Good afternoon, everyone.
This is Council Member Dustin Hillis. I'm Chair of the Public Safety and Legal Administration Committee.
Thank you for joining us this afternoon for our committee meeting.
I've been joined by, to my right, Council Member and our Vice-Chair, Byron Amos.
To my immediate left, Council Member Norwood, followed by Council Member Boone.
And as for constitutive quorum, I will make a motion to approve the agenda.
Is there a second? Second by Council Member Amos. Please prepare the vote.
The vote is open.
Please vote.
Vote is closed.
Four yeas, zero nays. The adoption and agenda has been approved. I will make a motion to
approve the meetings of the prior meetings. Is there a second? Second by Council Member
Norwood. Please prepare the vote. The vote is open.
The vote is closed.
Four yeas, zero nays, the minutes have been approved.
Before we move to public comment, we do have a communication that we have to take first to be respectful of someone's time,
and that is item 22c5135, item number 100 communications, if you could read that.
A communication from Pierre Gaither, Executive Director of the Atlanta Board of Education,
submitting the appointment of Chief Ronald Applin to serve as a member of the Public Safety Commission.
Chief Applin, come to the podium and tell us a little bit about yourself and your willingness to serve.
Good afternoon. I am Ronald Applin, the Chief of Police for Atlanta Public Schools.
I was born and raised in Atlanta. I grew up in Southwest Atlanta.
I went to school in Atlanta.
I went to Charles Lincoln Harper High School.
I graduated from there.
I attended Mercer University.
I got my bachelor's degree.
I attended Troy University,
which had a campus here in Atlanta.
I got my master's degree.
Started on my PhD in criminal justice.
Got to dissertation and I got this job.
Didn't get a chance to finish it,
but we'll get back to that.
I've been in law enforcement since 1989.
I worked for the Fulton County Sheriff's Office.
served in several capacities there.
My last position before I retired was the commander of the law enforcement division.
I left there. I spent a little time stayed in law enforcement doing a lot of things with instructing and teaching.
I got started with this position in 2016 and I've been there ever since then.
It's been the best job I've had in the 32 years in law enforcement.
Thank you, Chief. I'll make a motion to approve. Is there a second? Second by Councilmember Boone. Please prepare the vote.
The vote is open.
The vote is closed.
4-Yay, 0-Nays. The item is favorable. Thank you, Chief. This will move on to the Committee on Council and then the Full Council, but you do not need to reappear.
You will hear from our Municipal Clerk's office once this is confirmed.
Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
This time we have been joined by our Mayor, Honorable Andre Dickens and would like to speak to the committee.
Mayor Dickens, welcome.
Good afternoon. Thank you, Council Member Hillers. Thank you, members of the City Council and the one or two people that applauded.
Thank you for this opportunity to speak directly to the City Council and directly to the Public Safety Committee.
I am here because I take public safety very seriously.
Rather than do a press conference to talk about public safety and talk about all things, I decided to talk to my colleagues, talk directly to you and also talk directly with the public in this process.
As you know, for years I sat beside you all right here in this seat, so I understand the challenges and dilemmas and the options that you weigh each and every day
as you go about doing the great work of a city council person of this city.
And I wanted to just share with you a lot of what's all happening,
and then later, of course, during your committee meeting,
Deputy Chief Peake will give you your briefing that he does every two weeks
along with Chief Interim Chief Sheerbaum.
So thus far, we have hired over 100 police officers this year
and 155 of those, 155 individuals are in training right now towards our 250 gold.
The homicide clearance rate in the city of Atlanta is 64%.
The national average is 54%.
And this weekend, we had a number of incidents that we want to talk directly about.
All summer, we've had a good summer.
A good summer at our parks.
parks. It was a safe place to be. We opened all 12 swimming pools and made them free for
the whole summer. We've had events after events after events. We've had midnight basketball.
We've had police athletic league at Promise. We had a lot going on in our parks. But this
week, as Councilmember Boone knows, last week on Tuesday, a murder happened in Wilson
a mill park, the park that we shared as the kids growing up, and then yesterday at Dumb
Bar we had essentially a mass shooting where six individuals were shot, two are now deceased
and that happened at a city park on a Sunday. That is alarming and disturbing. We have hosted
several large scale events in our city parks without incident and we know a lot of
our parks are being used daily for a number of great activities day and night and we have
world class parks and we have a new commissioner of parks and recreation that has taken us
to even higher heights. We've installed cameras in the parks and we've tied those
cameras to our real time crime fighting center so that we get on time updates. We
We also are allocating today.
You all will see and comment and vote on legislation to allocate $750,000 for post-certified officers
to work in our city parks.
So this is on top of our summer safety plan where we had officers in our parks.
We are now adding that to, that was just an implementation by the administration,
But this is now putting $750,000 towards post-certified individuals to work in our parks to further keep our parks safe
because we want those to be safe havens and active places for community.
So just go through the data, the numbers.
In 2021, we had 57 part one crimes by this time.
Now we've had 49 at parks and that's a 14% reduction year-to-date in crimes at parks.
And I wanted to now go down the path of talking about youth, which is very near and dear to
my heart and a very important part of all of our activity sets from moving Atlanta forward
and also for public safety.
The city's results from the summer youth engagement, the employment program, you will get those
results as the summer is just now ending, but it's been a huge success and from programs
like Midnight Basketball.
But since I'm talking specifically to the Public Safety Committee, I wanted to
just tell you what youth activities have not occurred in our city due to us making sure
that we had them on a positive path. In 2021, last year, there were 102 youth juvenile arrests.
This year, only 80. That's a reduction of 22 percent in youth-related crime in our
city this year today. In 2021, just in June and July, and those are the months with
youth are generally out of school. So in June and July last year, 34. This year, 23.
That's a 32% reduction. We tie those things to the activities that we've done
and with the community. The various things that we've done, like at Promise Center,
Midnight Basketball, summer employment for the youth, and our water sales,
that we've tried to reduce as much as possible and push them into meaningful,
helpful activities that has resulted in this reduction in arrests and crime by youth.
APD has seen a significant reduction in the calls for service regarding water sales in
both the year-to-date and in the summer months.
The reduction for this year held through August 1, there were 929 last year, 929 calls
talking about water sales. We call them water boys, but a lot of them are adults or boys men.
929 last year, 651 this year. That's a 35% reduction. In 2021, in just June and July, we had 327 calls for service.
This year, 229. That's a 32.3% reduction. And that's just in June and July.
So what we are putting in place, ladies and gentlemen, is working.
It's working. We said that we had to have a balanced approach to crime,
a balanced approach to public safety. We wanted to make sure that we had people
give them opportunities, and that's what we did with the youth in this city.
And when we do it for this city, pretty much we're doing it for the whole region.
Because the individuals that come into our city to sell water or to do whatever,
However, they may not be an APS student, Chief Appling.
They are coming because the opportunity is in Atlanta.
But what we've done together is reduce crime and arrest for those youth because of putting
them on the right path.
