riley must be really thirsty, because he wants 18 billion gallons of water from us.  He has threatened to sue the Army Corps of Engineers to get them to essentially drain Lake Acworth, Lake Allatoona, and Carter’s Lake.

Riley wants the water for Alabama and believes that the Army Corps has broken its promises.  For their part, the Army disagrees.  Riley has said that there are uses for the water kept in those lakes and that “It’s not for recreation”.  Riley complains that Alabama towns are in deep trouble and may lose access to water if they don’t get some of ours.

Here are two steps Riley could have taken, but didn’t.  He did not call the Governor of Georgia and ask for help.  If Alabama towns really, honestly, literally are going to be without water, Georgia can help a little, but the need really has to be there and there needs to be evidence of steps taken to economize the resources that are there.

That includes stopping to flow of water to Golf Courses.  That’s a step Georgia could take as well.  The Environmental Protection Agency already has safety concerns about golf courses and water use.  Limiting the amount of water they use could help all of use dramatically.  Two steps can immediately help here.  Water only the greens and water them only after sunset.  This reduce the amount of water a Golf Course uses by up to 80%.  Also use gray water for this.  The grass is less picky about the kind of water used.  That lets the most expensive, processed water go to the schools and homes that need it.

Until Governor Perdue hears from Governor Riley, he should urge the corps to maintain appropriate reservoir levels at Georgia’s Lakes.  Our citizens have needs as well and our growth rate is higher.  We’re all going to have to conserve and use water more economically, but over time, Georgia is going to keep more of its own water as our population is growing.

Sembler is talking a good game about their mammoth Briarcliff North Druid Hills Development, but talk is cheap… the question is whether the housing will be as well.  They’ve promised 1000 units of lower income housing (BTW, they’ve created a new vocabulary term for these… they’re now ‘workforce’ units).  The question is what does lower income mean in this case?  Who gets it?  Who gets to decide?

With real estate prices soaring, starter homes are in short supply.  In the area around the development 850 square foot houses are being replaced with 5000 square foot  McMansions.   There is little or no  rentable space left from $400 to $750 month left.  Perhaps a means test is in order here.  It would be great to create 300 new home owners all of whom have an income of under $30,000 per household.

The Dekalb County Commission to pass the Atlanta City Council for leadership here.  To make this project work, schools need to be relocated, a major stadium will fall and low income housing will be lost.  This is the time for the commission to require new development meet a public good.  Instead of simply requiring low income housing (which they ought to do), the commission ought also require that 20% of the land be usable greenspace and that 20% of the non housing property go to non-commercial uses such as police stations, libraries, or arts centers.

They also need a traffic mitigation plan that will off-set the added vehicular traffic to the area.  This project will be bigger than Atlantic Station and so perhaps an 18 hour shuttle running every 15 minutes to Lindbergh station might be an answer.

Development is inevitable.  Added tax revenue is great, but when a project of this scale comes along, there needs to be a public good that comes with it.

The next master plan meeting is  July 25 at Kittredge School, 2383 North Druid Hills Road, from 7 to 9 p.m. At the meeting, Alex Garvin & Associates will present their proposal for a master plan and zoning recommendations for the study area.

Everyone should go see the current exhibit at MODA. The basic message is that Global Warming is coming for us because of the way we live. If we do nothing, we’re  doomed… or at least anyone with current ocean front property is doomed.

It’s also about design innovations that will let us easily transform the way we live. From Nike shoes that help your Ipod work as a pedometer to ways you can reduce the cleaning agents you use that damage water, the good of the future is in smart design.

There are also architecture projects from Jova Daniels Busby and other firms, contributions from Citizens for Progressive Transit and a video by Joe Winter and Cathy Poley. Yes. That Joe Winter and That Cathy Poley.

The exhibition uses Atlanta as a basis and compares other cities.  It points out, for example, that Barcelona packs the same number ofpeople we do into four percent of the land we use. They also use Koolhaas-like maps to visually indicate the direction of change as well as the numbers representing it.

The exhibit can be a bit preachy (one panel exhorts us to stop want to own things for after all, where we put it all?) but much of it is good work and worth catching.

This is being cross-posted everywhere.

If there is one case that the Atlanta Police and Fulton County District Attorney’s Office has to handle it’s the case of the Cabbage Town Kidnappers.

If you’re not familiar with this, at 2:30 AM on July first, two attorneys from prominent legal organizations were kidnapped outside of a nightclub.  They were not freed until 15 hours later.  The names of suspects have not been released.

Nothing.  Absolutely nothing will shut off tourism and confirm white flight fears of downtown faster than kidnappings.  While it is horrible that this happened, and the kidnappers were just plain stupid to attack someone who worked with the Public Defenders Office, this is a chance at redemption for the police department.  Heaven knows they need it.

If the police get this case solved quickly and by the book, their reputation will be partially restored.  If they give the D.A. a case that is easy to prosecute that will help too.  The District Attorney then needs to make it very clear that kidnappers will swiftly receive the full impact of justice.

