Charlie Stadtlander had last week to himself as he announced his campaign to unseat Anne Fauver from her District 6 post on the Atlanta City Council.

But Fauver (photo), a lesbian and two-term incumbent, came out swinging in a Southern Voice article today about the race, charging that her gay opponent “may not understand” the city’s budget process after hearing the charges he leveled at her during his Jan. 7 campaign launch.

Fauver, who is running for her third term in the November election, said Stadtlander “may not understand the [budget] process” if he blames her for the city’s economic woes.

“My primary platform is to continue to look for additional revenue sources that the city has either simply stopped doing, or never thought of doing in the first place,” Fauver said. “You can only do that if you have established good rapport and have experience.”

Also of note in the Southern Voice article is that Fauver has flip-flopped when it comes to bar hours in the city.

In 2003, Fauver and other council members passed legislation trimming bar hours by an hour to 3 a.m., claiming that the late night hours posed a threat to public safety. But now, Fauver says expanding those bar hours — something Stadtlander advocated during his campaign launch — should be done for economic reasons.

“I can support going back to the 4 o’clock closings,” Fauver said. “I don’t believe that [the shorter bar hours] have affected our police stats. I think that the key is can we sell it on an economic basis. It’s got more of a chance going through right now being sold that way than it has at any other time since I’ve been on the council.”