We are arresting individuals that won't comply and we are sending the youth to services
that they need to be able to get into the proper position and we're talking to parents
about all of the activities that we have for their youth to be on the right path.
Today, I want to now talk squarely and straightforward about ACDC,
the Atlanta Detention Center.
Over the course of the last week, several members of the City Council,
many of you took a tour of ACDC,
and some of you have taken tours in years past,
and then also you took tours of the Fulton County Jail this last week,
and even some today.
It is evident that there is a humanitarian need when you walk through that facility.
We're not in the jailing business. That is not what Mayor Dickens wants to be in.
I do not want to be in the jailing business. The City of Atlanta has the aforementioned things that we are focused on.
However, when confronted with hundreds of men sleeping on the floor throughout the hallways,
the humanitarian response to that is to do something.
Do something immediately.
We are not in the jailing business.
I do not want to be in the jailing business for long.
That is my personal constitution and that is what I'm bringing to this administration.
But nonetheless,
we find ourselves where we are today.
There are severe penalties for any extension beyond the four-year extension that you see in the documentation that we provided today.
We've baked into this ordinance, into this offer, four years and no more.
Extreme penalties if anyone needs to stay any longer than that.
If they want anyone to stay any longer than that, we will be out of the gelling business immediately.
Revenue from that agreement will be used to fund our diversion and wraparound services, drug addiction, mental health, housing insecurity, homelessness, and, of course, youth services and the general administration of the facility.
There is no question, again, that I draw circles and I don't draw lines.
I am trying to help us serve our population, all of our population, in this region.
Within this ACDC circle, there is a line that must be drawn, though.
And that line is where the responsibility is for overcrowding.
And that overcrowding is a county issue.
It's a county issue.
It's Fulton County's issue.
The vision for repurposing ACDC has been set.
I have heard from all 15 of our council members and the council president,
and the agreement is reflective of what we all want to see.
So the reason for 700 beds is that this is a humanitarian need.
I came into this conversation with much less than 700 beds.
Through conversations with you all, I got to 700 beds.
This is because that's the need. I want it to be much less than that.
But of course the need has pushed us to where we find ourselves with a situation where there's women,
250, actually 300 women, more than 250 that that facility should have, 300 women on the south side,
and now hundreds of individuals on the floor at Rice Street.
More than 80% of the individuals at Fulton County's Rice Street facility are from Atlanta.
The crimes occurred in the city of Atlanta.
80% of the individuals that are at Wright Street,
the incident happened inside of our city limits.
So regardless of what they may or may not have done,
they are still human beings,
and this requires a humanitarian response.
And our more obligation is for everyone's health
and well-being regardless of the choices they may or may not have made.
So now, once this is in place, should the council pass it, then we begin the process of having individuals come into ACDC at the same time we start the process of putting out an RFI, a request for your inquiries, request for individuals to companies to say, put their plans together for what the future of ACDC can be.
imagining from the documents that we've already put together in the past,
start putting together the process for the financing of it,
the architecture of it, the construction of it, and the operation of it.
That is not a tomorrow turnkey operation.
That takes time. That takes planning.
That takes just as much planning as it would for us to build a new city hall,
to build a new park. It doesn't happen in a week. It takes time.
So therefore, this RFI gives us the opportunity to gain more community input, gain more city
council input, and to go out there and present in four years, once we cut off this process
of having inmates at ACDC, then we turn ourselves into what the next future is, which is not
with us in the jailing business.
Now, I know there's, after that, there's an additional piece of legislation as a
councilmember waits walks in this is about her legislation so it is my
understanding that there are some additional legislation that's being
introduced by our great councilmember that serves in the seat that I served in
councilmember waits and what I say is we've had a great conversation about
it and I am interested and encouraged by what she suggested however we have
to wait have this process take place first for that process to take place
because if we're looking for the RFI we want to make sure that we get the full
everything that we can having her input in it your input in it all of the
things that we want for the go-forward plan for ACDC takes that into
consideration and so I think her legislation is a smart piece of
legislation I think that this comes first then that therefore you have
the steps in the right order that we carry ourselves forward now moving
Moving on, there are too many illegal guns on our streets.
You know there are too many illegal guns when some individuals, well, everybody's talking
about how many illegal guns there are.
An overwhelming majority of homicides in Atlanta are linked to gangs, drugs, and the
use of illegally held firearms.
crimes. The vast majority of the perpetrators are repeat offenders. And so that's why we
stood up the repeat offender tracking unit. So let's talk about crime in general in the
city of Atlanta. Because when you read the news, when you watch the news, read the news
and get your social media, you would think that everything is on fire. We are down
in every category over the last 28-day period.
We have had a three-week decline in crime.
The One Safe City Plan is a whole-of-government
approach to public safety in Atlanta.
And we just launched a new website, OneSafeCity.com.
So everyone listening can stay up-to-date on what we're doing to keep Atlanta safe,
and the results of our efforts are on that website so far.
OneSafeCity.com. So my message to the residents of Atlanta and the visitors is clear. Our city
is open for business and enjoyment. You and your families are safe in Atlanta and we are
working across our government and our communities to invest in our policing and non-policing
initiatives to protect and promote the quality of life in our city. I also have a clear
message for those who want to perpetrate a crime in our city. If you pull a gun in this
town, you are going to jail.
We got a 64% clearance rate in our city.
I'm really, really hopeful, and it's better than the national average, but it's my hope it gets even higher.
You pull a gun in this town, you go to jail.
If you're a gang leader, you will be caught and you will be held accountable.
And finally, if you're carrying an illegal firearm, you will face the consequences.
So far this year, we've seized thousands of illegal firearms already this year.
And that continues. We find them over and over and over again.
And those are the same guns that are used in robberies, burglaries, shootings, aggravated assaults, and also homicides.
us. So we know who our adversary is. It's gangs, it's guns, it's illegal firearms, and
it's repeat offenders. Violent repeat offenders. When argument happens, people are choosing
guns instead of their words to solve these problems. Anger and a gun is a bad combination
right now, all across America. Anger and a gun has led to people killing their
their loved ones, their family members, their friends. We even had a senior high
rise, a senior citizen killed the least in our office agent, then went across the
street and killed himself.
So we have a lot of resources in this city right now.
Our Office of Violence Reduction is at our disposal, Ms. Jack Cuell Clemens. We
have clergy that is willing to talk to every community member, every
non-profit organization, how we can engage on de-escalation, on conflict resolution.
Because most of the crimes that we're seeing that are leading to homicides, a lot of them
are the inability for people to resolve their conflicts.
But when we talk about these other property crimes, we are talking about violent repeat
offenders.
So modern, effective policing, repeat offender tracking unit, the summer safety plan,
The summer heat wave, which you guys get reports on, that we are, I mean, a whole lot of guns and a lot of drugs are being captured because of that.
