mayor franklin's speeches

Good afternoon to President Cathy Woolard and members of the Atlanta City Council, City of Atlanta employees and residents.

My father always used to tell me that when you know what you’re talking about, you can write a short letter.

My hope is that you find this to be a short speech.

Cynics have long accused Atlantans – especially the City’s elected officials and business community (pretty much all of us here today) – of “boosterism.”  Gary Pomerantz, in his book, Where Peachtree Meets Sweet Auburn, traces this notion back to the early 1900’s and holds up Ivan Allen, Sr., one of Atlanta’s great leaders, as the father of “boosterism.” “In a city,” wrote Pomerantz, “that would become famous for excessive civic boasting, Ivan E. Allen’s praise for Atlanta could have filled a fleet of balloons.”

Well, I don’t believe any of us – least of all Mr. Allen – are guilty of “boosterism.”  That’s a word that is used only by critics, people who, in Theodore Roosevelt’s beautiful phrase, refuse to get “in the arena.”  The arena is the only place important work gets done.  It’s where the doers “strive for worthy causes”, unafraid of failure, with their faces “marred by dust and sweat and blood.”

As is well known by those on whose shoulders we stand as elected officials, Mayors and Council members alike, City Hall is in the arena.  So, too, are all the businesses and non-profits and civic organizations represented in this room today. 

Because we work daily in the arena, I believe that we can see things that others can’t see.  With our well-planned goals and collective confidence, we see possibilities and potential.  We see things that don’t even exist, and through our optimism, pride, and energy – in short, our faith in Atlanta – we turn those things into reality.

When we champion those unseen things, critics call us “a City of salesmen;” they call us “boosters”.  But the critics fail to see that almost always our faith brings about all we envision.  From the airport to the Olympics, we have consistently proved the critics wrong.

As we begin 2003, I believe we are at the dawn of a defining era in Atlanta’s history.  In the words of sister Maya Angelou, from “On the Pulse of the Morning”,

“Lift up your eyes

Upon this day breaking for you.

Give birth again

To the dream.”

The era “breaking for you” will be fueled by explosive growth and marked by innovation and energy.  Those outside the arena may not see this era yet, but I promise you it is here, and I promise you it will bring with it tremendous challenges and even greater opportunities.  Our own city records tell part of the story. 

Last year during one of the bleakest economic times in our country’s recent history, the city of Atlanta issued building permits for the highest value ever, a record $2.1billion, smashing all previous records.

Even so, we face record levels of job and business loss and growing number of needy working and homeless families, men, women and children. As mayor along with the City Council we had to downsize city employment rolls impacting hundreds of employees and their families. The decision was necessary to restore financial stability but very difficult for me, personally and professionally.

For those employees who fought the tough fight with us and remain diligent in their work, we say thank you.

In the face of this new era, today I want to call on the unique faith of Atlanta’s leaders.  I call on the faith we all share that Atlanta will be a better place next week and next year and next decade.  I call on the faith that together – as a city government dedicated to serious and important work and as a diverse community striving for worthy causes – we can achieve greatness.  And I call on the faith that allows us to see things that don’t yet exist and make them real.

But before we talk about our dreams and hopes for the people of Atlanta, let’s talk for just a moment about what is easily seen – even by those outside the arena.  Let’s talk about last year.

Two days after taking office as mayor I offered a simple agenda- the Franklin Four- that has guided the work of my administration.

              A safer, cleaner city

              An honest and responsive city government

              Effective and efficient city services

A caring city for families, children, seniors and all who live and work here.

For the City of Atlanta, 2002 was a year of unprecedented challenges and unprecedented responses.

In 2002, we inherited a City with excessive budget shortfalls. 

Working with the elected and appointed leadership of the city and making tough but prudent decisions, we created two balanced budgets in just 11 months and managed to live within the 2002 budget. We ended the 2002 budget year in the black and reestablished a reserve or rainy day fund where none existed. For 2003 we also established a meaningful floor for wages for over 600 fulltime employees at $22,149 in recognition of the essential work our employees perform each and every day and the rising cost of living in Atlanta.

In 2002, we inherited a City with a broken moral compass. 

By passing the most comprehensive and stringent ethics code in Georgia, we established a new high standard for honest, transparent, and open city government.

