Friday, May 29, 2009 | Atlanta, In the News, Stop the Presses
Mayor Franklin feeling the heat

Shirley Franklin stands at a critical juncture that could define her two terms in office.

It’s a balmy 82 degrees as I write this. But wherever Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin is by the time you’re reading it, I imagine she’s feeling a lot more heat than that.

A lot has happened since The Sunday Paper ran a cover story on May 17 about a group of seriously injured Atlanta police officers with complaints about the city’s handling of their medical care—a story that gained momentum as WSB-TV, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and other media outlets reported on it in the days that followed.

That Wednesday, May 20, Sgt. Scott Kreher, head of the local police union, uttered the statement heard ’round the world, proclaiming in a moment of frustration that he sometimes wants to “beat [the mayor] in the head with a baseball bat” when he thinks about the unnecessary delays suffered by those officers.

Kreher was suspended for the comments. But the mayor didn’t leave things there, complaining to Fox 5 that she sees Kreher’s remarks as a threat “intended to intimidate me, my family and city officials.”

I’m not the first to point out that such thin skin is unbecoming of an elected official charged with leading a city of some 500,000 people, and by extension a metro area of more than 4 million. I’m also not the only one who thinks Mayor Franklin has used Kreher’s outburst as a smokescreen to deflect attention away from the city’s treatment of those officers. David Holway, president of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, said as much at a May 28 press conference, at which he called upon Franklin to address the officers’ concerns, and to allow Kreher to return to his job.

The mayor would do well to heed that advice. But it might be too little, too late for some residents, fed up with the city’s consistent refusal to acknowledge their concerns beyond a patronizing statement that it’s not crime, but our perception of it, that is on the rise. (I wonder if City Council President Lisa Borders, whose home was burglarized last week for the second time in six months, feels the same way?)

The Georgia Log Cabin Republicans issued a call last week for Franklin’s resignation, urging Gov. Sonny Perdue to “take control of the situation” and bring in the Georgia National Guard or Georgia State Patrol to “stabilize the current crime mayhem in the city.”

Shirley Franklin stands at a critical juncture that could well define her two terms in office. She can exhibit some real leadership and take control of the crime issue, and the issue of the injured officers. Or she can continue on her current course and cement her legacy as a mayor who pointed fingers and buried her head in the sand while Atlanta suffered.