Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Guv'ment Reed unloads on Common Cause over airport vendor process
Posted by Thomas Wheatley @thomaswheatley on Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 7:35 PM
The Atlanta City Council has taken a break from what's looking like a marathon session for dinner. Considering the events just before the body adjourned, well, that was a good thing.
After hours of wonkish discussion over which restaurants or retail shops should be allowed to conduct business in Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Mayor Kasim Reed took the mic and proceeded to throw punches.
His target: Common Cause, one of the city's most vocal critics in the ongoing airport concessions contract, a multi-billion dollar program considered one of the largest in U.S. history.
"I've been taking this for three weeks, listening to this stuff," said the mayor, who earlier today said that tonight's vote was the "biggest vote of my career." "This ain't right."
Reed said that the good government watchdog group's executive director accepted campaign contributions during previous runs for Atlanta City Council and Atlanta Public Schools and that its members had also accepted campaign cash.
"The level of hypocrisy is stunning," Reed said. "Common Cause has so much stain on it it stinks."
That's just a sampling. Reed reminded Council and the audience that he returned $20,000 in campaign contributions — which in the grand scheme of things, was a "rounding error." He also scoffed at the idea he was some sort of behind-the-scenes "Svengali" who schemed and colluded to benefit his friends. (Prior to slamming Common Cause, Reed said that any delays in the vendor program could cost the airport millions of dollars in lost revenue and potentially disrupt the city's plan to repay bonds issued to finance the international terminal construction.)
When Reed took his seat, Perry, who was sitting in the audience, attempted to respond to the charges. Atlanta City Councilman C.T. Martin blocked Perry.
""Perhaps if you had not done what you had done, [the mayor] would not have done what he did," Martin said. "But this is his house."
Yeah, kind of awkward.
Perry told CL he was "really surprised it got to that." He said people had threatened for at least a week to disclose the information about Common Cause board members' campaign contributions and connections "in order to disparage [the group] and show [Common Cause] is a hypocrite."
"It's a classic trick from the dirty politics playbook," Perry told CL. "You can't defend the message so you attack the messenger."
Council's ready to reconvene in a bit. Watch the fun live online. (Click on "Channel 26" link along the left-hand menu.)
Comments (41)
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embarrassing. what a joke kasim is. c.t. is a dried-up old school atlanta politico and needs to retire now. cleta winslow funded her re-election campaign from her city council, tax payer-funded budget and was fined by the city ethics board. and now lamar willis is making a donkey's ass of himself. how did lamar get to be the arbiter of ethics?!? he has violated city ethics laws, received one of the largest ethics fines in the city's history, run an illegal non-profit out of his city council office and used his city council staff -- paid by taxpayers -- to run the illegal non-profit. watching this stuff is actually painful. i cannot believe these people represent the city. sad, sad, sad tiny little pitiable people having tantrums and trying to one up each other. and none have the integrity to represent a goat let alone a constituency.
ok, so let me get straight - common cause attacked the mayor about campaign disclosures but they don't want their disclosures looked into? Mr. Perry, "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." Kudos to Mayor Reed for for standing up for himself!
Common cause needs to gets its act together. There is no way that an organization with 21 board members and only 1 African American represents th.e voice of Georgia, let alone Atlanta. The bottom line is, smoke means fire not steam! These blowhards don't want to have an honest debate about campaign donors, especially when the e.d. lost two campaigns with business money in his pocket. Nice try Mr. Perry but this is a new Atlanta!
It's pretty simple - Common Cause is a front organization that's supporting Mr. Perry's future candidacy.
It’s incredibly funny how often hypocrites use the terms “fairly” or “impartially”, but to throw them together when they are synonymous is typical of people like Mr. Perry—people who are sooner to judge others than they are to look at themselves—people who try to find evidence of cronyism when most of it is what’s supporting them.
All this talk of metaphorical black eyes and thrown punches is just about the worst of what’s going on… If I want to take a swim in a puddle, I’m sure Mr. Perry will help me find the most shallow one.
The executive director of common cause doesn't even follow the same transparency rules he so avidly proposes. None of his failing campaigns would be ethical under the same standard he's applying to city officials. This isn't about ethics it's about dragging the city of Atlanta through the mud.
And most of you have it right... Perry did accept campaign contributions when he ran for City Council and the APS School Board… He’s taking pages straight from the Dirty Politics Playbook—distracting constituents to develop a following of his own. Has anyone busy bashing Mayor Reed taken the time to look into what Perry’s next political move may be? What is it that he really has his sights set on?