By reaching out to experts in the scientific and environmental community, we created a five point plan, Clean Water Atlanta – our promise of clean and plentiful water to our children; and by reaching out to our federal, state and local partners, we mapped out a long term strategy to meet our financial needs.

By focusing on core services, by auditing and then restructuring basic processes, and by establishing a system of accountability, we have set the stage for a government that – pure and simple – works.  A City that Works. 

In this regard, we also had unprecedented help.

In an act of real faith, many of you volunteered for the “dust and sweat and blood” of City Hall, and with neither pay nor fanfare, you helped move Atlanta forward last year.  You served on committees and panels advising us on ethics, housing, sewers, parks, festivals and water.  You loaned us executives. 

You performed searches for new commissioners.  You volunteered consulting services.

You donated money to conduct process reviews.

While you are too many to name individually, I ask that all of you here today who have served the City of Atlanta in 2002 please stand and be recognized for your outstanding efforts “in the arena”. 

You have my most sincere thanks and highest regard. Together with the City Council, city employees and the Cabinet, you and I demonstrated we can work together to achieve our goals.

Yes, for the City of Atlanta, 2002 was a year of unprecedented challenges and unprecedented responses… from the success of the Pothole Posse to jump starting the fifth runway construction at Hartsfield; from reaching out across the region to Atlanta’s neighbors to actively pursuing federal funding assistance for our sewers; from ethics reform to refocusing Atlanta’s role in the criminal justice process... 2002 was all about the nuts and bolts of city government.

We kicked off the Pothole Posse on January 17 and never looked back, determined to signal how we intended to do business in the Franklin administration.

2002 was about fixing something that had become – for many people, residents and employees alike – hopelessly broken.

In short, 2002 was about “doing the day’s work”.

The day’s work is not sexy.  The day’s work – as long as you do it right – doesn’t make headlines.  And to be honest, the day’s work doesn’t necessarily get your juices flowing at 5 a.m.

But the day’s work is serious work, and it’s essential work.  If a City can’t do the day’s work, then it can’t do much else.

So I pledge to you that again this year, and in 2004 and 2005, we will continue to do the day’s work.

However, as important and challenging as the nuts and bolts are for us right now, it is not enough for a City to do just the day’s work.  And it is especially not enough when that city is Atlanta in the year 2003.

Why?  Because Atlanta aspires to greatness.  And a great city must do more than just the day’s work.

Why?  Because Atlanta today is about to dive headfirst into a rising tide of change – the kind of change it has not seen for almost 50 years.  And in the face of that change, we must do more than the day’s work.

Why?  Because 2003 marks the beginning of a defining era for Atlanta.  And a city intent on defining itself for the next generation must do more than the day’s work.

So let’s talk about change, about greatness, about our first steps into a defining era.  And because so much of this is not yet seen by those outside the arena, let’s also talk about that unique Atlanta faith that will make it all a reality. The faith of Ivan Allen, the faith of Martin King and Jimmy Carter in their dogged commitment to peace, the faith of Coretta King, Dorothy Bolden, Tom Cousins, Billy Payne, Herb Mabry, Benjamin Mays, John Lewis, Carolyn Long Banks, Richard Guthman, Barbara Asher, Susie LaBord, Donald Hollowell, Jondelle Johnson… that unique Atlanta faith.

With all the worrisome and distracting news of the last year or two, the following fact has gained little notice.  But it is a fact that will profoundly change our city.  In the next 10 years, Atlanta will grow more than it has in the past 45 years combined.   I know that sounds impossible.  Surely the past several decades in the Atlanta metro region have been about nothing but growth.  True. 

But while the region has exploded, the city of Atlanta itself has been – at best – stagnant.  In fact, our population today – 430,000 people – is almost exactly what it was in 1955, when I was a 5th grader.

So for all the growth we have experienced in the past 47 years, the City itself  – in terms of population– is no different than it was back when I sat in Ms. Dunlap’s class wearing bobby socks and saddle oxfords and dreaming about being a ballet dancer. 

All of that is about to change.  The official estimates say that Atlanta – the City – grew by 8,900 in population in 2001, more than any year since the 1950’s and will grow by about 10,000 in the next 10 years.  Not a remarkable number, but I’ve got news for you.  The official estimates are wrong.  I am certain – with a faith only an heir of Atlanta’s boosters can have – that when this group convenes for the State of the City speech in 2012, the population of Atlanta will be over 500,000 – and possibly as much as 550,000.   