We got mounted patrols, fuses, the Connect Atlanta camera network, public safety training center, community-based policing, supporting police personnel, hiring 250 officers,
providers, providing raises and bonuses to retain all of our public safety staff and good
police leadership, those are the things that we've been using to reduce crime in our city.
The non-police interventions, we have violence reduction initiatives, diversion programs,
the nightlife division that we've stood up, and our nightlife advisory council, midnight
basketball, the light of the night campaign. We're now at almost a halfway mark on all
of the 10,000 cameras there are many lights that we're installing.
The Ad Promise Centers, housing interventions like what we're doing at placing people from
Forest Cove into safe and secure housing, summer youth employment program, our reentry
job programs.
And just last week I visited the ATF, the Atlanta field office for the alcohol, tobacco
and firearms, and I met with their special agent in charge.
We also started Atlanta Fulton County court watch.
We've been aggressive against gangs, and we have good state and federal partnerships.
Together, the community is empowered to help us.
That's where the violence reduction comes from.
The engagement with the nightlife and our Atlanta court watch.
We've had the world's largest 10K, peace tree road race, go down without incident.
Three days of jazz fest, 70,000 people in our city park, no issue.
Our West Side Park, our Cook Park, these parks, all these activities are going on without
issue.
Restaurants and people are going places each and every day being safe.
We are on our way to making sure we prove to everyone that we are a safe city.
One to one and a half million people go to Linux and Phil's Plaza every single month
and we haven't had one violent incident in 2022 at those places.
Over and over again, where large gatherings are, we are safe.
So what we saw yesterday was a lot of things that I wish we did not have in this city.
But I also want to make sure when they put a microphone in your face
and try to scare you in them believing that this is an unsafe city,
the fortitude of a council member and the administration knows the difference.
Now, the last couple of things I'll talk about is nuisance properties.
Nuisance properties must be resolved.
And those are not just bars and nightclubs.
It could be any person at any place that this place feels unsafe.
In fact, we're also seeing results from our nightlife, our nightlife division,
our nightlife advisory council.
We have held two quarterly meetings, our training days already,
and we've had other meetings with the nightlife team,
about three of them over the last three weeks,
to make sure we talk about nightlife and ways to improve it.
Communications with our nightlife leaders have gone a very long way.
Now that we have all the right departments at the table, including police, fire, the solicitor's office, planning, watershed and others,
we're able to address some of the bad actors much more quickly than we were just a half year ago.
So we now know how to differentiate and how to make sure that bad actors become good actors
or bad actors that want to stay bad actors or eliminated from being able to have the
permission to operate in our city. It is not a right. It is a permission. That's what
a permit is. And so the good actors can continue to operate. And so the solicitor's office
continues to bring charges against problematic properties and either the property owners
are kicking the tenants out and locking up their doors or we are locking their
doors for them.
We want to make sure that everyone have safe experiences at our restaurants, at our bars,
at our clubs, at our gas stations, convenience stores, nuisance properties.
It's not just nightlife.
It's any nuisance property.
So I'm agnostic to whatever you guys choose.
You do two incidents in 24 months, that's your decision.
We can talk about it with the committee, with the team of people at the Nightlife
Nightlife Advisory Council. If it's four in 24 months, if it's three in 18 months, all
of those are up for discussion. And the Nightlife Advisory Committee, they are going to meet
on Thursday and have 100% attendance. And the Nightlife Advisory team, by the way,
is everybody from operators like Live Nation to Blue Flame, operators as well as promoters,
as well as lawyers, as well as individuals that are property owners, all of them
or a part of the Nightlife Advisory Council, but again, this nuisance property legislation
that I think that you guys have before you today that from what I can tell in that ordinance,
you're talking about nuisance properties, not just nightlife.
And so I came here in support of y'all making sure that you work together with the advisory
council, the advisory team, they're going to meet on Thursday, and you guys work
out. Two in 24, three in 18, those are the, that's where government gets to make the difference
in how we communicate with the public and understand what's the best. But what we do want is to
make sure that operators operate the right way and that bad actors get dealt with in
a way that either makes them become good actors or they act as somebody else's jurisdiction
and not ours.
So, I'll pause there and just say thank you to my colleagues. Again, I wanted to go
over public safety. Mr. Hillers, Chairman Hillers, you and I both have served on public safety for
many years. When I was a city council member and I had the honor and privilege to serve as the
chairman in 2017 and I didn't want to do a press conference or anything where I'm talking to
folks and you're not in the room. I wanted to make sure I talked to the city council about
all the things that's going on.
And also, I know I have friends, neighbors, colleagues,
and folks that, and community members that are in this room,
and they have concerns and input on all of it.
And my team that's behind me,
everybody from the COO, the chief of staff,
the senior advisor to police officials,
to nightlife coordinators,
to the filming and entertainment office,
to deputy COOs, to all the above, police, fire.
We stand here with you.
We stand with the citizens of Atlanta and we plan to continue to get it right as you've seen those numbers go down
We we want to continue in that path and that trajectory today. You have some pieces of legislation before you the council
You have an awesome role to play
My administration has voiced our support of the ones that we want to see move forward today
And the ones that we want more time to discuss. We've shared those with you as well
We hope you work with us on this. Thank you so much council members. I'm available for questions
Thank You mayor Dickens anyone council member Boone also as the mayor acknowledged we have been joined by a council member waits a
member of this committee and then also
Councilmember Antonia Lewis
Yes, mr. Mayor. Thank you so much for your support
during the incident at Wilson Mill Park and
And I want to publicly thank the chief of police for coming out walking with the neighbors and talking with them.
Within 24 hours, he was on the ground.
Ms. Burks, Mr. Otta, thank you all also for your concern.
And it's unfortunate that that happened in Southwest Atlanta.
That's a very quiet park and we look forward to working with you all so that that park can return to safety again
Thank you for your support for that community. Thank you
councilmember bone
Councilmember whites
Thank you, mr. Chairman
Mr.. Mayor, thank you so much for taking the time out of your calendar to join us as you know
We have met and discussed our concerns with respect to the jail issue and I think that
We know where we both stand on that, but with respect to the nuisance law, I originally
was a signer on this particular piece of legislation for the same reasons that you have eloquently
spoke of today.
And I think the headlines in the news speak to the fact that we need to do something.
The phone calls that I have received, and I'm pretty sure most of us in the room
have received, are with respect to properties that are located in districts that are
or pro-development, meaning they feel that they have been somehow harassed by individuals
who are utilizing this as a tool to put them out of business.
So I'm not here to speak to whether or not that is true or not.
But for me, that gives me pause in terms of making sure that this legislation does not
have unintended consequences.
So I won't be labor because I know people are waiting for public comment, but I will
say this.
I believe that there was a mugging in Lenox Square Mall this weekend.
And my feeling is that when it comes to Lenox Square Mall,
they're not going to be treated as a bad actor,
meaning they or a business that is operating,
and things around them happen.
I did need the collapse,
because the mayor also understands both sides of the issue.
