Half a billion a year that #ATL commercial trophy properties get away with not paying. When will local electeds fix this scandal? This was me urging mid Fulton Dems to demand better.

#GApol federal grant cancelled

It must be a very slow news day for @ajc.com to waste this many words on a Mainor nuisance.

Same old playbook. Kasim Reed touted MB Stadium public subsidy as "only $200M." The actual public subsidy: $900M. ($30M of hotel-motel tax a year for 30 years.) #GApol #ATL Reporting would be better if medias' owners weren't billionaire pals of team owners.

This piece puts its finger on how badly the US has allowed manufacturing capability to atrophy. We need these visa-cheating Koreans because the technology was developed in Korea and they're not going to share it with us. saportareport.com/the-hyundai-...

Friendly amendment? The US was cooked when its auto companies fled the field, ceding it to S Korean competitors. S Koreans now capture all the skilled jobs applying new technology. That leaves American workers with the crumbs of unskilled manufacturing work, at least until robots replace them.

Georgians! Statewide Election! Vote Oct 14-31 (early voting), or Nov 4th. We need new Public Service Commissioners (PSC) if we want cheaper energy bills and less dirty fossil fuels. VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!

Georgians! Statewide Election! Vote Oct 14-31 (early voting), or Nov 4th. We need new Public Service Commissioners (PSC) if we want cheaper energy bills and less dirty fossil fuels. VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!

This says the 10-acre Ted Turner Dr project isn't gonna happen. Funny how reports never say that the Gulch 12M SF $5 Billion project isn't gonna happen either. 7 years in, they're around the $250M mark. 5% of the way there. They don't have 140 years. #GApol #ATLsky www.bisnow.com/atlanta/news...?

Deeper reporting than I've seen anywhere else on what's behind the Hyundai megaproject's illegal use of Korean workers. tl;dr You want these plants up and running fast? Then we have to use our people. Also, that protects our IP from prying American eyes. www.ft.com/content/c677...

@kelseabondatl.bsky.social @royceforatlanta.bsky.social @mrrhodenbaugh.bsky.social TADs contributed a mere 2% to Atlanta affordable housing projects in the past 3 years. The Feds provide almost all the funds. TAD $$ need to go back to schools & public services.

For anyone wondering about the #ATL mayor's bait & switch demand to extend the TADs for another 25 years, see what a tiny sliver TADs have contributed to affordable housing in past 3 years. TADs are mayoral slush funds. #GApol

Great start, especially if joined up with the Northeastern states. Next do the consumer price index & unemployment statistics that Trump's BLS cannot be trusted with. Take over the mRNA vaccine program and fund the science at your universities that Trump gutted. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/u...

@ossoff.senate.gov @warnock.senate.gov #GApol How about raising holy hell that not even GA seniors - let alone others who need protection - can get the new Covid vaccine if they want it. RFK Jr Death Panels have come for us. Make noise! Create heat!

@nytpitchbot.bsky.social this you? Haberman on Rudy: "The narrative of how the accident unfolded is a little unclear."

Quite some Schadenreude this evening. Bless his heart! #GApol

#GApol #ATLsky I had not twigged that Fed Governor Lisa Cook is a Spelman #ATL grad. Also an Oxford PPE grad, like me. Not to mention Ph.D. Berkeley, with super-star economists Eichengreen & Romer and then Stanford.

Putting extreme ideologues in charge of our safety has consequences. The result is leaders who treat your safety as a secondary concern. Advancing their worldview comes first. That’s what we’re seeing at the CDC & it’s going to decimate our ability to fight disease.

Credit where due. The AJC got this headline right after flubbing last night. www.ajc.com/politics/202...

Buried lede: Shigley gained nearly 10 points over last year's Dem. Extrapolate that kind of gain and Rs are a rump party! Sure, it's only a 14% turnout race, but that shift in voting is the news.

"Shigley got 39.5% benefiting from Republican vote-splitting" is absolute nonsense, AJC! She got 39.5% versus 30% for the D last November. That's a big increase in the D vote share. The R votes splitting has nothing to do with it. www.ajc.com/politics/202...

Shigley (D) has an impressive 66% of Fulton votes so far. Impressive because this is N Fulton, not deep blue Atlanta. But, best I can tell, Cherokee has well over half the district's voters and her share there is in the 20s. So she's unlikely to flip the seat tonight.

We just saw this show. It's excellent. Especially recommended if you're a Shakespeare buff or interested in minorities hoping to assimilate. (I'm both.) #ATL

Now do Atlanta! #GApol #ATLsky

@joshgreenwriter.bsky.social is on a prize-winning roll with Goodbye, Sweetberry Park! Winner at New York's Book Fest and now Hollywood's. Putting #ATLsky #GApol on the map like nothing since Snowpocalypse.

#GApol, do you recognize this number?

More #Atlanta unaffordable "affordable housing" insanity? If this article is to be believed, Teachers Village will cost $882k per unit. Maybe it's a typo? There is no way to do affordable housing at these costs. #GApol www.connectcre.com/stories/atla...

