Stephanie, it obvious from your articles/columns in recent weeks that you have something personal against the Mayor. What did she do to get your bloomers in a bunch? Why don't you stop being so biased and report the other side of this story? When are you going to take the useless council to task for sabotaging the city's budget by rolling back taxes in the midst of a recession? What other municipality did that? These clowns did it almost unanimously. Have you done a column on that yet? I doubt it.

Stop with the personal attacks and do your job. Report the news and get off your soap box.

Rolling back taxes in a recession seems like a reasonable thing to do. Where do you think taxes come from? People trying to survive a recession. Taxes should be rolled back and cuts made. I would agree that there are plenty of other areas of this bloated city government that should be cut before the police force.

Andre,

It is my job to be "on a soapbox" as you put it.

Point out one personal attack in this column, please. The closest thing to such an attack is when I say that she should at least give the appearance of doing her job. A preponderance of evidence shows that Mayor Franklin lost interest in her job a few years ago. Is that a personal attack or a common observation? It may not matter. As Gloria Steinem said, "The personal is political."

I said on the Regular Guys show that I don't think Mayor Franklin is a bad person, and I don't. But I do think she's woefully underperformed, to the detriment of the city, in her second term.

--Stephanie Ramage

Thank God the majority of Atlantans aren't as short-sighted at you. The fact of the matter is most Atlantans think she has done a good job despite the economy and other external issues.

BTW, you still didn't answer my question about taking the Council to task. I guess those bozos don't sell ads like ragging on our national recognized mayor.

I guess you're right about your soapbox. I just wish you would stop passiing off your personal opinions as fact. Your "porpondnerce" of evidence falls flat according to the most recent polling in the mayors race.

@ Exador, you're right in theory. During a recession govts should help residents by cutting taxes. Unfortunately, business/govts don't work like that. When they're losing money they try and increase revenues not decrease them.

The fact of the matter is that most Atlantans don't vote. 10% in the last election, but they were God fearing folk so maybe you are on to something Andre.

Most people DO think she's done a good job but I think Stephanie is scratching the surface of a facade that we have been living under, due in large part to the Mayor's own touting of the track record. That kinda started it all. Obviously the subject is a sensitive one for the Mayor to personally respond.

Atlanta was facing a financial crisis before the Economy fell through the floor. Our eyes weren't focused till recently, we had the 08 election going on.

I totally agree that the Council needs a vetting but you never see a Board of Directors of some greedy conglomerate answering questions in the press about their accountability. The Council is no different. They don’t think on their own anyway. Shirley should be able to address the furloughs on her own. She says we are out of money, but why is that?

It’s not the current economy. That will also bite us in the ass but I don’t think that’s what we are seeing right now.

What recent Polling of the Mayor's race are you referring to Andre? Not sure how that would tie in to what Stephanie has presented about the current Mayor(who isn't in the running).

Andre,

As Turner points out, the council, to a large degree, is a nod squad for Mayor Franklin. She has carefully placed her cronies on important committees--like public safety--to insure that the council is nothing more than an appendage of herself. There are those who stand up; thank goodness for Joyce Sheperd, C.T. Martin, Caesar Mitchell, Carla Smith and Mary Norwood, and, sometimes, a couple of others. By taking the mayor to task, I am also, by extension, taking the Franklin-infected council to task. -- SR

Stephanie,

It’s a stretch to characterize the council as a nod squad for the mayor. Lazy would be the term I would prefer.

You’re right that for most of her tenure Shirley had lots of council support. I would say that support eroded sometime ago. She definitely didn’t have the support last year during the budget when she asked to raise taxes marginally to fund public safety. Here’s a an idea for a story. Go talk to all the council members who decided to rollback taxes last year. Find out if they regret that vote. It would be intresting to see what they have to say with the new budget looming.

BTW, I aprreciate the back and forth despite our differences. Most reports wouldn't engage in it.