But this is a complex situation,
and what I believe is that we need to figure out
how we protect those small mom-and-pop business owners,
because my feeling is that this particular tool may be weaponized
against them and they don't have the high-powered attorneys to protect themselves and so for
that reason, so I am a no only for that reason, but I will say to you for that reason, I also
signed on because I agree with you that we have some very serious challenges and your
presence here means a lot to me today.
Thank you.
Thank you, Council Member Ways for all of that because I value your input and that's
why we meet and share ideas often and so to go to all of that.
So specifically, it's nuisance properties, it's not just nightlife.
In fact, our nightlife activities, since we put in place the nightlife division,
we've gone out and done a number of assessments of properties north, south, east and west,
gone to these establishments, helped them with their safety plans,
helped them look at their lighting, their cameras, what are their de-escalation procedures?
What are their procedures if a mass shooting occurs?
Many of them have been grateful for the assistance of police and fire
and knowledgeable subject matter experts coming in there
and helping them fortify their places of business so that people can enjoy them,
but go home safe.
And a lot of times they're thinking about the patrons, but also their staff.
They're thinking about how to do, you know, how to manage all of that.
And so I'm happy with the progress of the nightlife division because we've seen a
significant reduction in crimes that have occurred at nightlife, not with
standing one or two very notable incidents that have happened, but we
went about 45 to 60 days without one incident happening at our nightlife
establishments. I'm proud of that. That's not meaning that we're coming to
penalize that. We're coming to lock arms and partner with that.
So
This is the right direction.
They're showing up to the training day to get training on how to work with neighborhoods
because that's also part of the training is neighborhoods call and say you're too noisy.
How to deal with that?
Neighborhoods call and say, can you use the patio?
Can you not?
All those things, we're helping nightlife establishments in that regard.
And also how to protect your property with APD or with private security.
What is the right number of people for your configuration?
All that is in the works to be a partner with nightlife, and that partnering has led to a reduction in crimes at nightlife establishments.
I stand here saying we are on the right path.
Nuisance properties are every type of property, as you mentioned.
If Linux Mall has 50 incidents or 40 incidents or 2 and 24 months, as you would suggest, whatever you come up with as the rule, that rule is established for every operator.
And so does the appeals process and the I would say the restoration process it is
Not to simply lock you up and throw away the keys, so to speak, to counsel your business.
It is to make sure that if you are not in compliance with the rules, you have to set aside time to get into compliance with the rules.
That could be a shutdown for X number of days that we all should discuss.
That's the work of the council and the administration.
Is it 30 days? Is it 10 days? Is it 45 days?
That is the work of us to decide how long you need to sit down
because people are dying in your facility
or people are getting shot in your facility.
That is called decency and respect for victims.
Conversation throughout this public safety committee
has to use the word victim every now and then.
There is a such thing as a victim.
And so a victim that happens twice in a month
or twice, whatever number we come up with, they have rights. They need to see justice
occur too. And so when we see a bad actor, whether it's Linux or not, whether it's name
your favorite hotel that may have something going on and something happened, they have
to come sit before a body and explain themselves and say, what is their way to get back
on track? That's what my understanding of your legislation is, right? So with that,
it's not to hurt mom and pops and keep the non-mom and pops going it is a
process and so if the Chevron in District 12 continues to have shootings at
it I don't care who owns it it's time out for that Chevron because there's a
victim on the other end council member waits right and there are people who
are victims because they feel unsafe going to that Chevron so you
victimized what you got shot of you victimized because you live in a food
desert you can't go to the Chevron because folks getting shot. I don't care if you're a
mom-pop or a conglomerate. The truth of the matter is in our city it got to stop.
That's how we vote. We vote on stopping things that we don't want in this
city.
We don't do that. Figure to which way the wind blows. We got to stop
foolishness in our city. So if it's a Chevron that's owned by 10 or if it's
a Chevron on by one, I don't care. If a grandma got shot there, my first month on the job
and somebody gets shot there this month, I think the council got something to say about
that. Or should.
And then we got to sit them down and talk to that operator. And they
stop for a few, how many days we come up with? That's my answer.
Council Member Lewis.
Thank you again, Mayor. I'm not on this
committee, but I thought it was important to be here today just as you did, so I
appreciate you for coming.
Thank you for coming to speak to Council. I appreciate
you for drawing circles. I always tell you you draw circles, but I'm a person
who draw half circles, right? I haven't gotten there yet. I'm I haven't aged to
the point where I draw full circles yet, right, around the lines. So you move
in good faith and always tell people you're a deacon. I always say he's a
So you've got to remember that portion, right?
But when we're moving with, you have a well-developed plan to move out of the jail lease in four years.
Last week when I met with the sheriff, his plan was not the same.
And so I want to see the sheriff move out of the jail.
He won't, the same way, the same kind of plan as you have to move in.
He has a plan to ramp up.
Like he won't just put 700 people in the jail overnight.
He's going to get there over time.
He won't just put all of his sheriffs in that jail overnight. He's gonna get there over time
I want to see if it's a one-year plan to move to 700 beds. I want to see a one-year plan to move out
I want to see that same intention up front
And so that's why I would like more time on that jail
Because once again, I know you move in good faith and I always make sure I say you're a deacon
But I know I want to see the same type of intention to move into the jail to get to 700.
I want to see him move down to zero in the same exact way.
I want to see that same plan on date, you know, before I give a vote.
Like you would, engineer Deacon Mayor.
Thank you.
Mr. Lewis, you are astute and, you know, a great person that bring in the whole picture into play a lot of times.
you do that well, and I appreciate you for that.
So one clear statement, ain't no sheriff of the city of Atlanta.
We got a chief, we have a mayor.
So that's Sheriff, where his thoughts are, he can share them with you, he can highlight
them to you, he can put them on the news, but we make the decisions around here, full
stop.
He couldn't get to 700 like that. He's got a higher staff to be able to manage 700 people.
So to get to 700, you have to hire, you have to manage, so it is a ramp up.
And so the first phase, and Ms. Burks behind me can make sure I'm right,
the 250 women that are down, well it's actually 300 now, so you start moving,
so you ramp up and then ramp down is according to how well we are going to
require them to improve their full criminal justice process. There's a
solicitor, there's a district attorney, and there are judges. People should be
moving through these processes a lot faster so that we don't have
individuals in the jail for years on years on years waiting trial. That in and
of itself is why we have an overcrowding issue. It ain't our fault, but it is our
problem. We can't shirk away from the problem just because it's not our fault.
The more we keep thinking that they tell us what to do, that's not how that's
all. What we're putting inside of this is a conversation about in four
years they resolve that issue of the the judges which we need to talk about and
how many cases they can see in a year and that's a that that we're starting to
force that hand I just wanted to make that clear and I even want you to go
there for us to detail see I appreciate you for drawing a little far
but everybody needs to know you gave us you you talk your plan what you just
gave was part of what I wanted to hear about how we get out of there
because you know just ramping up cases as well like like even though I said
something about the sheriff it's his job to find beds for folks that are
sleeping on the floor right I got friends sleeping on the floor and so when
I saw those crates and I saw folks sleeping in those crates and I was able
to go to ACDC and I seen the difference I mean I just want to make sure that
the sheriff understands your vision because I'm team you right I just want
to make sure that happens. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you.