Gulch hotel cost around $150M*. Apartment tower $135M. That's 6% of the "$5 Billion project." Where's the rest? Not gonna happen. Bond investors paid $575M for the Gulch's future tax rebates last year. Atlanta will look bad when bonds default. * 300 rooms @$500k, cost of nearby new Signia Hotel.

#GApol #ATLsky Good to see Community Foundation CEO Frank Fernandez speak up for our Latino neighbors who are being terrorized by armed, masked thugs. www.ajc.com/opinion/2025...

#GApol #ATLsky what on earth is up with East Point's murder rate being the highest in the US? Must result some data problem, surely?

Fulton Commissioners nixed a millage hike today, probably wisely. If they demand their Assessors value commercial trophies - prestige offices, data centers, hotels - at fair market, they will have $100s millions more revenue without a millage hike. Let's do it! mailchi.mp/fultoncounty...

Great that Fulton 3 candidate, Reed Stillson, calls for taxing trophy property at market. I shared undervaluation data with Reed & Kelsea who grasped it immediately. Current Fulton Commissioners have the data but refuse to act. Pitts, Barrett & Arrington want to be Fulton Chair. Fix this first!

If candidates for local office are not demanding, like Kelsea, that trophy commercial properties be appraised at market and pay their fair share of taxes - why not? It's a scandal. And a $500M / yr revenue opportunity for APS, City & County. The only way out of the financial jam Atlanta is in.

How long until Dem pols message retirees? Hey seniors, your social security really isn't safe now Trump fired the BLS head. A scared BLS means you don't get honest cost-of-living adjustments. Trump is igniting inflation - hence his endless threats to Powell. Welcome to your cat food years.

If you're keeping score, Keisha and City Council agreed a potential $1.9 Billion in Gulch subsidy. Disgraceful. That enabled NS to grab $115M from the developer for worthless Gulch land. The NS campus tax break was pocket change. It has not even kicked in, because railroad property does not pay tax.

Redlight the Gulch told #Atlanta City Council the Gulch deal was terrible. Norfolk Southern cajoled: We'll only bring our HQ if we can sell worthless Gulch land for $115M, on the back of a huge public subsidy to LA developers. The HQ leaves. Taxpayers hold bag. #GApol www.ajc.com/business/202...

The wooing cost will last decades after the Norfolk Southern divorce from #Atlantasky #GApol. As Redlight the Gulch said in 2018, the Gulch Giveaway was Atlanta’s worst deal ever. www.ajc.com/business/202...

Very sorry to hear that CM @jasondozier.bsky.social and his daughter were hurt by a car while cycling. He’s one of the rare elected officials sincerely trying to make Atlanta life better for all. Wishing both a speedy recovery.

Humphries has not been held accountable for the ludicrously expensive affordable housing projects announced on his watch. $600 and 700k per unit deals will never happen, including 2 Peachtree, 360 Peachtree & old AJC bldg. atlantaciviccircle.org/2025/07/16/a...

Yes. I was on Mayor Dickens' "Transition Committee" & pushed issue of commercial undertaxation hard. Josh Humphries said they would look at, & Brian An at Georgia Tech did (4th) analysis; confirmed it again. Soon after Dickens said in *public* he would address it. That was ~3 yrs ago. Today: NADA.

Exactly as Dan says. Atlanta is obviously not going to rake in the half billion a year (125M for city) that trophy commercial owes, plus close the TADs for hundreds more, without taking on the vested interests. The 99% need a progressive Mamdani style faction to take power.

Humphries admits in this interview that to make real affordable impact Atlanta needs a revenue boost. Yet he whiffed on the push to make commercial trophies pay tax on fair value, worth some $125M to the city’s coffers. atlantaciviccircle.org/2025/07/16/a...

Pathetic PR recycling for the Gulch by NYT. It’s going to be nowhere near a $5 billion project, since the original 9M Sq Ft of office, 75% of the deal, has been right sized to zero. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/20/s...

Norfolk Southern pocketed $115M from CIM for previously worthless land, when the City of Atlanta agreed to subsidize the private Gulch project with $1.9 Billion of taxes. Keisha's pitifully small return was extra jobs NS brought from Norfolk VA. Will Atlanta lose all NS jobs 7 years later?

Now let's see Stephen's video informer on an even bigger revenue drain than TADs. Commercial trophy properties are wildly under-valued for tax purposes, under-paying APS by a quarter billion dollars a year. APS should demand fair market value. www.ajc.com/news/2025/07...

This is why Stephen Owens needs to be on the school board. APS needs to say Hell No to extending the life of any TAD. TADs are now unaccountable slush funds, spending our $$$ in crazy ways. e.g, $58M & counting for rat-infested 2 Peachtree, which will never be rehabbed for affordable housing.

TAD extension is bait and switch. A massive tax increase on residents. Affordable housing projects TADs contribute towards are outrageously expensive: $600k+ / unit. The AJC bldg. rehab pictured here will cost $736k / unit! That ain't affordable (and won't get fed / state credits it would need).

Congratulations, @peterhubbardga.bsky.social on winning the Dem primary for PSC! And congrats to all who campaigned for him and who voted for him. Now let's win in November! With Alicia Johnson, too. at 9:21 PM > 95% est. reporting Hubbard 52,585 57.9% Waites 38,319 42.2% Total 90,904