Reminds me of when the losing bidder for MARTA's Breeze contract sued. Even though MARTA had a transparent bidding process and even though MARTA had an outside consultant work to ensure everything was done by the book, the losers still sued. And the losers lost in court but were able to delay implementation of Breeze by a year. So for an extra year everyone got to deal with broken fare gates, stuck tokens, and paper transfers that often didn't appear. All because the losers calculated that the cost of throwing some lawyers at MARTA was worth the small chance that some i wasn't dotted exactly right.
That's what these bidding processes have turned into. There is no way you can get through one with contracts this large without the losers, whoever they might be, slinging dirt in hopes to getting the contract. Even if it's a long shot, the amount of money makes it worthwhile. There is absolutely no concern from the losers about honesty, integrity or the travelers and taxpayers. All they care about is the money. If anyone or anything gets in the way, well, that's just business.
HA! Perry gave the "Bishop Eddie Long" response. He clearly didn't deny the charges. Perry's guilty as charged. Hypocrisy at its best.
Come on Atlanta....look at Mayor Reeds accomplishments to date. Why are we allowing Common Cause to use common Dirty Politics playbook tactics to distract us?
Mr. Perry's hands are so hypocritically filthy i cant believe anyone is giving he or this watch DOG group any amount of consideration or attention.
Reasonable minds must ask why Common Cause always chooses Atlanta as its target. If they're really warriors for ethics and transparency then they need to go across the street to the Gold Dome. There are plenty of ethical wars to fight over there. Plenty of big contracts. Not sure how common their cause is after all.
Poor start to whatever campaign Perry plans on running.
I was starting to believe Common Cause until I saw their leadership crumble when subjected to the same amount of scrutiny that they've been dishing out for weeks. Channel 26 clearly showed Perry breaking down under the questioning of the City Council. Common Cause has been discredited.
Common Cause should allow the city of Atlanta to appoint at least one of its board members. I cannot believe a board made up of 21 people, in 2012, has one African American member. That is not common cause, that is white cause!
Wait...So the guy demanding that City officials not take a certain type of campaign contribution has actually accepted the exact kind of contribution he's against? Unbelievable! lol
Mayor Kasim Reed finally spoke out about the slandering that he and the city have had to endure for the past 3 weeks. He had enough and had to address these allegations. Common Cause as an organization has many flaws starting with the head person representing them. How can Perry question campaign contributions, when he did when he was running for various offices as well? Common Cause is here to cause conflict and deter us from the real issues we should be focused on. I commend Mayor Kasim Reed for taking a stance on this.
Sock puppets, indeed. Jeez, give it a rest. You're not fooling anyone. Frankly, I think it hurts your cause.
In the 2 years that Mayor Reed has been on office, he has helped the City of Atlanta grow tremendously, his efforts and accomplishments are material and proven. Common Cause is an organization that has no real agenda but to oppose and accuse the City of corruption with no factual basis. The citizens of Atlanta should not let efforts of Common Cause dilute our minds of cold hard facts. We need to look into the organizations we support thoroughly before we join. Mayor Reed brought their skeletons out of the closet today.
I see most of us have taken "Cause to Pause" and evaluated all of the facts... Isn't it great how Perry and his people have contrived phrasing that has indeed created scruntiny about their OWN organization's convictions? They have actually allowed people not only enough time to peek through their windows but to open their closets, pry through their attic and dig through their junk drawers.
#hilariouslyepicfailure
Common Cause is asking City Council to slow down the process and not vote, but for what reason? No valid reason at all. Because they deemed there "might be" foul play, but yet have not came up with any single piece of hard evidence. Why are they still making the news and media outlets, when all they are doing is trying to deter the City from gaining revenue. Which, by the way, we desperately need. Why not work with the Mayor and come to a solution instead of questioning his integrity? What good is Common Cause doing for the City of Atlanta? Besides dividing it.
With the economic state of our country, why would the City of Atlanta delay a vote that could potentially cost us millions in gained revenue. I understand there are questions over the process of the airport bids, but everyone will not be happy with the results. There will be losers, and as we have seen in the past couple of weeks, very sore losers. But are we to delay votes so the losers can get a chance to win? This sounds crazy, but so does the alternative. But finally the votes were cast, and now we can move on.
Can someone explain why Common Cause's effort to make the airport bidding process transparent to the public has produced such a firestorm of comments on the Loaf? Is Mayor Reed pulling a Shirley Franklin by viciously maligning groups that don't agree with him? Is the Mayor's positive PR going to his head?