Okay. Any other council members?
Mayor, thank you. I will just briefly speak on the nuisance ordinance. That was my legislation
that I worked with your administration, Mr. Donald on. So I appreciate that. And similar
to your point, my goal in that and my hope is I don't want this city to shut down
anyone because I want them to work with us to better their problems that are
contributing to crime. Just as an example yesterday, I've reached out to you. I
reached out to an owner of a multifamily property because I was
concerned about crime. They had a homicide and had multiple part one
crimes in their community that's been open less than eight months. So we're
We're working to set up a meeting with them to see how we can help and how they can help
their situation.
So the goal is to not shut down anyone.
The city has already shut down six businesses without this ordinance.
We'll continue to work that path with the bad actors who do not want to work with
us.
So I just wanted to give that two cents in and thank you again for coming to address
the Public Safety Committee.
Thank you, Mr. Hillers.
And I'll get out of your way.
I did want to just say one, we have the Nightlife Advisory Council.
A lot of those individuals are folks that you can reach out to and talk to.
They are meeting on Thursday and would be happy to have your input on that.
They are going to help come up with ideas with you guys on timelines and number of dates,
how many within a certain period of time and then what's the correction process,
the curing process and so you know but also be reminded that you all along with
us put twenty million dollars in the hands of small businesses plus ten
million dollars for the resurgence grant plus more and more money from this
administration for small businesses over and over again we're showing our
commitment as a previous small business owner of a retail location I
understand the challenges of being a small business owner but also that
through our support financially and in West Atlanta and others, we have support for them.
But as far as nuisances are concerned, that's a problem for all of us if they don't get into
right standing, no matter if they're small, medium or large.
We want to make sure that people operate with their permit, permission that is granted
that they operate at the standard that every citizen deserves.
So thank you all.
take care thank you Mayor Dickens and on the point of the just quick
on the point
of the nuisance legislation just wanted to let people know if there's anyone
here to comment the intent of myself as the author is to hold that
legislation pending the meeting of the nightlife advisory council that Mayor
Dickens mentioned so that is going to be held today so at this point I will
first recognize we've been joined by councilmember Michael Gilliam Bond
Welcome. And now we will move on to public comment and I will first call up
Fulton County Commissioner Natalie Hall.
Good afternoon. I'm a little bit hoarse
and I can't speak as loud as the mayor but I hope everyone can hear me clearly.
Thank you Mayor Dickens for drawing those circles of inclusion. That's one
One of the reasons why I'm here today and thank you to the Atlanta City Council for
allowing me to speak directly following the Mayor and his words of encouragement.
I'm your Fulton County Commissioner of District 4, Natalie Hall, the Fearless Four, and with
me today I have Michael Schoatz, the Deputy Chief of Staff to Fulton County Sheriff
Patrick Pat LeBotte and my Chief of Staff, Anita Harris.
So there are two reasons why
I'm here today. One is because of the ordinance that was introduced by, I don't see him, Michael
Julian Bond. And the second is the resolution introduced by Keisha Sean Waits. And I'm
here to tell you that we need both of them. And the reason why we need both of them
is because of the overcrowding in the Fulton County jail. As a mother of two adult sons,
and many of us who are parents know that we never want to get that phone call that our
child is being taken to the Fulton County jail. And for those of us who have loved
ones who live in Fulton County, you never want to get that call that a loved one is
in the Fulton County jail. But even beyond that, because of the conditions within the
Fulton County jail, you don't want to ever have any loved one or yourself be locked up
in the Fulton County jail. It is an inhumane environment. The overcrowding is just only
one part of it. The jail is old. If you walk, many of you walk through the jail,
I was told that the sheriff actually had you tour the jail and you were able to see these conditions.
It is horrific and I don't care if somebody is in the jail locked up.
They should still be treated humanely.
They should still be treated as a human being.
So the current conditions in the jail are indecent.
As you know, we have a mental ward in the jail which is separate from the main population,
the general population, but the general population is just as bad because we don't have enough
room for all of those who are diagnosed by the psychiatrist and psychologist as needing
to be in the mental ward of the jail.
And let's just address this 350 number because I keep hearing this number of 350.
Well, that 350 number comes from the number of misdemeanors that are in the jail.
And let me just break that 350 number down.
None of those 350 misdemeanors can be released out onto the street
because 252 of them have additional charges that keep them in the jail.
134 of them.
Have mental issues. And then there are those that the judges sentenced and said no, they cannot be released from the jail because of the things that they have done.
So we're not holding anyone in the jail that isn't supposed to be there. So I want to make that very clear.
Now, as far as council member waits, council member bond, your ordinance, your resolution,
I agree with both of them.
But we need the 700 beds.
We have people sleeping in boats.
We have things going on in the jail that by law I cannot even express to you publicly.
publicly. I cannot even show you publicly by law. And this is the reason that we need
the 700 beds. Now someone said earlier something about decreasing the number of beds that we
lease from you from ACDC. That can happen because the Board of Commissioners approved
a feasibility study for us to know how much would it cost and what would it take
for us to renovate the current jail or what would it cost for us to build a new
jail. And once we get that at the end of the year we'll be able to make a
decision on how to move forward. We are going to make sure that we have a
jail that is clean, that provides adequate services and programs so that people can leave
that jail successfully.
Not to continue, not for reentry.
We are going to make sure that pre-arrest diversion works.
I believe in that center, that John Robert Lewis Center for Equity, I believe in that.
And as a commissioner, I've always fought for that.
Devin Barrington Ward, I saw you here somewhere. Are you behind me now? Devin
has met with me and Zochi Brevera and Marilyn Nguyen and so many others for
the past five years that I've been commissioner and then before that with
the late County Commissioner, Joan P. Garner, who I was Chief of Staff to for the six years
that she was in this seat, and we have discussed pre-arrest diversion on many occasions. We
have expressed our support and that we are thinking the same. We need to provide wraparound
services for people. People should not be locked up in jail just because they have
mental and behavioral health issues and to our residents please please stop
being angry with the mayor and the members of the Atlanta City Council for
not providing you with health and human services it is not their
responsibility by law by law the state mandates the county Fulton County to
provide health and human services and believe you me we get millions and
millions of federal and state dollars to do so and that is why Fulton County is
known as having the best programs and services in the state of Georgia better
than any county in this state and so the collaboration is key that is why I'm
here that is why I've talked to you I've talked to pretty much everyone on
this this council because collaboration between Fulton County and the city of
Atlanta is a must because we have the services and programs that you're all looking for in
your communities to ensure that you're successful, the youth are successful, seniors, low-income
families, yes, we have housing, we have a workforce development department that provides
jobs and jobs training, we have Fulton Fresh which helps with those food deserts
And yes, for those of you who think
that I don't have food deserts in my district
just because I serve the city of Atlanta,
I do have food deserts.
