News

City leaders want to put transit advocates’ concerns to rest: Yes, they’re committed to making sure the Atlanta Beltline will include transit.

Why it matters: The groundbreaking, city-changing, multibillion-dollar project was born from a vision of rail transit circling Atlanta and connecting dozens of neighborhoods.

The Atlanta Braves are about a quarter through their World Series title defense season.

Catch up quick: Last year, the Braves won it all for the first time since 1995.

• This season is also the first time since 2010 that first baseman Freddie Freeman is not on the roster.

Reality check: It is notoriously hard to repeat as champions in professional sports, especially in the MLB.

👋🏾 Hiya, local associate editor Ross here!

I don't edit the Atlanta newsletter, but as a native of the city, I had to take a look back at one of my favorite shows.

Driving the news: The third season of "Atlanta" wrapped up last week following a four-year wait after Season Two ended. (You can blame the pandemic, right?)

• Spoiler alert: If you haven't watched it yet, you should probably stop reading here.

The baby formula shortage has left store shelves bare across the country, leaving many families and caregivers scrambling to feed their children, including here in Georgia.

• The scarcity is largely because of supply chain challenges linked to the pandemic and voluntary product recalls by one of the nation's largest suppliers.

Driving the news: More than 40% of Georgia's expected formula stock was absent from shelves the week of May 1, according to Datasembly, a retail software company.

Today, employees at a Berkeley Park Starbucks will decide whether to form a union to advocate for higher wages and better benefits.

• It would be the first union at any of the java giant’s Atlanta stores.

Why it matters: The push by baristas here — and efforts by employees at the Cumberland Mall Apple store — are high-profile, early tests of metro Atlanta workers' appetite for organizing.

Catch up quick: In late January, employees at the Howell Mill Road Starbucks joined dozens of stores across the country looking to unionize.

The big picture: Starbucks’ starting pay and benefits have made it stand out among other businesses, but employees want a greater say in staffing numbers and salary increases.

What they’re saying: “We love to work at Starbucks, to be partners here, to be part of a community,” Page Smith, one of the Howell Mill Road employees and organizers, told the AJC. “But we feel strongly that we are not held in as much respect as we’d like to be.”

State of play: Georgia has a well-known and long-standing reputation as being friendly to business and not so friendly to labor.

• Roughly 5% of Georgia workers are union members, and the state's right-to-work laws prohibit employers from requiring employees to join the union.

The other side: Starbucks is opposing the union efforts in Atlanta and elsewhere across the country, saying the company wants to work directly with employees on workplace and labor conditions.

• Atlanta Starbucks employees say store managers, who aren't part of the unionization efforts, have read anti-labor statements to workers, the AJC reports.

Of note: Last month, a Starbucks in Augusta was the first Georgia location to unionize.

What’s next: A Starbucks on Piedmont Road is also in the process of forming a union. Earlier this month, employees at Starbucks’ Ansley Mall store announced plans to unionize.

The city of Atlanta and its partners will soon help hundreds of people living in a dilapidated apartment complex find new housing.

State of play: The families have to move out of Forest Cove apartments by the end of the year after an Atlanta Municipal Court judge last December condemned the complex because of its appalling conditions, which were extensively documented by WABE.

The Atlanta Police Department is asking for $235 million to be included in next year’s budget to combat rising crime, hire new cops, and stave off the exodus of officers fleeing for better-paying jobs in the suburbs.

Here’s a peek at how they plan to spend it.

Driving the news: On Tuesday, Atlanta Police chief Rodney Bryant pitched his final budget to the Atlanta City Council.

City Hall is preparing to get their hands dirty and decide for the second time since 2019 how much — and how — residents should pay for trash pick-ups, recycling collections and street sweeping.

Why it matters: Solid waste service like garbage collection ranks high up there with police and fire protection and well-paved streets and sidewalks when it comes to city services.