Infrastructure bond, streetcar expansion, Bellwood Quarry are among the mayor’s 2015 priorities
‘Activating’ city’s west side is ‘going to change our city forever’
For the fifth year in a row, Mayor Kasim Reed gave elected officials, corporate honchos, and other civic leaders the “State of the City,” the annual progress report of how the city has fared during his time in office. And he teased out some of his biggest plans in the coming year.
Reed’s speech, which took place during a “business breakfast” sponsored by Coca-Cola, centered more on the work his administration has accomplished as mayor. Those achievements included balancing five budgets and growing the city’s cash reserves to nearly $140 million, all without raising taxes. That progress, combined with the continued string of corporate relocations and new developments, has helped the economy and improved the quality of life for many Atlantans, he said.
“What these jobs mean... it’s not just a number, it’s not just an indicator of economic confidence, it’s not that we’re recovering from the worst recession in 80 years,” the mayor said. “The jobs mean that there’s a full refrigerator, a paid mortgage, and a children who can dream of college and achieve that dream of college.”
In the first quarter of 2015, Reed said he will be focused on convincing Atlanta voters to pass an up to $252 million infrastructure bond package. For much of the past year, his administration has asked residents for input, compiled a draft project list, and worked with Atlanta City Council in advance of a public referendum scheduled for March 17. The mayor says the cash from the bond package, if passed, would help chip away at the Atlanta’s nearly $1 billion backlog of road, bridge, and sidewalk repairs — all without raising taxes.
On the heels of the Atlanta Streetcar’s opening and the Atlanta Beltline’s Westside Trail’s groundbreaking, Reed also touched on the next steps for the city’s transit expansion. Though he declined to offer specifics, the mayor said that “taken the first steps” of connecting the Downtown streetcar route and the Beltline’s Eastside Trail. He refrained from commenting on how the General Assembly’s proposal to raise more than $1 billion to fund transportation — and maybe throw cash toward transit — would impact the city’s efforts, saying he had not yet vetted the bill.
The mayor said that city officials were actively working on two major public projects on the city’s west side: Bellwood Quarry, which would become the city’s largest park, and Proctor Creek, a once-polluted waterway that’s caught the eyes of developers and federal officials. According to the mayor, Bellwood Quarry construction would cost about $270 million. He said some of that cost could be shared between the city’s general fund and watershed management department, given that the park would double as a 30-day reservoir. Reed said that discussions to hire a firm to work on the reservoir are currently underway.
“We think that activating the west side of Atlanta with a major park is really going to change our city forever,” the mayor told reporters after his address. “It’s a unique opportunity to do it.”
Reed last year focused much of his SOTC remarks on public education, prior to the hiring of Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Meria Carstarphen, and recidivism, where he pledged to tackle the repeat offender issue affecting Atlanta’s and Fulton County’s jails. Both topics received little, if any, attention from the mayor during today’s SOTC speech.