That is any community that doesn't have
a fresh produce grocery store
within a one mile radius of their home.
And there are many of them.
So today I am pleading with you and I'm begging you.
As the Mayor said, for a humanitarian response, that you all will come together and offer the
beds that we need to relieve the crowding and the inhumane conditions in the jail, but
to also work toward creating that center of equity.
And we would love to be a partner with you to ensure that those services and programs
are provided.
And let's save some money. Why in the world would we double dip in our money and have you provide services and programs that we're mandated by the state to provide anyway?
Save that money and give back to the community where the money belongs is their money.
But we have to work together. We have to collaborate. We have to communicate.
And I look forward to speaking with you in executive session.
Thank you so much and thank you for your humanitarian response in advance.
Thank you.
Thank you, Commissioner Hall. I'm just a correction to my previous statement.
Commissioner Hall's comments fall under section 2-105 of our city code,
which is statements by elected officials in the award of 10 minutes.
So next we will be moving to our public comment agenda.
Thank you again, Commissioner Hall.
public
comment first we have Sarah Kim.
Hello, Sarah Kim here from Rbar ATL on
Edgewood Avenue. Thank you all for yet another opportunity to speak. I would like
to use this time to elaborate further on the few points I had raised last week.
I urge the council members here to please take the time into consideration
prior to making our decisions. First, the wording of this ordinance has
been crafted to place the entirety of blame for rising crime on the backs
of business owners and community leaders, when in fact we've pleaded with the city for years
to reduce crime and give support for better-patriot experiences. One proposed remedy among many
had been to create a pedestrian-only zone, aka an official nightlife district, similar
to what we had been implemented successfully in other major cities. As such, this ordinance
has been worded in a way that misleads the public and ignores the many years of
pleading and requests for assistance from businesses to the city that have gone unanswered.
Second, the apparent existence of a hidden watch list and nuisance list is alarming and
concerning.
It seems to imply an unwillingness to work with businesses fairly and without favoritism
to large corporations and chains.
Without these secret lists being made accessible to the public and updated at least weekly,
how do you expect to demonstrate proper accountability and due process?
This would at least mitigate the risk of the bad actors slipping through as a result
of racism, corruption, and other biases.
The same time this also gives responsible parties the opportunity to proactively address their issues.
Third, this one size fits all punishment that the ordinance seeks to use is so drastic and crude
that it seems to consider all violations the same with zero context to extenuating circumstance.
Can the city council members please take the time to consider and implement a sliding scale system with more nuance?
Since this ordinance seems to be handing the city a very big hammer,
I'm deeply worried that all the small businesses will just start looking like nails.
Fourth, at what point has the business done enough?
I understand that to define this standard, excuse me, at what point has the business done enough?
I understand that this may be hard to determine, but this ordinance fails to appreciate
that most businesses are victims of the city's rising crimes themselves.
Perhaps some businesses are indeed not doing enough,
But that city needs to define that standard and hold to it in order for a fair social contract to take place between the city
And it's many hard-working business owners
Right now businesses are just left holding the bag every single time whether we did enough or not whether the crime was enough or
Whether the crime was our fault or not
Can we agree that a business should not be held accountable for violence that can't be directly and reasonably traced to it?
Just because it's the easy thing to do does not mean that it should be done when public safety and people's
livelihoods are both on the line.
Fifth, I learned at the last public safety meeting
that the solicitor's office will perform
a thorough investigation to determine
if a property meets this nuisance requirements.
With that said, when is the last time
any of those officials walked or patronized
any of the city's multiple nightlife areas
after midnight on a Saturday night?
I question how.
With their lack of experience
of Atlanta's nightlife culture,
we can expect them to fairly and thoroughly
understand and judge these cases.
Thank you, Thomas Expar.
Next is Brother Anthony Muhammad.
My heart holds health as shade, as shade, and as shade.
I am, Brother Anthony Muhammad. I am a spiritual man.
I do know more, believe in religion.
I have no need for religion simply said,
not one person in your book of the Bible, in all 66 books.
Not one person was born from a woman who could not, not one.
I come here today to applaud the mayor.
As I was watching Georgia games, it said that the city council, along with the mayor, contemplated
a line of jail during this time of emergency with Fulton County to make room for those dark
people, majority people in jail in the state of Georgia.
judge the fourth largest institution of dark people in the United States of America.
But I ask this, why is it, as I heard Ms. Caronza, Caronza Howard-Rabb make a comment,
let's be human.
We are the most warrior people on earth, dark people.
We have an ancestry that was people able to do telepathology.
They were able to breathe underwater.
They created the civilization of all the earth, and here in 2022, we are the last person on
earth to have access to economic empowerment.
If you recall Queen Elizabeth in 1952 when you was installed, you was installed and you
He was given a right to empower over 90 percent of the dark people, economic empowerment only
hurt.
I was born in 1952.
So I'm asking you members of this council, let's look towards the people that you say,
oh, nobody, never been nobody.
Do you know you're looking at a wire, you're saying, because I'm dark.
I'm what you put up under that airplane.
I'm the greatest conductor of energy in the world, right?
What is energy?
99.99% are weak, unless the 1% is physical matter.
But I call on the ancestor.
I call on the father to
teach my soul consciousness every day.
I want you to know our people have to wake up to the knowledge they are the power.
You have a 360 degrees access to power, but you've got to be told that you've got
know your ancestors and know how they were working in unison with the Mataq principles.
Mataq principles represent balance in the universe, but you can't continue to go along
with this made up world, and everything you want to do, you can do it.
And I'm going to end it with this, please.
I have problem with the chief.
I have problem with my neighborhood because of dog not being on a lease.
Thank you. Your time has expired. Oh, thank you for telling me my time to say I missed it
So I appreciate you joined by council member buck tiari. I greet you as I come awesome. I'm a Laker
May I make your hotel next speaker is Lauren Knight. Good
afternoon. I would like to delegate my time to Sarah Kim. Thank you
Fifth I learned in the last public safety meeting that the solicitor's office will perform a thorough
Investigation to determine if a property meets the nuisance requirements
With that said, when is the last time any of those officials walked or patronized any
of the city's multiple nightlife areas after midnight on a Saturday night?
A question how, with their lack of experience of Atlanta nightlife culture, we can expect
them to fairly and thoroughly understand and judge these cases.
I am worried that they will unduly fear what they do not understand.
Six, can we count on the solicitor's office to keep that same energy towards
investigating the many illegal street food and alcohol vendors that are active
around the city?
Can we agree that these illegal street vendors are a public nuisance and getting them off
the street can offer an immediate positive impact on public safety?
Why target brick and mortar businesses who have gone through the permitting and the
steps when there are so many irresponsible actors with zero training, accountability
and no oversight offering questionable food and alcohol to the public?