The Mayor, Convention and Visitors Bureau, and club owners then need to work together to make sure that this does not happen again.  That means more police at various clubs at all hours of the night.  It means that the police are going to have to work harder and smarter and may not be able to take as many side gigs.

So far, people have felt safe moving back into the city, but if another kidnapping happens, or if worse, one is successful, those condos will become very inexpensive very quickly and Real Estate Developers will egg on an already eager legislature to punish the city.

The Mayor specifically needs to get her hands dirty here.  She needs to find the money to hire more officers, pay them more, and make sure they’re not corrupt.  She then needs to publicly put pressure on Chief Pennington to make real changes and to cooperate with the Union.  She needs to get businesses to help with some support for officers and the families.  Then, we need the cop on every corner pledge.

Downtown, you need to always be able to see a police officer.  Chicago did this in the 1970s and it made a huge difference.  Literally, there was a cop on every block, all the time.  From Castleberry Hill to the Fox and from Centennial Park to the King Center, any should be able to simply say, “Excuse Me, Mr. Officer?” and get  immediate friendly help.

Do that and downtown booms.  Fail to do that, see one major crime happen, and the whole city will lose 20% of the its property tax value over night.

One hundred fifteen friends of James Marlow are about to be in pain!  After Tuesday’s election, voting indicates that Democrat Marlow in in third place, trailing his nearest Republican opponent by 115 votes.   The margin is so close that Marlow can ask for a recount, but that’s not the point.

Turn out was dismal.  According to the Secretary of State’s Office, less than 55,000 voters participated in a district that includes a slice of metro Atlanta, Athens, and Augusta.  The people who ought hang their heads here are the Democrats!  Where were they?  If the results are to be believed, for every three Democrats in the 10th district there are eight Republicans.  This seems unlikely.  While the legislature redistricted to give Republicans a change to win, this is a bigger margin than they need.  They’d have moved  Some of the Republicans into a more competitive district.

Nope.  The answer here is the Democrats did not come out and vote.  It appears that they couldn’t even get their guy into a run-off.  Moveover, where was the party?   If they party had induced even one of the two other Democrats to get out of the way, the citizens of the 10th could get a real run-off featuring two candidates that disagreed with one another.  Debates here will be meaningless!

Jim Whitehead must be ecstatic!  He’s on his way to congress because the guy running against him agrees with him on ninety percent of the issues!

10 years ago, the Democrats in the state were a powerhouse.  Now?  Their the mat on the back porch that Republicans use to wipe their muddy feet.

This is so true that even in town State Representatives in Liberal areas are changing affiliation!  The Democratic Party needs to get it’s act together.  They need to Fund YD groups and get the state thinking again.

A few key facts are worth extracting from today’s column by Maria Saporta:

• Metro Atlanta is the second-most expensive major city in the nation for middle-class families, a fact that directly contradicts the claims of Atlanta’s pro-sprawl boosters.
• Middle-class families spend a total of 61 percent of their income on housing and transportation together, with transportation taking the biggest chunk of income. Only San Francisco, with its housing prices, is less affordable.
• Sixty percent of metro Atlanta households own two cars, ahead of the national average of 58 percent.
• Atlanta’s average commute distance is 12 miles one-way, ahead of the average among its peers of nine miles.
• Among the top 17 major cities in the country, Atlanta has experienced the slowest income growth from 2000 to 2005, 5.1%, compared to a national average of 13.4 %.

As Saporta points out:

The evidence is clear. In order for metro Atlanta to be affordable to its growing population, it must make sure that its residents can reduce their transportation costs. Building affordable dense housing around job centers will enable people to live close to where they work. And by investing in an extensive public transit system, we will be able to free up our residents from having to rely on their cars to get where they want to go.

The facts here demonstrate only a few of the reasons why metro Atlanta’s current course for problem solving are making things worse, not better. Currently, the two most critical areas are transportation and zoning. The State, in its infinite wisdom, is pushing the Atlanta Regional Commission to favor the Northwest Corridor Project over all other transportation proposals on the table. Widening I-75 to 23 lanes and creating an inaccessible Bus Rapid Transit system are backward steps for the region. (Side note: it turns out the only reason for the BRT system is to use federal transit funds toward more highway building)

Residents within the City of Atlanta, especially many who have easy access to existing transit stations, continue to fight an absurd battle to keep density away from their neighborhoods. Midtown’s proposed historic district is one of the most blatant examples. Despite easy access to two MARTA rail stations and several well-served bus routes, a small band of homeowners have decided that the “historic look” of Midtown is more important than regional access and the public good. Allowing Midtown to grow would have a long-term benefit to regional affordability.

The solutions to these issues are already out there:

• to fund the Beltline and create transit-oriented zones near the stations
• to rezone the proposed Midtown historic district to create a mixed-use zone, not a breeding ground for McMansions (Note: the proposed historic district will not necessarily keep McMansions away)
• to build a world-class transit system for the region. It would cost approximately $10 billion less to build than the building giant toll tunnels under Atlanta. Not to mention, the transit system would be a more effective way to give commuters an opportunity to get out of traffic.

There are plenty of other solutions and resources available. The Livable Communities Coalition has a list of things you can do to help.

