Regaining voters’ trust is key

In just one week, a major statehouse player is handed a newly invented job; Atlanta city council members award themselves fat pay raises; and a Fulton County commissioner can’t be bothered to show up to vote on a key issue.

Sad, but pretty much business as usual.

A front page story today informs us that our region is crippled because residents have lost faith in the people they elected to solve big problems.

After the transportation referendum failed last summer, state and local politicians as well as business leaders went to considerable lengths to rationalize why the epic measure failed.

In truth, they needed to look no further than the mirror.

Our survey shows clearly that the problem isn’t the public – it’s their leaders. The public seems willing to buy a reasonable plan to get Metro Atlanta off the mobility cliff, and residents seem willing to pay for it with taxes. If only they could trust their politicians and business leaders.

This is not surprising. With good jobs scarce, how do politicians expect people to react when state Sen. Chip Rogers lands a sweet gig at Georgia Public Broadcasting? And when teachers and firefighters are lucky to receive small increases, what are we to make of the Atlanta City Council’s 50 percent raises? And what about Fulton Commissioner Tom Lowe’s stunning tardiness when his vote was needed to provide working cell locks for the Third World Fulton County jail?

And how about the continuing indifference by the Legislature to its own culture of corruption and the governor’s penchant for placing friends and supporters in important state jobs?

And all of this set against partisan gridlock and the apparent disappearance of of pragmatic politics designed to get things done.

So, is there a way forward? I called people I trust seeking even a hint of solution. The consensus: No time soon. There is little reason to believe our public officials will suddenly find the resolve to begin to restore trust. One former metro leader said nothing was possible until 2016. He reminded me that major initiatives often fail before voters accept them.

I also found a pretty solid consensus that the Legislature, not the general public, needs to find the courage to address the problem. Saving the state’s economic engine from drowning in traffic is too complex, expensive and politically fragile to leave to a referendum.

A.D. Frazier, the guy who brought the 1996 Olympics in on time and under budget, told me that the faith-building aspect of this needs to be removed from the toxic environment of ordinary politics here. “The existing structure cannot deliver a regional solution,” said Frazier, who has found himself immersed in public undertakings for decades. “Thirty years ago I stood up before Leadership Atlanta and told them they would be called to account if we are still facing the same issues 30 years later. Guess what.”

“You need to get people to stand up and say, ‘we can do better than this.’”

He suggested that the governor name a commission to create the foundation for a program that residents can support. “You have to get people who are willing speak the truth and are above all the other stuff — the partisan stuff and outside interests.”

Frazier was thinking someone on the order of a Sam Nunn, the widely respected former senator. “Surely you can find 10 people like that in Georgia,” he said. “Then you get this group to develop a set of principles and then produce a plan that is consistent with these principles. Then it’s up to the Legislature to vote it up or down.”

Both Frazier and former Mayor Shirley Franklin – his Olympics colleague – pointed to the Clough Commission, headed a decade ago by former Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough.

Franklin’s earned her reputation more as a doer, as an effective administrator, rather than as a politician. When she decided to confront the city’s massive sewer crisis, she appointed Clough to head an independent panel of experts to develop a proposal. The commission produced the foundation of the city’s largely successful $3 billion program.