Seventh, since this ordinance is pushing the responsibility of public safety within
four feet, including on public sidewalks and streets, to private businesses, how
How will code enforcement identify and distinguish when the city has failed its own public safety
responsibility beyond the four feet when an incident happens?
How exactly does this address the problem?
We address the issues of loiterers, the illegal street vendors, large gatherings, car clubs,
and other bad actors who operate beyond the forefeet while their activities might or might
not encroach this imaginary forefoot boundary. If unruly customers are kicked out of establishments
but they stay outside in loiter, what do you officially recommend businesses to do?
If they're angry enough to go back to their car parked on a city street to retrieve a
weapon, how is that the responsibility of the business? At what point can we all
agreed that the lack of APD street presence and foot patrols has failed to deter crime.
Eighth, this ordinance will only increase the use and importance of off-duty cops as
security for private businesses. This is not only expensive for businesses, but a problematic
trend overall. Let alone our own 35 percent rate of success when hiring off-duty officers,
what more do you expect and de facto force businesses to do in order to uphold an
an arbitrary standard of quasi-public safety.
This ordinance will only accelerate the use of off-duty cops for security if only to serve
as a safety banquet against the discriminant use of this ordinance.
So will the city at least streamline and standardize this complicated and expensive
process for retaining off-duty APD services?
Ninth, what is the process for rehabilitation in the event a business is determined to
be a nuisance?
What type of financial support will the city provide over the 12 months and how
will it be established?
If the ordinance is truly focused on creating a safer and better Atlanta, it should focus
on supporting and nurturing small business and minority-owned businesses by offering
them recourse, alternatives, and a way forward.
Tenth and lastly, I am a small business owner and a first-time business owner, and I do
not own the building I am a tenant in.
This is the case for most small businesses in the city.
Even with the amendment to notify both the lawyer and the tenant, we can amend
the ordinance to ensure that the landlord cannot weaponize it to threaten or even
evict their tenants for their own financial gain.
I would like to conclude by acknowledging how thankful I am for the opportunity to bring to you my concerns before you all and the work that the City Council has done and continues to do in their efforts to create this better and safer Atlanta.
Thank you.
Next is Travis Lee.
Travis Lee.
Chiquina Turner.
Rashad Robertson.
Good afternoon. My name is Rashad. I'm here with Hilliard Starchy Law. I actually wanted to yield my time to Attorney Hilliard.
Good
afternoon Chairman Hillis, members of the committee, I'm Hakeem Hilliard with Hilliard
Starkey Law.
Good to be with you this afternoon.
Appreciate the opportunity to talk about this nuisance legislation again.
And Chairman Hillis, I think it's, appreciate your deferral of this action until the Night
Life Committee has a chance to meet.
I think that's the right decision and we appreciate that a great deal.
I wanted just to share a couple of comments and I'll be brief and kind of save the
balance for that discussion that's happening later this week.
But I wanted to talk for a brief moment about the original ordinance
that was adopted in March or May of 2021
when you added these nuisance properties and establishments like this
to the definition of nuisance in the city ordinance for the first time.
Since that time, as has been testified to
previously, there's been I think eight businesses that have
been set down, pursuant to that ordinance. There's several others that are in the pipeline
that have been served that are waiting for their hearings to take place. And then there's
another list, I understand that is, they say it's confidential, but as prosecutors I think
they don't want to disclose, but there's another list of businesses to be served.
So the current ordinance appears to be working to the city satisfaction, as the mayor testified
to earlier. And so there's a little bit of confusion as to why we are proposing
this amendment to the ordinance that says two violent incidents in a 24-month period.
It's not just that it's those two incidents in the 24-month period.
It directs the court to close the business.
So it takes all of the discretion away from the judge in evaluating these cases.
I've sat in a couple of these nuisance hearings in the middle of the court,
and the judge is very thoughtful.
The prosecutors are very aggressive.
Raines Carter has his crack top deputies prosecuting these cases,
and the judge evaluates the evidence,
asks questions, and makes a fair decision.
And so it's not just that we're saying in 24 months
that there's two violent incidents.
The question is why is it that the ordinance
purports to take all of the discretion away from the judge
and just evidence of those violations themselves
require the immediate closure of the property.
And so it may be,
and I think you've heard several people speak about their concerns
about uneven enforcement of this rule. The best way to protect against uneven enforcement
is to eliminate all the vagueness in the ordinance. And there are several questions with respect
to the ordinance that we have. How do you get on the nuisance list? How do you abate
the nuisance? If somebody is shot within four feet of your business as the ordinance
contemplates, how do you determine whether it's the responsibility of the business?
And if it does happen, how do you abate that nuisance when two unrelated people,
unrelated to the business have a dispute within four feet of your business, how do they take
responsibility to abate that nuisance? What is the formal notice that you get before you,
what is the formal notice that you receive before you are served with the nuisance action,
that you have opportunity to abate that nuisance and not be on the nuisance list?
So there's several questions that we think could be resolved by amending this ordinance
further and clarifying that in the law. So people that are worried about uneven
enforcement and who have maybe been subject to uneven enforcement can feel
more comfortable about it. I attend MPU's all over the city with businesses that
are seeking alcohol licenses for different uses and many of them it's
very clear that when they walk in the MPU makes a decision to deny the
application before they hear from the applicant because they don't want that
type of business or they want that type of applicant in their
neighborhoods. They have a right to make that decision, but then those businesses that are
here before you today have a right to feel a little uncomfortable about laws that are
written that don't provide the clarity that they need to understand how it's going to
be enforced. I appreciate the Mayor's comment that Lennox Mall will be treated just as
all the other businesses. And if that's true, let's make it clear in the law that
that's what's going to happen, that it doesn't matter what type of business you
are and everybody is going to be subject to the same standard. Everybody that has
the potential nuisance gets noticed in writing that your business is a potential nuisance
and here are the reasons we think it's problematic and here's the time you have to abate it before
you get on the nuisance list.
And so I don't understand and I think a lot of the businesses here do not understand
what the rush is to pass a law that restricts the role of the court in deciding whether
a nuisance exists or not.
We've been talking about nightlife but I think part of the discussion is about
gas stations and all conclude with this and we talked about it a little last
time. There's a lot of wisdom in the community about how to do these things.
There's businesses that operated nightlife establishments in the city for
more than three decades that done it successfully without incident and they
should be a part of this conversation about how to resolve these issues. It's
not just about punishment. It's how do you identify best practices and
encourage that in the ordinances that you've adopted. That's true in the
nightlife industry. We've got wisdom with us true in the gas station
the gas station industry actually has a manual, best practices, how do you manage public safety issues at gas stations.
And so let's talk to the folks that know it very, very well and share their comments with you so you can incorporate that into the law.
But let's get this ordinance, give this ordinance some clarity so there's no confusion and we can eliminate the concern about uneven enforcement
because our experiences here in this room are very different than some of the businesses
and the experiences that they have in action.