Being a born and raised Atlantan, I have been here for many changes the city has been through. Our current Mayor, is doing a superb job. During these difficult times, he has had to overcome many challenges. We have to support him as he is working for the betterment of us. We can't let groups like Common Cause think it's okay to belittle and question our elected officials. These are the individuals who we wanted in office.
After council members asked Perry if some of the members of the Board of Directors of Common Cause had any interest in city or government contracts, he could not answer. He even went on to say that they might have interests. This group has no creditability whatsoever. How can you and/or members of your group partake in the activities that you don't want others to be part of? What sense does this make? The truth is now out that Common Cause has real problems within itself. They are hypocrites.
not a goddamn one of you knows what a sock puppet is
i feel like i'm wasting my time posting here
All glory to supreme leader Reed. Our Juche spirit will prevail against these vampire imperialists!
"This is is house" Is that really the level that Atlanta politics has sunk to? Last I check it was the citizens house and not the mayors. It is exactly that sort of backwards thinking and hubris that tends to get an inordinate amount of politicians in trouble in local politics. On the plus side maybe they are all taking all they can get since changing demographics means that there will be a change next election cycle. (who knows if they will be any better, time will tell)
"All glory to supreme leader Reed. Our Juche spirit will prevail against these vampire imperialists!"
crush the western puppets with our ideologically pure Atlanta rage! only those who stand against us can presume to judge us
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwoSFQb5HVk
Zedsmith: You sir, have won the Internets. However, none of the idiots who are posting from offices at City Hall have any clue as to what you're referring, considering that they're city employees in the first place and the IQs and intellectual curiosity levels that come being in those positions. I'm curious as to the IP addresses of the sockpuppets in question.
Now, I really want to see Supreme Leader Kim Jong Reed standing at the review stand while Atlanta Police Department officers goose-step down Peachtree Street.
If Channel 26 posts any video from the fiery meeting last night could it get its own post at CL? Thanks.
what a joke.... these idiots really do think Atlanta is running more smoothly and is overall better off than the last mayor?
what a joke, at least these idiots are exposing 2 things, yeah the economy sucks donkey balls and Mayor Reed is a complete tool...
and even more surprising are the idiots on the city council.... why the hell are they referring city hall as "Mayor Reed's House"??
did Reed pay for the building??? is Reed using his own money to provide city services???
heck by Martin's own statement, we no longer have to pay city sales tax or property tax since it is "Reed's House"....
what a joke the city of Atlanta has become and it's sad people vote these idiots into office....
I sure hope all those City of Atlanta employees got paid overtime to post their comments deep into the evening. Whew, governing over the internets is hard!
If the Mayor is truly all that for the city, then why *wouldn't* his administration fully support a clear and transparent handling of one of the largest contracts in the country?
If the Mayor were truly interested in dispelling the stank of cronyism and corruption from all things Atlanta then why run the bidding process behind closed doors?
Historically a good chunk of the contracting business has fallen to family and friends of the mayor (I'm looking at YOU, Campbell, Jackson, and Franklyn). If Reed can break that chain then more power to him. If he's not interested then don't blame someone for turning the spotlight on him.
Any guesses why the vast majority of the people supporting the rush to judgment on the airport contracts are first time CL commenters?
"Sock puppets, indeed. Jeez, give it a rest. You're not fooling anyone. Frankly, I think it hurts your cause."
Amen to that! When I saw these sock puppets on the article last week I figured it was a vendor or winning bidder. But now that Mayor Reed has gone after Common Cause the same way I'm starting to wonder if the Mayor has a department writing this stuff.
Makes the Mayor look bad. Though its clear he has National aspirations in a republican/corporate state so its no wonder he promotes things like this and the UBER regressive sprawl inducing 1% transportation sales tax.
Common Cause is trying to change the law; the mayor is trying to change the subject.
Common Cause is a forty year old national good government group. Mayor Reed is not the first pol to disparage it. He won't be the last.
Mr. Perry and the CCGA board have all sworn to abide by the pay-to-play law they have authored, should they ever run again. Moreover, they played by the existing rules when they ran for office, and those experiences convinced them it is time we changed the rules.
Common Cause openly solicits women, gays and people of color to join its board. Diversity matters! If you're interested, go to www.commoncause.org/ga.
@ Question Man... What in the world are you talking about? Who did I viciously malign?
Wasn't Shirley Franklin's administration noted for crushing all who disagreed with it?
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