Organizers of the venerable Dogwood Festival — long a spring tradition at Piedmont Park — will hold a press conference tomorrow (Friday) to announce its new location for this year.

Seeing as how the press conference will be held at Lenox Mall, and Lenox was one of the locations the festival was considering, you can probably put one and one together.

Piedmont Park is off-limits this year to major festivals due to the drought. Organizations have complained that the city's late notice has left them scrambling to find alternative sites. The festival is planned for April 4, 5 and 6.

Stay posted for updates.

It should come to no one's surprise that Georgia picked up an abysmal report card from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. In fact, out of a possible 100 score, Georgia came in at nine points.

The organization was founded by Jim Brady after he and President Reagan were shot by John Hinckley Jr. in 1981. Brady was Reagan's press secretary.

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“Georgia is doing virtually nothing to protect its citizens against gun violence, does not have a plan to encourage greater gun owner responsibility, and is allowing dangerous people to have easy access to guns,” Alice Johnson of Georgians for Gun Safety said. The state has yet to pass some key gun trafficking laws, such as mandatory background checks on all gun purchases and limits on bulk purchases of handguns.

That group's next battleground is legislation pending in Georgia that would force employers to allow employees to have loaded guns on their private property.

We feel safer already.

Former Rep. Ben Jones, aka Cooter from "The Dukes of Hazzard," today endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president.

Said Jones in a press release:

As a lifelong Southerner, I am much impressed by his sincerity, his down to earth style, and his earnest approach to people of all backgrounds.

Obama could not be reached for a statement, but this afternoon his campaign bus successfully jumped a ravine, after which the junior senator from Illinois leaned out a window and fired arrows of dynamite at rival Sen. Hillary Clinton's bus. Clinton was not injured, but according to a spokesman, the former First Lady "felt snubbed."

The press release announcing Cooter's endorsement is after the jump. Yee-haw!

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Last night's Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, the premier event on the Democratic calendar, seemed in some ways a lifetime removed from last year's confab. The '07 gathering had a surprisingly fun vibe to it – one guest explained that it was one night when all oppressed Democrats could gather in one room to party down and forget their many, many troubles.

The J-J Dinner last night seemed more businesslike. For starters, it took place in the drab, concrete-floored basement of the World Congress Center, rather than the well-appointed ballroom upstairs – presumably to accommodate a larger crowd. Also, this being an election year, there was more visible networking and campaigning, which likewise sapped the fun factor. Finally, Labor Commish Michael Thurmond did not repeat last year's fabulous James Brown impression.

Even many of the speeches had a downbeat quality to them. Rep. Calvin Smyre, the minority caucus chairman, who's served in the House some 33 years (!), memorialized longtime colleague Speaker Tom Murphy, who died a few weeks ago. And guest of honor, former Sen. Max Cleland, has come to be a living symbol of Democratic defeat at the hands of ruthless Republicans. He was introduced by a pretaped Sen. John Kerry, who has the unique ability to bring down any large gathering. Ex-Gov. Roy Barnes, however, had the best line of the night: "Max Cleland found out not all the enemies of democracy live in foreign countries." Unfortunately, the Dems don't have a viable challenger to GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss this year.

Also honored, in more upbeat fashion, was Rep. John Lewis, who received a warm intro from congressional colleague Rep. Charles Rangel of Harlem.

Then the doors opened and Hillary supporters flooded in to crowd in front of the stage. There were also a healthy number of Obama sign-wavers in the audience as well, but – with John Edwards ending his campaign only hours earlier – the evening felt a bit lopsided with only one candidate there to speechify. (Word was the Obamites wanted to set up a live link for their candidate, but the Georgia Dems said no.)

Still, the J-J Dinner was clearly energizing to most of the attendees, who have good reason to picture their man – or woman – in the White House next year.

See more of Joeff Davis' photos from the J-J Dinner after the jump.

 

Franklin addresses City Council Wednesday.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

For more than an hour Wednesday, Mayor Shirley Franklin fielded sometimes contentious questions from City Council members regarding the surprise budget shortfall the city is facing. While CL had first reported the figure in the range of $75 million to perhaps more than $100 million, Herronor pegged the estimate at $70 million.

There are two major reasons for the snafu: On the one hand, the city will spend about $41 million more than expected because of rising fuel costs, spiraling health-care expenses, unanticipated legal settlements and IRS penalties.

