Chamber agenda includes new transit push
The Metro Atlanta Chamber will make expanding transit, improving workforce development and heading off laws that might be discriminatory its top state legislative priorities in 2016.
Those aims all go toward the chamber’s goals of job growth, improving the state’s business climate and sustaining the region’s quality of life, outgoing chairman Larry Gellerstedt said during the organization’s annual meeting Thursday.
The business coalition’s strongest words were against legislation — including a religious liberty bill — that might hurt Georgia’s reputation as an inclusive and business-friendly state.
This election season has seen heated national rhetoric about immigrants, Syrian refugees, and a proposal by leading Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to ban Muslims from entering the country. In Georgia, debate also simmers over a religious liberty bill in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision to legalize gay marriage.
Senate Bill 129 stalled last year. Backers say it isn’t like a religious liberty bill that passed in Indiana and ignited a firestorm there, and wouldn’t apply to merchants refusing services.
Business leaders and other critics fear the bill could discriminate against gays, lesbians and transgender people, and could hurt Georgia’s reputation and cost jobs. Gellerstedt said any such bill should have anti-discrimination language.
“To attract to people to this city, as great as this city is, we have to have a completely inclusive place where everybody is welcome,” said incoming chamber Chairman and SunTrust executive Jenner Wood. Wood said chamber leaders “won’t tolerate any discrimination.”
Asked about recent debate over Syrian refugees in Georgia and comments by Trump on Muslim travel bans, Gellerstedt said: “Anything that discriminates against any group, we are not going to be for. That will be (our) base and there won’t be waffling on that.”
The transit push will ride on the coattails of the state business community’s successful drive during last year’s session to raise taxes for nearly $1 billion per year in new revenue for transportation projects. Those taxes will go to roads and bridges, and the next step is to expand mass transit, chamber leaders said.
It won’t be easy in an election year when many tax-averse lawmakers cast votes to raise gasoline taxes just one year ago. But transit has emerged as a major factor in businesses’ growth planning, and expanding it would help draw and keep young professionals, Gellerstedt said.
Gellerstedt, CEO of real estate firm Cousins Properties, said he met in the past week with the CEOs of two major companies that relocated to the Atlanta region in the past 18 months.
“The No. 1 thing from both of them was: ‘We love Atlanta. We’ve got to do something about traffic, and it’s got to be transit.’”
Fulton County and its cities are examining a local transportation sales tax program and MARTA has crafted a plan to expand its rail network through a bond program funded by a half-penny sales tax. The MARTA plan would require legislative action to approve the sales tax increase and long-term bonds.
Balancing the interests of local communities that need to fund road projects while expanding regional transit with finite resources will not be easy, Gellerstedt said.
The chamber has not taken a specific stance on individual projects or a funding plan, but the chamber said it wants to facilitate discussions and help elected leaders make informed decisions.
Getting smaller cities on board with expanding MARTA rail got tougher with a recent harshly-worded resolution by the city of Johns Creek that said it had no desire to pay for an expansion of the transit system.
Chamber polling has found “a key component to passing anything for an extra half-penny is going to be transit,” Gellerstedt said. “If you look at the polling, a half-penny for roads only doesn’t poll that strongly.”
About the Author
J. Scott Trubey is the senior editor over business, climate and environment coverage at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He previously served as a business reporter for the AJC covering banking, real estate and economic development. He joined the AJC in 2010.
