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[[caption]] ELAINE PARKER [[/caption]]

ATLANTA of today is the house that former Mayor Maynard H. Jackson built.

It is a city bustling with private industry: 46 of the nation's 50 largest insurance companies are housed there, 29 of the largest retailers; and 42 of the 50 biggest transportation companies. 

Luxury hotels -- such as Peachtree Center Hyatt Regency, the Atlanta Hilton and the Omni International Complex -- have helped establish the city's position as one of the corporate meccas of the United States.

But once the horror of the Atlanta child murders settles at the bottom of people's memories, like sands on the bottom of the sea, Jackson and Atlanta may be best remembered for two labor coups that in part represent the spirit of Reaganomics -- the Atlanta Airport and the 1977 garbage workers' strike.

In a major tribute to city government and private industry, Jackson built the country's largest airport, within budget, with minority input, and with a minimum of federal funding. And like Ronald Reagan, when striking government workers threatened the stability of the city's budget, he busted the union.

According to George Berry, commissioner of Atlanta's Aviation Administration, completion of the $400 million airport was as much a product of good management as "luck of the timing."

Built between 1976 and 1980, the federal Airport Development aid Program provided 10 percent of the funding. The project represented "over 90 percent" of minority hiring in the ADAP program. Some $50 million went to minority contractors from that one project alone, Barry said.

Now, under Reagan administration proposals, Berry said large airports like the one in Atlanta will no longer receive ADAP funds. "We object to that."

The loss of federal funds has also stopped various projects associated with the use of the airport. Until recently, the city was buying up houses around the airport to help people move out of neighborhoods plagued by noise pollution. Funding cutbacks have largely halted the activity.

The state provided $800,000 to build a bridge connecting the airport to major roadways in the city -- thus reducing the ride "from a half hour trip to a three minute trip," said Richard Layton, commissioner of Atlanta's budget and planning office. The Economic Development Administration was to provide funds to build a roadway to feed into the bridge.

"They got hung up in the last part of the Carter administration, then the Reagan cuts hit them," Layton said.  "At this point in time, though we have the bridge, we're not going to have any money to build up the land on the other side of the bridge.

"The situation, basically, is we have certain jobs to do and things we want to accomplish. The wherewithal to do that is not present."

Over the months, Layton said, the projects have been  mounting up along with the government's frustration. Two sewage treatment plants, upgraded 10 years ago, no longer pass revised Environmental Protection Agency standards. Until recently, EPA was footing 75 percent of the bill for one $200 million project. Those funds have stopped, and $100 million is needed to begin work on the second plant.

"It will probably be delayed a year and that will cost us and the feds," Layton said of the funding sought for the second project. "We've already suffered some penalties on these plants on their own merits."

If they begin to violate stream standards, Layton said, the city will be subject to a maximum fine of $1,000 a day.

"One of the problems we all have with Reaganomics," he continued, "is (the assumption) that if the feds don't pick it up the state and local governments can. No one gave anybody a chance for lengthy preparation. We were given a matter of weeks. We have calls all the time from people asking, 'what is going to happen?' We don't know!"

The last time Atlanta's city budget was threatened by grassroots' politics, Mayor Jackson quelled the problem by removing the threat. In 1977 Jackson fired the city's 943 striking garbagemen rather than put the city $5 million in the red by giving the workers a 50 cent raise.

Jackson acknowledged that the workers needed, and even deserved, the money but not at the expense of the city's budget. "Before I take the city into a deficit position, elephants will roost in the trees."

The question remains unanswered whether newly elected Mayor Andrew Young will allow Atlanta's trees to become an elephant's nesting ground.

Layton said cuts have already been made in various branches of human services -- food stamps, Title 20 education funds, welfare payments and CETA.

"We no longer have any public service jobs in the city. At the high point it was several thousand," Layton recalled.

The challenge has now become, Layton contends, to develop a positive, economic development program for people simultaneously being thrown into crisis.

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