Nick Hess (Georgia)

Nick Hess

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Personal website

Nick Hess was a candidate for District 4 representative on the Atlanta City Council in Georgia. Hess initially filed for the general election on November 7, 2017, but withdrew prior to the election.

Elections

2017

See also: Municipal elections in Atlanta, Georgia (2017)

The city of Atlanta, Georgia, held a general election for mayor, city council president, three at large council members, 13 by district council members, and two city judges on November 7, 2017. The following candidates ran in the general election for District 4 seat on the city council.

Atlanta City Council District 4, General Election, 2017
Candidate	Vote %	Votes
Cleta Winslow Incumbent	42.42%	2,001
Jason Dozier	19.80%	934
Kim Parmer	13.93%	657
Christopher Brown	9.86%	465
DeBorah Williams	9.54%	450
Shawn Walton	1.76%	83
Dan Burroughs	1.51%	71
MR Adassa	1.19%	56
Total Votes		4,717
Source: Fulton County, Georgia, "November 7, 2017 Municipal General and Special Elections," accessed November 7, 2017 These election results are unofficial and will be updated after official vote totals are made available.

Campaign themes

2017

Hess' campaign website included the following themes for 2017:

“	Let's Get Engaged Our district has a serious commitment issue. Our last municipal election, in 2013, had fewer than 15% of registered voters participating. That's less than one of every six voters! Local politics might not generate the same amount of excitement as national politics, but they're a much greater opportunity for us to really make a difference in our community. But we've tuned out. I believe that we've become discouraged from participating in the political process. I think this discouragement breeds frustration and cynicism, and is a fundamental, unaddressed problem in our city. I propose to make local participation easier for all citizens: When you want to get involved in your neighborhood, it can can be very difficult to determine where to start. I say that every school, library, fire station, rec center, and police station should have an local information board listing the neighborhood, neighborhood associations, Neighborhood Planning Units (NPUs), and City Council district of that location, along with contact information and locations and times of meetings. The City should also have a web page with a map where this information can be looked up in a central location. NPU meetings are where the City talks to its citizens, and the citizens talk back. They are informative and vital to our city's operation, but very few people know about them, and fewer still attend. I propose that the city hire NPU support teams that would, among other things: Stream NPU meetings to video and record the streams for folks who can't make the meeting Have "meeting sherpas", to advise on parliamentary procedure and to act, if need be, as a guide to help Possibly even provide child care so that working parents can attend meetings Trying to work within your community shouldn't be a hassle that can only be navigated by people with spare resources. Let's all get involved! Gentrification and Affordable Housing We don't want people leaving the community. Population drops can bring a spiral of declines in home values and tax revenue, diminished services, weakened communities, less representation, and reduced opportunities, all of which which lead to more people leaving - a self-reinforcing cycle of blight and abandonment. The classic economic answer to the problem of decline is that the reduction of prices makes the area more attractive for new people to come in, eventually leading to a rebound. But as the past few years have demonstrated, this can lead to new problems. Theoretically, everyone benefits from an infusion of new people into a neighborhood. New folks bring new energy and money into the community, leading to improved house prices, an improved tax base and services, more political clout, and greater opportunities. It's the reverse of the blight process, a self-reinforcing cycle of improvement and investment. In theory. But in practice, a too-rapid infusion of new people quickly prices the existing residents out of the neighborhood, and the benefits get distributed unevenly to the newcomers. Gentrification, as it works today, doesn't so much improve a community as replace it with a richer community. So while we want people to invest in the community, we want to moderate the process enough that the existing residents benefit from those investments. It's tricky, because what we're trying to do is moderate a process with many different actors in a market economy. We can't simply demand that prices stay stable; but we can moderate the market, to bring downward pressure on prices, and keep housing affordable. TAP THE BRAKES, BUILD THE BASE, SMOOTH THE SLOPE TAP THE BRAKES: increase the current Real Estate Transfer Tax (which is the sales tax on real estate) from its current super-low rate of 0.1%, which is one dollar for every thousand. In other areas, this tax has gone as high as 4%. If we tailor the tax to be apply at the highest priced units, we reduce the demand at the top end and diminish the returns on speculation. The money from this is reinvested into the community to help "build the base". BUILD THE BASE: use the RETT finance affordable housing for all levels of income. Offer tax incentives and expedited paperwork to developers who build affordable units; finance or offset low and zero-interest loans for low-income residents who need to improve their property; loosen land use restrictions on options like student housing, accessory dwelling units (mother in law units), and rooming houses. These actions will add more housing at the affordable end of the spectrum, and increase the supply overall, exerting downward pressure on prices. SMOOTH THE SLOPE: adjust property tax calculations so the assessment side of the equation isn't based on the current assessed value, but on a 5 year rolling average, to prevent sudden shocks. Use RETT funds to finance more frequent assessments so people don't get shocked with sudden, overdue corrections. The devil, of course, is in the details. The RETT increase should probably be offset for lower incomes - we could apply it only after the first $100,000 of the sale, or apply the tax as a surcharge if the price increase on a property goes above an annualized rate, say 5% per year. The idea is to discourage the type of rapid price increases that fuels the speculative feedback loop of gentrification. Similarly, everyone talks about wanting affordable housing, but nobody ever seems to actually want it built in their communities. Boarding houses and roommate rentals are particularly controversial; these classes of rental property should have their own class of inspectors regularly checking up on.	”
—Nick Hess (2017)

Recent news

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Nick Hess (Georgia) - Google News

See also

Atlanta, Georgia	Georgia	Municipal government	Other local coverage

External links

Suggest a link

• Atlanta City Council
• Campaign website