The rest of the problem is apparently explained by human error. Because of lousy accounting practices -- which Franklin took pains to emphasize were in place long before she got elected -- the city thought it had $21 million more in the bank than it actually did. And, finally, another $26 million in anticipated cash evaporated once bean-counters caught what Franklin described as a series of "flat-out mistakes," such as forgetting to account for the $8 million annual payment to Underground Atlanta. Oops.

The administration has ordered a hiring freeze and slashed discretionary spending, but the mayor deflected questions about whether a tax hike will be needed to correct the budget imbalance.

"We don't have an answer yet for how to close this shortfall," she said.

The Georgia portion of The New Republic's Super Tuesday Primer is live.

Nuggets of note:

Barring a substantial drop in Obama's support among African Americans, it's very difficult to see Clinton winning the statewide vote. But don't be surprised if she does slightly better in the delegate count.

And:

For Republicans, the race here is in a major state of flux. No candidate has a strong operation, which is thought to benefit Huckabee, who can count on a devoted network of evangelical volunteers. But it remains to be seen to what extent Huckabee can pick up support in Atlanta's upper middle class, heavily Republican suburbs, which will account for a large chunk of the vote.

Before they met this afternoon to discuss the city's budget crisis, Mayor Shirley Franklin and a large number of City Council members lunched with the Buckhead Coalition at its 19th annual meeting.

The main course at 103 West was filet mignon and salmon, and most of the city's upper-crust business leaders were in attendance. Also working the crowd were Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and Fulton County Commission Chairman John Eaves. Franklin spoke briefly, saying her administration is tackling the tough issues and she ended with a "Go Buckhead!" cheer.

David Stockert, the chairman of the coalition and president of Post Properties, championed "the demise of the excessive nightlife revelry" in Buckhead and the plans to redevelop the shopping district into something of a Rodeo Drive of the South.

And here's a fun fact we didn't know: Buckhead retail shops do $1 billion in annual sales, 40 percent of which comes from people who travel more than 100 miles to come to the area.

Stockert says the group understands that traffic is still an issue. "The Coalition pledges to continue pressing for improvements in this arena as a top priority, including the present campaigns for Piedmont upgrading, development of the Beltline, and ramping Ga. 400 south to I-85 and back."

Atlanta -- the water-deprived, sprawl-ridden capital of confusion -- was selected for a History Channel series about what cities can do in the future to alleviate their major woes, the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reports. Eight teams of local designers, architects and planners competed for a chance to win $10,000 and be crowned national champion for the most innovative ideas. Mentioned in the article are Eric Bishop of design firm EDAW -- the series' winner -- and Ellen Dunham-Jones, a Georgia Tech professor.

From the article, some of the ideas:

Landscape architect Eric Bishop of winning team EDAW said the city could benefit in the year 2108 by moving its network of streams from the city's antiquated sewer system back above ground where it could be filtered and cleaned.

[Dunham-Jones'] team believed Atlanta's existing web-like network of freight train rail lines could be used to create a commuter transportation network where high-density development would be built in "nodes" where the lines intersect.

Water could be conserved by separating the city's stormwater and sewage water, properly treating it and returning stormwater back to the city's lakes and reservoirs, she said.

Other teams examined building large, multi-story tall "beakers" that would collect rainwater, the creation of deep water wells and pod-like vehicles that would replace cars.

Oh, dear God, no. Weren't "pod-like vehicles" featured in Logan's Run? What's next, futureheads? What other grotesque plans do you have in store for us? Renew! Renew!

Atlantans may just get to see their cash go toward their transportation needs after all.

An influential joint committee of state politicos this morning released its eagerly anticipated laundry list of how Georgia should attack its people-moving mess and generate the cash for its woefully underfunded transportation projects. The committee, led by state Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga, traveled throughout the state over the past year to pitch and solicit ideas. (Keep in mind that a lot of these suggestions are basically asking the General Assembly to say with a vote that it thinks some projects are "cool," and don't really suggest the state pony up funds for them.)

The most pressing suggestion offered could very well be the foundation to building all the others: How do we get the funding? The committee straddled the fence, suggesting legislation for both and opting not to deem either one of the statewide-tax/regional-sales-tax strategies edge the better choice. Georgians may see elements of both ideas mixed together. The sales and motor-fuel tax, the committee said, should remain the same.

The rest of the goodies follow after the jump ...