Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

Time this week has a study on the top mayors around the country. It would seem our own Shirley Franklin gets into the Top 5 with a nice write up:

Shirley Franklin isn't standard mayor material. For starters, she's a woman, which makes her the first female mayor Atlanta has ever had; in fact, she's the first black woman ever to run a big Southern city. All of 5 ft. 1 in. tall, Franklin is a divorced mother of three who dyes her hair platinum blond. Before she campaigned for mayor, Franklin had never run for an elected office. Outkast played at her inauguration.

When Franklin took office in 2002, Atlanta needed somebody a little out of the ordinary. Her predecessor, Bill Campbell, had completely blown the public's trust in city government. Two of his top aides pleaded guilty to charges of bribery, and Campbell is awaiting trial on a seven-count indictment for, among other things, bribery, tax fraud and corruption. Franklin inherited an $82 million budget deficit, which was about 20% of the entire city budget and $37 million more than she had been led to expect. Atlanta's homeless population was exploding, the city's infrastructure was fraying, the streets had not been maintained in eight years, and the sewers were leaking so badly that state and federal environmental agencies were fining Atlanta $20,000 a day.

How did Franklin respond? She started by committing what might have been political suicide. She cut 1,000 jobs from the city payroll and got the city council to approve a 1% sales-tax hike and a 50% bump to property taxes. To prove she could take it as well as dish it out, she laid off half her staff and cut her own salary by $40,000.

To restore faith in the local government, Franklin shepherded through the city council a new ethics code for municipal employees. She corralled 75 private firms to conduct studies of Atlanta's budgetary, infrastructure and homeless problems and perform a massive audit of the city government--pro bono. She organized a task force she called the Pothole Posse to go after the city's crumbling streets. She kept a running tally of cracks that were filled, combining good stewardship with quality political theater.

They mention my favorite Franklinism: the Pothole Posse. For those of us in Midtown, the new "No steel plates on the road for more than 10 days" and "48 hour pothole repair" policies have meant as WORLD of difference in the navigability of the streets. It's the little things I guess. But I swear to god that steel plate on Monroe just south of Piedmont-Ansley was there through the entire last 3 years of the Campbell administration.