The Dekalb County Commission is trying to fight the power.  In a bi-partisan move at their recent meeting, the commission refused to adopt the plan put forth by County Engineers arguing that it puts the cart before the horse.  The road on which cart and horse are being placed is Clifton and the Clifton Corridor has become the poster child for what the Commission is trying to fight.

The Clifton Road Corridor runs from Briarcliff to North Decatur Road and includes the CDC, Emory Conference Center, Emory University Hospital, and other elements of the Emory Campus.  It’s a very tricky busy road with lots of congestion.  The current Comprehensive Transportation plan for the county focuses less on making the corridor usable through improvements in transit and pedestrian access and more on adding vehicle capacity.  They want to widen the road and add items such as double left turn lanes, easing access into the pedestrian neighborhoods surrounding the road.

This flies in the face of the general Comprehensive Plan which emphasizes the importance of building around neighborhood centers that are less vehicularly focused.  Further, it flies in the face of the researchers in Dekalb county who believe that the Clifton Corridor is a central destination in Dekalb county that cannot sustain the level of vehicular traffic that proposed increases in activity and housing density would generate.

Rather they prefer to see Clifton as  transfer point between the first section of the Brain Train (running from Emory to Lawrenceville) and the rest of the transit market such as Emory loop shuttles, MARTA connecting service to Candler Park and Lindberg, and to the beltline.  One employee went so far as to say that, “Before I retire, my goal is to see the Clifton Corridor be served by transit.”  Those are pretty strong words.

There was considerable pressure that the meeting to adopt the plan, but a coalition of Elaine Boyer, Jeff Rader, and Kathy Gannon stopped the adoption in its tracks.  They’re even risking federal dollars for road projects in order to make sure that the philosophy of the general plan is carried in to the choices of projects to fund in the transportation plan.

The next meeting is June 12th and no doubt in the that time, the county attorney’s office and ARC officials will do some serious arm twisting to get the commission to bow their notion of what the county should be.  Will the Commissioners break?  Stay Tuned and Find out!

Recently, Mark McClain, who is the Director of Systems and Development for SignPost Network, gave a rundown of how the system works on MARTA, some of it’s flaws and what to expect in the coming days.  Informative stuff!  The reporting on this was done for the CFpT Yahoo Group by a Member who goes by Amazing Racer.  Bloglanta has edited, but every effort has been made to keep the editorial thrust of the piece in place.

[The System] works with MARTA simply feeding SignPost raw data saying where the trains are. [According to McClain] Much of SignPost problems stem from MARTA’s end. MARTA’s tracking system is largely from the 70s. Direction (Doraville, N Springs, Airport) is captured by receivers that read radio tags from the cabs. Some times they read from the front of the train, some times they read from the back of the train.   The back of the train is normally not coded the same as the front (MARTA’s issue).  Also, the receivers may simply miss because of interference.

MARTA knows where its trains are at all times, but it does not know what they are at all times. This makes SignPost have problems because sometimes all the data is faulty, and they can’t really do anything with the bad data. The result is errors or Ghost Trains. Also it takes 6 trains to produce an accurate forecast. So when condition change (wet/dry etc) it takes six passes to get the timing the right.

MARTA feeds the data to SignPost that converts into the info we see,  so that if a train is not listed, it’s because the system doesn’t know what the train is. The system knows the train is there, but the sign post won’t guess as to what train it is. They are working to make it default to Airport when this happens on the Southbound side because those trains only go one destination.

Full screen ads are required because, unfortunately, the signs do not support scrolling text. So to tell us the next train, they trick the system into moving the next screen.  When the sign goes into a full screen ad, it’s resetting itself to keep everything moving.  They are looking at shortening the ‘next train’ sentence.  Now each message is  nearly two and a half lines when fully typed out.

SignPost has looked at static messages which would just say, “N Springs 4 min”. Then show “Doraville 5 min.” instead of scrolling. SignPost prefers it because it would make the machines run more accurately.  MARTA, however, requires 3 inch text for ADA reasons. and 3 inch text only gives 24 characters. So they are looking to shorten the messages and keep it under 24 characters.

Marta is upgrading its train tracking system over the next 5 years so the times will get better.  MARTA is also revamping signage and announcements in all stations.

SignPost is also currently working on a web interface/application that would allow you to use your cellphone or computer to see when the next train would be at your stop. They have a working rudimentary version working right now.  It shows what time every train arrives at a certain station. They want to make it look better and be a little more user friendly than it now is. Expect that in the next few months.

Being in the ad business, they wanted to discuss their business model.  McCain discussed content, ads, targeting ads to stops (e.g. ‘Did you know there is a Starbucks at Peachtree Center?’).

McCain said Signpost has run into the same problems that MARTA has.  Companies still attach a negative stigma to public transportation and don’t see riders as good potential customers. They are hoping that MARTA’s negative image will improve.  Survey data from riders they have accumulated is quite shocking.  It trends right along with Atlanta in general. For example, the greatest growth in riders are those with an income level of $75,000+ level.  They hope to combine this with additional data from MARTA to make their case to advertisers more persuasive.