Lane Kirkland, the president of the AFL-CIO in the 1980’s, delivered a commencement speech at the University of South Carolina.  It was his first graduation address, and he worked for months on his speech, trying to capture the essence of the future for 3,000 graduates who had never before set foot in the real world. 

In the end, Kirkland chose to quote a line from a cowboy in one of the Western movies he loved.  “Life”, he told the graduates, “ain’t gonna be like anything you ever heard of before.” 

Well, the next 10 years in Atlanta “ain’t gonna be like anything" this city has ever heard of before.

Like Kirkland’s cowboy hero, we cannot be afraid of things we’ve never even heard of before.  I, for one, welcome with open arms the nearly unlimited possibilities of the next 10 years.

But with great change comes even larger responsibility.  In the face of great change, we have a responsibility to be proactive, bold, and innovative.  We cannot afford to be timid: a “do nothing” government or a “do nothing” business community during a time of change will guarantee failure.  We must anticipate the changes to come and prepare for them with progressive policies.  And we must do all of this while continuing to fix our city services.

Wang Yang Ming, the great 15th century Chinese philosopher, said

“To know and not to do, is in fact, not to know.” 

Today we know what to do.

It is up to us to act."

So let me highlight the Franklin action plan for 2003.

There are still key components of “restoring financial stability” yet to be accomplished.  We have made great strides in making our budgets more realistic.  But we still have more steps to take. For example, we still have Correction positions assigned to a Trust Fund that doesn’t have sufficient revenues to cover them. General Fund has been subsidizing these positions above and beyond the budget. We need to build funding for these positions explicitly in the General Fund.

We need to ensure that our annual appropriations for the City’s contribution to our employees’ pension funds meet actuarial requirements. This will be a challenge in an environment where Pension Fund portfolios are losing value.

We also need to reduce our revenue anticipation levels. When the city was healthly financially, anticipations ranged between 92% and 96% of prior year actuals receipts.  In recent years, the City has set budget anticipation levels at 99% of prior years revenue. The 2003 Tenative Budget contained anticipations at a 98% level.  We need to make efforts to lower our anticipation levels to rebuild our reserves and buffer us against economic downturns.

In 2003, we will make Atlanta a cleaner city.  We will initiate a major anti-litter campaign, and our "Trash Troops" will sponsor monthly citywide clean up days to involve neighborhoods, businesses, civic organizations and other governments. We will develop a long-range sanitary services plan with rate study and service delivery strategy components. And we will make downtown a clean and inviting place to work and visit by repairing the sidewalks and crosswalks, beautifying the parks, and increasing bicycle racks, trees and greenery.

In 2003, we will make Atlanta a safer city.  By the end of January, the Atlanta Police Department will implement a full fledged computerized crime tracking system, called COBRA, to instantaneously track and respond to crime. COBRA, which stands for Command Operations Briefing to Revitalize Atlanta, is modeled after the famous and successful ComStat system, and it is the centerpiece of our public safety strategy for at least the next 3 years. Under COBRA police commanders will be held directly accountable on a weekly basis for effective crime response and prevention.

We will enforce of quality of life laws. Working collaboratively with MARTA, Georgia State University, the Ambassador Force and Fulton County Sheriff’s Dept., we will work to make all of our commercial districts safe, pleasant places to live, work and visit.

We will seek federal funding for photographic radar equipment to enforce speeding laws on our major highways. Last year we suffered 67 traffic deaths on Atlanta’s streets; that is unacceptable and the radar equipment is the single best way to make our streets safe.

And we will shortly announce significant funding for the new, independent Police Foundation and later this year the formation of the Fire Foundation.

In 2003, we will make Atlanta a more beautiful city.  We will follow through on the specific recommendations of the Parks and Greenspace Task Force and the best practices of our sister cities of New York, Chicago and others. 

We will partner with The Trust for Public Land to draft legislation creating a new, independent agency to manage our park system. We will put together an outside commission to plan and organize the effort to double our park space in a decade – adding more than 3,000 acres of park property – and to raise $400 million during the same time period.  And by the end of this year we will have finalized plans for a new 500-acre “superpark” in the metro area.

