Atlanta Business Coalition Releases City Candidate Evaluations

The Committee for a Better Atlanta (CBA), a coalition of Atlanta businesses and business organizations, released its Consumer Reports-style evaluations today of the candidates running for Mayor and City Council. The CBA Voter Guide “scores” candidates on business issues important to the community at-large.

While “ethics reform” was the prevalent theme in 2005, many of this year’s candidates pointed to public safety and better financial management as the most important issues for this election. Infrastructure needs, specifically around water and transportation, ranked high as well.

CBA is pleased to report that 43 out of 51 candidates participated in our process. In addition, there are a number of qualified candidates running in this year's election as indicated by the fact that 15 candidates rated “excellent” in the CBA evaluation and 13 are “well qualified.”

“City of Atlanta citizens should be pleased that we have a great slate of candidates this year vying for posts in city government,” said Jeff Wansley, vice president of government affairs for Equifax, Inc., and the 2009 chair of CBA. “The mayor's race has obviously taken center stage, as it should, but there are several contested races due to vacancies created on the Council that could have significant impact on the direction of the Council. We must therefore be informed and make choices based on how candidates view the very important issues that will shape our city for the next four years.”

To provide the best possible information on issues important to voters, CBA developed a detailed questionnaire for each city of Atlanta election and conducted personal interviews that probe candidates about high-priority community concerns. Committee members used a scale for scoring the responses to the questionnaire and the interviews, and an average was calculated for each candidate: 88 or higher is considered “excellent;” 79 to 87 is “well qualified;” 70 to 78 is “average;” and below 70 is “not qualified.”

Please view candidates' scores and questionnaires at the following link. The re-launch of www.betteratlanta.org will feature links to each candidate's website, exclusive video interviews, as well as groups where Atlanta residents will be able to connect and discuss issues of personal importance. Residents will also be able to learn and interact with BetterAtlanta.org through a Facebook Fan Page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Atlanta-GA/Committee-for-a-Better-Atlanta/136430003179) and Twitter profile (http://twitter.com/betteratlanta)

***CBA strives to make the evaluation process as fair as possible across all races and only takes into account responses provided to the questionnaire and in the interview process. Interviewers were provided extensive training to ensure consistency in evaluating candidates. Prior voting records were not considered for this purpose but may be included in future CBA processes. Finally, any outstanding ethics issues were not addressed by this process as the City of Atlanta Ethics Committee has its own process for addressing those issues. CBA encourages its members to distribute the guide to their employees.