Next Atlanta mayor faces big challenges

Janice Whatley, a self-described “Georgia Peach,” is an Atlanta native, but she isn’t sure she wants to live in the city anymore.

The Grant Park resident is worried about crime in her neighborhood. And she doesn’t think the city spends enough money on the arts.

“Atlanta is in my blood,” Whatley, 55, who acts in and directs local theater productions, said after a recent breakfast at Thumbs Up Diner on Edgewood Avenue. “I love this city. I’d like to see it grow and blossom, but I’m worried about it.”

On Nov. 3, Whatley and about 245,000 other Atlantans will have a chance to vote for the next mayor. Atlanta’s new chief executive will have plenty to do, and little sympathy from an electorate demanding solutions to the city’s many challenges.

Most city employees are working four fewer hours a week because of city-mandated furloughs. Dwindling revenue has forced closure of two fire stations. (One may reopen later this year.) Many residents believe the city is becoming less safe, despite police data that violent crime is down. And Atlantans are paying sharply higher water bills, primarily to help fund the $4 billion water and sewer improvements.

Mayor Shirley Franklin is hoping to use $20 million from the federal stimulus package to pay for 200 more police officers. Thousands of homes in Atlanta are in foreclosure, scarring some neighborhoods with large swaths of abandoned homes.

And then, there are the usual concerns about such longstanding issues as choking traffic and the rising number of homeless, particularly women and children.

“The big issue is homelessness and hunger,” said the Rev. Richard Cobble, pastor of Omega Holiness Church on Memorial Drive, who struggles to feed the hungry. “And we want to make sure [the candidates are] not in the pockets of developers.”

With Franklin, a two-term incumbent, prohibited by term limits from running for a third consecutive term, some political observers believe the race is wide open. Atlanta’s population has risen by about 100,000 residents since 2000, the year before the city had a seriously contested mayor’s race.

There’s little insight into whom the newcomers will vote for in 2009, says Harvey Newman, a longtime Georgia State University professor who has studied city politics.

“I think it’s going to make for one of the most interesting races in a long time,” Newman said. “I can’t wait.”

Fourteen people have so far filed paperwork to raise money to run for mayor, far in advance of the Aug. 31-Sept. 4 deadline.

The field includes two City Council members, a state senator, a pub owner, a few neighborhood activists and a Rhodes Scholar.

In Atlanta, the mayoral candidate who raises the most money typically wins. At-large Councilwoman Mary Norwood raised $510,327, more money than any candidate in 2008, according to her campaign disclosure form, and had $275,172 to spend. State Sen. Kasim Reed (D-Atlanta) finished second in fund-raising with $431,479, but spent less than Norwood and had more money in his campaign account, $328,129.

At-large Councilman H. Lamar Willis, who is not a mayoral candidate, believes raising money will be tougher this year. Atlanta is a “real estate town,” he says, and many developers are suffering as foreclosures rise.

“You are not going to find [developers] putting a lot of money into a lot of races, because they are struggling,” Willis said.

Most of the other candidates have raised little or no money. Nonetheless, they are passionate about the city.

“We’re everyday people for the common people,” said 31-year-old Duvwon Robinson, inspired to run in part by what he believes was a lackluster investigation into the shooting death last summer of a friend in the Bowen Homes housing project. “A lot of us are not asleep anymore.”

Norwood says she’ll focus on code enforcement and require monthly data that tracks city finances. If elected, she would become the city’s first white mayor since Sam Massell, who left office in 1974. Slightly more than 50 percent of Atlanta’s voters are black, according to voter registration data from DeKalb and Fulton counties, while 38 percent are white.

“Every part of the city is up for grabs,” she said, dismissing a question about whether race will play a factor in the campaign. “Every part of the city is equally important.”

Reed, Franklin’s campaign manager in 2001 and 2005, said his platform includes hiring 750 police officers in his first term and appointing a “transportation czar.”

Newman believes Reed’s work with Franklin will help him raise money and some support, but hurt with voters disenchanted with the mayor. Like many of the mayoral candidates, Reed believes Franklin has done a good job. He said he’s not asked for the mayor’s help in the race.

“I have to earn this job,” he said.

Reed has introduced legislation to let city voters decide in November if they want to raise property taxes to pay for as many as 200 more police officers and firefighters. The increase would cost the average city homeowner $6 a month, he said.

At-large Councilman and mayoral candidate Ceasar Mitchell says he’s reluctant to support raising property taxes to pay for more officers.

“Citizens have been clear about their willingness to pay for public safety,” he said. “However, before instituting some sort of public safety tax, citizens expect us to be creative about other ways to pay for public safety.”

Atlanta’s next mayor will need strong support from Buckhead, which has two of the three highest-populated City Council districts. The Fulton County Taxpayers Foundation proposed last year that Buckhead split from Atlanta and form its own city. Critics there believe the city is managing its finances poorly and want City Hall to consider privatizing more services to save money.

Candidate Jesse Spikes, a partner with the law firm McKenna, Long & Aldridge and a one-time Rhodes Scholar, believes secession would create unnecessary bureaucracy. He would consider privatizing more operations if it saves the city money and is efficient.

Franklin’s successor will be faced with continuing the Beltline project, an ambitious plan to add more green space, trails and affordable housing along rail lines that loop the city’s inner core. He or she must also find the money to implement the city’s new transportation plan.

Whatley, of Grant Park, said she knows little about the candidates, but she’s ready to hear how they’ll handle the city’s issues.

Her first question is a simple one. “How important is the city to you?”