In 2003, we will make Atlanta a more affordable city for middle and low-income residents.  Following the recommendations of the Housing Task Force, we will initiate a new workforce housing incentive program, designed specifically to assist teachers, police officers, firefighters and law enforcement officers with intown housing.  We will set clear annual goals for new and rehabilitated housing for ownership, rental and rehabilitation.

And this year we will finalize the work already begun on improving our permit process.  By June 30^th, we will have in place a time efficient and simple permitting system that makes Atlanta competitive with any government in the metro area.

In 2003, we will make Atlanta a more compassionate city.  Many of you know that at my request the United Way is right now leading a collaborative effort to address homelessness in the city.  The work of this Commission will be done in the first quarter, and my pledge to you is to begin the implementation of the recommendations of the Commission as soon as I have received them. We will support the ongoing efforts of our community based and faith-based organizations to offer a helping hand to our brothers and sisters in need.

In 2003, we will make Atlanta a better place for children. In partnership with Ticketmaster, Starbucks, the Screen Actors Guild, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, our sports teams and others, we will initiate a student and parent support program focusing on reading. The program, “Booking It with the Mayor” will utilize creative techniques to encourage reading and improve reading skills and will be offered in recreation programs through the City. I will name a Mayor’s Education working group to spearhead this program.

 In 2003, we will stimulate economic opportunities in Atlanta’s low-income communities through public/private partnerships with Atlanta’s business, financial and non-profit organizations which will spur business, commercial and job development under the Federal Renewal Community Act. This program will also leverage the human service programs developed under the Atlanta Empowerment Zone while replacing the EZ structure with a more market driven strategy.

In 2003, we will make Atlanta a better place for those of us who love to walk its streets and sidewalks. Atlanta voters approved a $150 million bond referendum to improve roads, sidewalks and streetscapes and to add bike lanes and fix up neighborhood parks.  We will begin construction on many projects this month, and by the end of the year we will have more than 300 neighborhood improvement projects under way.

In 2003, we will make Atlanta a more environmentally responsive city.  As part of Clean Water Atlanta we will begin implementation this year of a Storm Water Utility.  This year we will begin designing the projects that will reduce flooding and add greenspaces to improve water quality in a natural way. We will keep our commitments to the people of Atlanta for clean water.

In 2003, we will keep the massive $5 billion airport expansion program on time and on budget, including the construction of the 5th runway and the new international terminal.  This is a clear case where time lost is money lost and where the entire state of Georgia is counting on Atlanta to get the job done right. We remain committed to minority and female participation at every level.

This year we will pay special attention business retention, marketing Hartsfield and upgrading security measures.  And all the while we will maintain the level of customer service that last year earned the international award for “Best Very Large Airport in Overall Passenger Satisfaction” based on passenger surveys and led to over 75 million passengers visiting Hartsfield.

And while we are doing all of these things, we will continue the day’s work of making city government more efficient, effective and accountable for service delivery.  You will find on the City’s website a comprehensive Turnaround Plan detailing hundreds of individual projects that – at the end of the day – will all make city government responsive to you, the resident of the City.  I invite you to track our progress each month as we update the Turnaround Plan on line.

To implement what I have just described will take an effort by government, businesses, civic organizations and many others comparable to what it took to bring the Olympics to Atlanta.  For some things, it will take money – money that the City can get only if we all agree that the goal is important enough to reach into our own pockets and pay for.  But for most things it will require commitment, action and a new way of doing business.

Back in the 19th century, the United States had a wonderful tradition of patriotic orations delivered on the Fourth of July each year.  Nearly every person of note, from Daniel Webster to Frederick Douglas gave a July 4th oration at one time in his life.  The tradition was both to rejoice in the freedom earned that day and to reflect on the many blessings of this great country.

Frances Wright, a Scottish born lecturer and abolitionist, was the first woman to gain fame for giving public speeches in America, and she was nearly mobbed on many occasions for her audacity.  

In 1828, she gave a memorable July 4th oration focusing on the characteristics that made America successful.  Speaking of Americans, she said, “it is for them not to rest, satisfied with words, who can seize upon things.” 

In Atlanta in 2003, in order to create a safe, beautiful, livable city, we must follow Wright’s advice:

It is for us not to rest, satisfied with mere words,

when we can seize upon new things.