I am a graduate of Georgia Tech and was a graduate student senator there. I am also an Atlanta native.
I attended the meeting, Talking Traffic: A Public Forum on the July Transportation Referendum yesterday.

What happened last night was a sham and a shame on Georgia Tech. The views allowed to be presented were clearly one-sided in favor of the referendum with the speaker, Democratic Senator Doug Stoner, The Moderator, Catherine Ross, and two panel members stacked four to one in favor of the referendum to begin with. As if that were not enough, and this is something I had never seen before during an open , objective panel discussion, the moderator was spinning in pro-project tweets on a big screen behind the panelists during the entire debate. There was even a tweet personally slamming Debbie Dooley for her legitimate views.
The format and propaganda presentation during the session were inexcusable. The responsible parties should be held accountable and never allowed to use Georgia Tech facilities again.
Whether one is in favor of or against the referendum, this was a dark two hours for Georgia Tech.

Stan Muse
Class of 1978

Stan -
GTBN is appreciative you attended last night's event and thank you for the honest feedback. I'm sorry and disappointed you felt the discussion was one-sided. I can assure you that the committee went to great lengths to invite individuals representing both sides of the issue and gave them an equal amount of time to lay out their respective sides.

I also want to apologize for the confusion around the Twitter Wall and its purpose at the event. The Twitter posts displayed were a live feed of attendees opinions, tagged with #GTBNTalkingTraffic so the third-party app could compile and display them. The moderator had nothing to do with the feed, and in the true spirit of social media, GTBN did not manipulate or filter the tweets. This type of format is a form of engagement, providing a forum and direct channel in which to share thoughts, reactions, submit questions in real time. Review @GTBN's posts on the event; we hope you will find them without bias and directed toward education on the issue.

We take learnings from each session and apply them so we can continue to improve. After last night's event we know we could have done a better job of explaining the Twitter wall and its purpose, clarifying that the tweets/opinions are the audience's and not GTBN's. We should request the audience be respectful of the speakers and each other.

Again, we're glad you joined us and we hope to see you at a future GTBN event.

Ryan Lahm
GTBN – Digital Media Chair

I will be voting yes for the Regional Transportation Referendum and will be encouraging my friends and colleagues to vote yes as well. We have to begin to make changes to the city of Atlanta, and surrounding areas, traffic problems.

Ryan,

I do not see how anyone could possibly think that the discussion was not one-sided, or was not intended to be so in advance. The participants were stacked 4 to 1 in favor of the referendum. The whole event was clearly an advertisement in favor of the referendum, and Georgia Tech was used for this purpose.

The giant flashing , spinning twitter wall behind the panelists was a bad idea and a huge distraction from the discussion. Most of the Twits were comments from the pro-referendum panelists. Shameful!

Stan Muse

For truth and facts about the transportation referendum / TSPLOST please visit TrafficTruth at http://traffictruth.net/, https://www.facebook.com/TrafficTruth, and @TrafficTruth on Twitter

Stan - I was at the event and thought it was great. Not sure I agree with your points. There were some pro-TSPLOST comments made but many of Debbie's comments were also uninformed. Twitter is a common medium for sharing information and the background of comments was innovative in my opinion. I don't think criticizing and a GT student group for such a event is productive. I think they did a great job! -Matt Mason, IE 2001

It is critical that everyone understand what they are really voting for or against. It is clear from examining MARTA’s 2010 and 2011 “Annual Report” that MARTA is broke and going under. The situation is so bad that they do not even include any financial statements, like a Balance Sheet in their Annual Reports. MARTA already gets 60% of its revenue from sales taxes, not from ridership. They need to make up the rest of their $300M per year shortfall on the backs of the neighboring counties.
Check it out for yourself:
MARTA’s 2011 “Annual Report”, page 37:
http://www.itsmarta.com/uploadedFiles/About_MARTA/Reports/PAFR_2011%20final.pdf

MARTA’s Sales Tax revenue comes from a 1% sales tax levied in the City of Atlanta andthe Counties of Fulton and DeKalb. Revenue comes in at $436M while expenses top $727M (page 39). Now they need yet another sales tax for revenue.
The coming TIA Transportation Referendum is an $8.5B pile of pork with half the revenue for failing MARTA. Examples are a bridge at Lake Allatoona and sidewalks in Lawrenceville. These projects will supposedly help alleviate Atlanta’s traffic flow.
This is another obvious bailout and redistribution of personal income.
Will we join the City of Atlanta, Fulton, and DeKalb counties in funding MARTA in perpetuity.MARTA will never be solvent because we would need at least five times as many riders just to break even.

I attended the event at Georgia Tech last Thursday, and thought the panel was representative of both sides of the issue and equally represented the facts I have seen presented in several other events focused on TSPLOST. It led to great conversation and debate, which was the purpose of the event to better inform, education, and allow for opinions to be shared in an open forum. I think those were all achieved, thank you to coordinators for bringing the issue to the table for discussion.

Jennifer, half of the tweets flashing behind the panelists were from the pro-referendum panelists themselves! Looks like the Orwellian brainwashing worked on you.