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Mayor Shirley Franklin
Atlanta, GA / Pop. 486,411 / Elected 2002

“We must invest in infrastructure, or Atlanta's economy -- and the national economy -- is going to shrivel up and die.”

— Mayor Shirley Franklin
Comments

John Hobbs on 12.29.07:

I would like to suggest that Atlanta increase property taxes on all parking lots, this would help our town in many ways. First it would increase the depleting tax base of Atlanta. Next it will decrease the number of private automobiles coming into downtown each day therefore decreasing SMOG level in town and also decreasing amount of petroleum used. This would also decrease the ever growing problem of traffic, and not enough highways.

I am one that is against increase in taxes but I also believe that public transportation is the only PERMANENT answer to the ever increasing problem.

Please take this under consideration.

Thank you for your time;

John

Elana DMIBlog on 12.31.07:

That's an interesting proposal John. I can definitely see its merits (though I have to admit that I know little about Atlanta). Just about anything that encourages the expansion of public transportation is good if you ask me.

Tom Gouzoules on 01.22.08:

Mayor Franklin, spend less time critizing President Clinton and more time running a very badly run City of Atlanta! Get back to your focus and the reason you are in office....to clean this "no personality" city up....get the crime rate down and the city operational.

Elana DMIBlog on 01.23.08:

Tom, the purpose of the MayorTV interviews was to get Mayors thoughts on what the Federal Government should be doing to support cities. That's the very purpose of this interview, so of course the Mayor is going to be identifying things that should be done of the federal level-- its the question she was asked..

Alon Levy on 01.23.08:

I only now saw John's comment, and I want to applaud the idea of encouraging more public transportation.

Another way of reducing car dependency is to repeal zoning regulations that mandate free parking spaces around commercial buildings. If this is combined with something like a sales tax on parking, it will produce revenue as businesses charge for parking. It can also encourage expansions of those buildings, or new construction on parking lots, which will produce additional revenue from existing property taxes.

Susan Tovay on 06.08.08:

While driving to Atlanta for a Braves game last Friday night, my husband and I had a difficult time finding our way around because, one street sign was covered by a tree and another was bent in the wrong direction (I believe it was Central and Memorial) I don't know if someone deliberately bent the signs or what. Also, leaving the field we had a difficult time finding signs for 75N. We saw many signs going in the southbound direction but spent a lot of time driving around to locate northbound signs. Atlanta being a major city should have signs easier to find for people coming into the city for an event.

M Wilson on 07.13.08:

If the mayor wants to raise property taxes, $50-$150 per household, to keep the police force up to par, then I suggest that each community be given control over how the police serves their community. That is, each community dictates what results they want from the police in their area, and then police is accountable for delivering said results. Otherwise, we'll be paying more money for same old sorry police force. I'm not for that at all.

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