ATLANTA BRIEFING February 2005

News this month

Aggressive

“Georgians are not only our constituents, they are our customers,” said Sonny Perdue, Georgia’s Republican governor, to the state legislature in his 2005 state of the state speech on January 12th. Mr Perdue decried “busybody” legislation, saying he wanted a government “smart enough to get out of the way”. That puts him at odds with some of the state's Republicans, who dominate the legislature. Mr Perdue also publicly distanced himself from a bill that would make it harder to obtain no-fault divorces.

Mr Perdue’s legislative agenda includes a budget with modest rewards for high-achieving teachers and $5m for the historically underfunded Division of Family and Children Services. He has also introduced a bill requiring lawmakers to wait a year after leaving office before they can lobby the state. Mr Perdue had little to do with one of the more controversial proposals confronting the legislature in 2005: the repeal of state and local laws prohibiting bias against gay couples.

Slow steps forward

A judge in Cobb County, north-west of Atlanta, has struck down the use of controversial stickers in science textbooks which say “Evolution is a theory”. On January 13th he ruled that the stickers constituted an endorsement of religious beliefs, rendering them unconstitutional. The local school board is considering an appeal.

The stickers were placed on the textbooks in 2002, after a self-described creationist parent organised a petition with more than 2,000 signatures. Other parents immediately sued. The county has already adopted new state science standards—a year early—that require teaching evolution in high school.

Chief entanglement officer

In early January a woman filed a rape claim against Vernon Jones, chief executive of DeKalb County, east of Atlanta. The 29-year-old woman claimed that Mr Jones raped her on December 28th in his home. The DeKalb County prosecutor’s office, in an attempt to avoid a conflict of interest—Mr Jones’s job includes hiring and firing DeKalb County police—has turned the case over to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. No charges have been filed yet. Mr Jones has said that he has faced false allegations before and will “prevail again”.

He has had a controversial career, and some have criticised his high-handed and grandiose style. In 2003, Mr Jones was found to have charged the county $630,000 for round-the-clock bodyguards. On January 7th, he agreed to pay a fine for accepting more than the legal amount of contributions for his 2004 re-election campaign.

Man of God

The archdiocese of Atlanta has a new archbishop: Wilton Gregory, a black Chicagoan who converted to Catholicism at the age of 11. He was installed on January 17th, Martin Luther King, Jr Day. Archbishop Gregory has a reputation for being calm and charming: one critic described his style as “Reagan-like”. He also has a long history of dealing with the Catholic church’s sex-abuse scandal, having expelled several priests from his parish in Illinois in the 1990s, and having called for reform during the Vatican’s conference of cardinals in April 2002. The new archbishop’s biggest challenge in Atlanta may be reaching out to the city’s rapidly changing Catholic population. The city’s Hispanic Catholics have tripled in the past decade, and now nearly half of 108 local parishes celebrate Mass in Spanish.

Trying to fly right

Delta Air Lines, a troubled carrier based in Atlanta, weathered problems during the holidays. Amid some of the year's busiest travel days, a computer glitch forced Comair, a regional subsidiary, to cancel more than 1,000 flights. On January 17th the president of Comair resigned, to be replaced by a Delta executive. Comair is based in Cincinnati, Delta’s second-largest hub.
Delta is acting aggressively to right its fortunes. On January 5th it introduced a new fare structure. Fares for flights within the continental United States are now capped at $599 one-way, and the Saturday stay-over rule has been eliminated. Delta saw traffic rise by 30% out of Cincinnati after it experimented with the new fare scheme in autumn 2004. Other carriers have followed suit, perhaps spurring the shake-out that many have predicted for the industry.

Catch if you can

February 2005

ATLart [05]

January 26th-February 6th 2005

The awkwardly named ATLart [05], now in its second year, is a collaborative effort by the members of the Atlanta Gallery Association (AGA) and various local museums. This year sees the creation of a special Art House, a Buckhead mansion converted into an exhibition space with works on loan from galleries throughout the city. Patron’s tickets are available for the preview party at the High Museum of Art on February 3rd, and an auction by Art Papers, a contemporary art magazine, on February 5th. The best-attended event, however, will be on January 28th, when AGA members stay open late and offer cash bars and hors d’oeuvres to Atlantans on the town. Keep an eye out for an Atlanta Celebrates Photography lecture on the extensive collection of Elton John, who keeps a home in Atlanta.

Various galleries and locations. Some events are free, but some lectures require tickets. See the show's website.