Good Afternoon
As Mayor of the great city of Atlanta I come today to thank the Council for your partnership and support as we build a more responsive, greener, more caring, more forward looking, and more financially stable city for ourselves, for our families and for generations to come.
Last week in Iowa, Americans actively debated the issues
resulting in two “not sure bets” and underestimated candidates pulling out early primary victories. Everyday people there and here are concerned about our cities, about our country and about our future……………………… and everyday people are counting on their elected leaders to offer solutions to the difficult challenges facing our city.
Senator Barak Obama’s message of hope and reconciliation is also one that faces us as leaders in Atlanta.
Everyday folk from Iowa to Atlanta have demonstrated their enthusiasm in not just being heard but actively participating
in the future of our cities and our country…….through emails, letters or the NPU process they are raising their voices on the issues that matter most to them.
People care enough to show up and speak their minds.
As public officials, we are called upon to show up, speak our minds and find the best solutions that innovation, research and resources can provide.
There is another story, the heartwarming and inspiring story of several debate students at Wiley College in Texas, “The Great Debators” that parallels the City of Atlanta’s story.
I cannot help but think of the literary juxtaposition of their story of aspiration and triumphant redemption and the historic significance of Atlanta rising from the ashes. As victorious as the team was in the climatic debate against Harvard University in the movie, we also can not rest on our laurels of the past. We face new challengers all the time and we have to chart a victorious course for our city.
Not only was the professor in the movie, Melvin B. Tolson a distinguished poet but after teaching college he went on to serve four terms as the Mayor of Guthrie, Oklahoma. I am convinced that his hope in the promise of educational opportunity and his dedication to social and political justice lead him to public service during a troubling time in America’s history.
As we look to Atlanta’s future, its children, and its promise, I am challenged by the story of the Wiley students to demonstrate the same commitment to excellence, rigor, and unflappable courage that still inspires us five decades later.
“Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.” ---Leon Suenes.
If Atlanta is to move from Good to Great we will have to pay the price to make our dreams come true.
Atlanta and a community of partners, have lead the region in investments in water infrastructure, air transportation and transit, higher education, public healthcare, public art, human rights,
eliminating chronic homelessness and more recently, affordable workforce housing and large scale, long-range innovative plans like the Beltline and the Peachtree Corridor.
We can not wait to plan and to build for the future we must lay the foundation, plant and nurture those seeds today if they are to bear a fruitful harvest.
If we chose to play it safe; to coast til the end; or accept the notion that a second term should be a place of refuge where new ideas are not welcomed……..then reform is just a myth.
We have to pay the price to make dreams come true…….
We inherited a city with deep, structural issues:
Basic services were not being delivered at an acceptable level
The City’s infrastructure had been severely neglected
The City was nearly bankrupt
We embarked on a three phase reform effort to turn the city around.
In the first phase we elevated our delivery of services.
– Crime rates are down by 26% since 2002
– Potholes are now filled in 48 hours….
– Parks maintenance is improved with grass cutting frequency
– Reduced the average time it takes to get a residential building permit………And for commercial clients, the average time to permit has been reduced from 147 days to 57 days.
In our second phase, we concentrated on rebuilding our infrastructure….a key critical issue for Atlanta.
– We recently passed the halfway mark
in our $3.9 billion Clean Water Atlanta water/sewer infrastructure initiative. We are within budget and scheduled to complete all Consent Decree requirements ahead of the 2014 deadline.
As a result, of the work we have done our annual sewer spills have been reduced from 1,000 in 2000 to less than 300 by the end 2007, which is a whooping 70% reduction.
– We are repaving streets at a rate of 100 miles per year
– We added 425 acres of greenspace and we continue to move forward with the hugely successful Beltline project and the capital campaign to help fund it
– We have invested in information systems and reduced the costs of our court operations by over 30%
– A few blocks away you can see the new public safety facilities and a state-of-art 911 call center being built
– And, of course, we continue with the expansion of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport which is truly the economic engine of our City and our Region and was named the world’s busiest airport again last week.