Turner,

The poll I’m referring to is Norwood’s poll that showed Franklin with a 70% favorability rating. That is extremely high for a lame duck mayor, in the middle of a recession, facing huge budget shortfalls.

I believe you are referring to the AJC article on the poll that was conducted by Lake Research Parners.

Mayor Franklin is a client of theirs. The article mentions that, as it should.

The whole quote is:

"Sixty-five percent of those surveyed think Atlanta is on the wrong track as opposed to 22 percent who say the city is headed in the right direction. Fifty-two percent of those polled said Franklin is doing an excellent or good job. Sixty-eight percent of the respondents have a very favorable or somewhat favorable impression of the mayor."

Her approval rating in 2005 was 75%. She has dropped to 68% and I imagine that number is going to erode even further in the coming months.

I think it's also worth noting that she received 90% of the vote in 2005. If you believe that the voters influence policy then I don't think Shirley met much resistance the last four years.

Knowing what we are facing now begs the question, how did we get here?

Tax rollbacks suggest poor fiscal policy in the years leading up to it. Nobody has had more influence on this City's finances in the last 8 years than Shirley.

Can we all agree to that?

I agree with you about her control of the city's finances. However, the council's hands are not clean. They pushed to have the pension plan revised, which has cost the city millions. Their actions last year on the budget were completely lazy. Rolling back taxes during a recession shows a lack of understanding of the subject matter. Stephanie has refused to take them to task for their role, which I feel is bad journalism.

Shirley's favorability rating was actually much higher in 2005 than 75%. You're correct it has dropped, but that's what you expect in a second term, much less a recession marred second term. Any politician would love a 70% favorability rating in their waning days in office. Perdue's numbers are in the high 40's and he has another year and half left. Let’s not even talk about Bush.

I give credit when credit is due. Shirley deserves credit despite her shortcomings and the city’s current financial state.

I think you are asking a lot of a single reporter and not to mention audience. You speak of the council in the singular but a report or vetting would require discovery on a bunch of people.

Maybe if there was another year before the election it could be done in a way that wouldn't turn people off.

Whose Job is it to oversee the council on City matters?

If you had to choose one person to start with between the entire council and Shirley Franklin who would you choose?

I am guessing this investigation will lend itself to individual Council members.

There is a good bit of chronology going on so far. Keeps me reading.

Perhaps you could suggest a single council member and a particular topic so that anybody reading this can check it out. I'll read up on it.

I would suggest starting with the council members running for Mayor, Lisa Borders and Mary Norwood. What is their track record on finances and public safety? Norwood voted on the Borders proposal to rollback property taxes last year instead of funding for public safety. They will likely be vetted by during the campaign. Let's hope reporters like Stephanie Ramage thoroughly vet them and question them the way she questions the current mayor. Don't allow them to just say what the will do if elected, instead hold their feet to the fire on what the have done for the last 6-8 years.

Andre. I agree with Turner. Cut her some slack. Not enough hours in the day to do the kind of vetting and reporting you're asking. Shirley's at the top of the heap, so she's a more logical target than all (or any) of the council. I think Stephanie has been pretty even-handed and haven't seen any factual errors or bias in her stuff. You seem to disagree, but props to you for not going all ad hominem here. ;)

Thanks guys. Andre, it's a tough job, but someone's got to do it. I have absolutely no problem with picking up the challenge of looking at mayoral candidates' records. In fact, the Sunday Paper is the only paper in town so far that has looked at where each one of the candidates stands on public safety. Unfortunately, when we did our story, Borders had verbally, at least, withdrawn her candidacy. Our story, "Campaigning Against Crime," published on March 18, and written by my intern Patrick Bray, is an overview of all the candidates. However, there's still plenty of time to address the track records in depth. Will do. -- Best, Steph

Oh, an addendum to my earlier comment: Some of the councilmembers I commended for "standing up" should be in the "sometimes" category. One of the biggest problems with council is how amazingly flakey they are. C.T. Martin, for example, was a real disappointment during last week's financial meeting. -- SR