- To date the City has completed 2,474 Quality of Life projects, including 287 sidewalk projects and 549 resurfacing projects and spent $107.1 million of the $150 million referendum amount.
We are in Phase three of our reform strategy, which I call Fortifying our Financial Position.
– Last year you may remember that I mentioned that the City of Atlanta was “underfunded” for best in class level and service performance
– My intention in mentioning this was to draw attention to an issue that I believe needs to be discussed throughout the City, the region and the state
– We as a community are under-investing in our infrastructure.
Whether it be roads and bridges, transit and trains, water and sewer, parks and streetscapes, or arts and culture, we are operating with a severe “infrastructure deficit” that is the major inhibitor to our progress towards a truly global city
– My objective during my last two years is to place the City on its best financial footing possible so that it will be in a position to address our infrastructure deficit in the next 5 to 7 years.
To do this,
- We are auditing our past financial practices and have identified needed reforms
- We are implementing a new financial management system
- We are updating our pension/benefits spending policies
- We are moving from cash to accrual accounting
- We are adopting long-term financial planning, independent forecasting and multi-year budgeting
We will have to become increasing more conservative in our spending practices, tighten spending where we can aggressively seek revenue opportunities and shift spending to our highest priorities.
Absent a thoughtful approach, many of the needed investments will never be made.
We can build the solid foundation for a 21st century city by investing our creativity, innovation, human and financial resources……..Atlanta can be a leader among American cities. .
In 2005 in Washington, DC, 141 mayors identified environmental sustainability as a critical factor for American cities, we signed the U.S. Mayor’s Climate Protection agreement charging ourselves with creating and implementing sustainability plans based on best global practices.
The global movement to save the planet for our children and their children’s children is simply the right thing to do.
Our city should be a leader in the environmental arena.
Our strategy is simple.
- Get our own house in order first
- Focus on the green basics first- air, water, energy, waste reduction, recycling, etc.
- Action over planning
- Reach beyond city government walls as quickly as we can.
The good news is that this is a tremendous opportunity for the City
to reduce its carbon emissions footprint.
Just as with our investment in water, sanitary sewer, drinking water
and combined sewer overall system upgrades many of these projects are not sexy nor are they revolutionary. They will most likely not get coverage in the local media…..these stories don’t fit the celebrity standards set for day-to-day coverage we see so much of today.
We won’t win awards or get pats on the back for this work, but we can be a part of a global movement to save the planet
Our plan can Increase Atlanta’s “Competitive Advantage” by positioning the city as a model government and a magnet for talent; reducing our carbon footprint by 20% by 2020; improving air, water quality and ensuring water availability; enhancing public health (after all Atlanta is number 1 for the incidence of Asthma);preserving and improving land quality, parks and green space and eliminating wasteful resource uses like the overconsumption of fossil fuels.
The first set of projects we will undertake have less than a two year payback period.
For instance, by switching the city’s traffic lights from incandescent lights to L.E.D. would mean 90% less energy and the lights would last five times longer.
Every project should reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and put us well on our way to reaching the Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement goals of “reducing global warming pollution levels to 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.”
Happy and I would add smart are those who dream dreams and are willing to pay the price.
In closing I quote, Thomas Friedman,
A redefined, broader and more muscular green ideology is not meant to trump the traditional Republican and Democratic agendas but rather to bridge them when it comes to addressing the three major issues facing every American today: jobs, temperature and terrorism.
How do our kids compete in a flatter world? How do they thrive in a warmer world? How do they survive in a more dangerous world? Those are he says, “the big questions facing America at the dawn of the 21st century. I would add will we close the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
“Green is the new red, white and blue.”
We in Atlanta can make history just like history was made in Iowa and in Wiley Texas…….We can move our city to greatness……if we believe in our dreams and commit ourselves to excellence, innovation, creativity, integrity and if we have the courage of our convictions to create a greener, safer, more responsive, more inclusive, more forwarding thinking, and more financially stable city….but we will have to be willing to pay the price for our dreams.
The politician Tom Wyka once said,
“We are the leaders we are waiting for”
Thank you