So I appreciate the opportunity to be here.
Look forward to participating in the discussion on Thursday
and inviting some of those folks there and sharing their wisdom
and hopefully coming back to you for more conversation.
We appreciate the time.
Next is Donna Matthews.
Donna Matthews.
Next, Vincent Fort.
Good
afternoon.
I'm here on an issue that some may say is a small issue, but it's a large issue to the people in my neighborhood, the people who live close to Camelton and Harbin Road.
At that site there is a convenience store construction site. It is left open after hours and on the weekends.
And there's nothing on Campton Road in that area but apartments with small children.
And they walk by it every day.
There's a 10-foot pit, there's a 10-foot pit on this construction site.
We black children walk by it every day.
And nothing has been done over the last several months.
I've reached out to the fire department and the police department and they have
done nothing.
I've reached out to politicians.
they have done nothing. I appreciate Councilmember Waite's responding to my
queries last Thursday and Friday. I appreciate that. You know, a lot of
politicians, a lot of city councilmembers and others come down to
Greenbride, Camelton Road for ribbon-cuttings and announcements in
Todd Hall meetings. And then when a little black child needs some help, they
don't care. You can't find them. Don't come down there no more cutting a ribbon and don't
take care of this because, you know, I'm a hellraiser from way back. Hello, somebody.
And I put up a picket lining up, New York Second.
I can assure you that the property
owner, that the property owner, the applicant, the liquor store lawyer, the zoning lawyer,
I can assure you that when they leave that location, they don't come nowhere in their
Camperton Road. They're going north, west, south, wherever they can go. But care about
children. I know when I was eight, nine, ten years old, I got into construction
sites. I got into warehouses, had no business being there, young, didn't know
better. So I'm just asking you, I don't know how City Hall runs, but there used to
be a time when a council member say something, the staff would run down
there and stand in front of the location. Now, the staff run to join. You know, so I have
some real concerns about that.
Ultimately, y'all don't work for property owners or licensees
or lawyers, zoning lawyers or licensed liquor license applicants. You work for who? The
people. And I would hope because I'm going to give you another few days. I'm going to
give you another few days and then we're going to have to escalate. Because you got
to, if this was somewhere else in the city, that place would have been closed
months ago. I'm just appalled that the fire marshal and the fire department and
the police, you had about 12 police down here a minute ago. Send some of the
police down to Camelton and Harbin. Safest place in the city was right here at one o'clock.
Let's make Camelton Road safe. Don't come down there, showboating. The other comment
I wanted to make was about nuisances. Now I ain't going to speak for against the nuisance
bill because I don't know enough about it. What I do know is that some of y'all are
proposing to help out some of the worst nuisances in the city. That's Strip
Clubs. If you know the history, if you've been around for as long as I've been
10, 20, 30, 40 years, you know that the worst corruption in this city, police
corruption in this city, came out of Strip Clubs. Murders, child prostitution.
There's a reason police are prohibited from working at strip clubs, because don't tell
me you're going to keep them on the outside.
It's a matter of who writes that check that that police officer, they should work for
the city and the city only when it comes to strip clubs.
They can have other jobs, but to have a police officer getting paid, you think that
arson this weekend at the strip club you think that was coincidental you think
that was somebody smoking in the bed no I learned years ago they cast something
at the strip clubs called firemen you know what a fireman is at strip club
somebody they let sleep overnight in the strip club so nobody will burn it
up. If you look in the records, strip clubs have been bird every all the time.
So to even
imagine having police officers in strip clubs is, you talk about a nuisance. I don't know
nothing about the nuisances these folks talk about. But I know what's been the shooting
and cutting that go on in strip clubs. So I would hope that you would reconsider.
I don't know. Maybe it's past. I haven't been following it close enough.
I haven't been following it close enough. So I don't know.
Have y'all already passed that? So let them please.
Don't do it. Because who remembers the dirty three murder?
The dirty three cops. Y'all don't remember?
I know you do. You owe like me.
They went and killed
The strip club owner. They went and killed the strip club owner to try to rob him. This is
just beyond belief. Talk about nuisance, then. You got a nuisance coming if you do that. And
lastly, about the jail. I'm not as informed, and I apologize, informed about the jail situation.
I will be brought up with you, but I do know one thing. I do know this. Keep the promises
promises you make to the people. Keep the promises you make. Don't treat the people like they
stupid. People ain't stupid. They see when you tell a lie and they see when you tell
the truth. So, you know, all the presentations at this microphone for 30 minutes talking
about, you know, I don't want to hear that. Just keep your promises to the people.
people should at least expect that from you. So I appreciate you so much. I've got three
minutes left. I'll come back and say, use the rest some other time. Thank you, God bless
you.
Janette Jackson?
Hello. My name is Janette Jackson and I'm here. I'm not feeling very well, but I'm
here for you to hear my daughter's name, which is Elani Lenore. She's been missing
for nine days and I know where she was taken from, which is building 1660 Peachtree luxury
apartments. The police, I'm here really because I want to speak to the police department,
Atlanta police department that has done almost nothing in communication and transparency.
I'm here to thank Mrs. Boom, Councilman Boom, thank you for showing me some kind
of compassion and caring. I'm here to address that the police need some more training in
how they deal with people who are hurting because I was turned away and I'm pleading
that my daughter is missing and I have no answers until I got on TV. I shouldn't have
to use all the resources and do all the grass roots. We are human beings. You should
care about us. But she is a little brown girl in the inner city having a good time. In Midtown
she was taken. In Midtown.
And I'm upset and appalled that after I'm on the TV now you
want to reach out to me and give me some trash. There is a video with my daughter going
into this location and I have been asking for, I have the right to know what happened
into my daughter. I knew who she was with. I know the three people. I talked to them.
And there is she's been abducted. She's not missing. She wouldn't leave. I knew all that
she was and all that she is and all that you will try to say she was. Nobody deserves
to disappear and you do not care. And Atlanta police department has not been transparent
and forthcoming until the news came and they still haven't given me an answer
about that video and I am not going to spend the time saying what was said to
me because it's not pretty it's not what I won't want the snapshot here but I am
saying that these police officers need to be trained from sergeants to
lieutenants all the way up and I heard the mayor talking then do your
job, force their hand to do the right things in this community because she's not the only
brown girl that's missing. She just happens to have parents that care about her and we're
not going to stop fighting to find her. So don't forget my daughter's name is Alani
Lenore and that I will not stop and I will be visiting each and every one of you knocking
and making you keep saying her name because she's been abducted.
Vincent Harper.
I hear my time to do one move.
Chairperson, I have about nine minutes. I have myself
I signed in and Lance Irvin and pre-gain.
Who is the second person dedicating their time to you?
Lance Irvin and the gentleman from pre-gain.
Okay. Thank you.
I would like to speak to start out with
what former Senates and Fort said about the strip clubs.
When he said that those are white strip clubs owner,
I don't think many people who are not from Atlanta are young people where,
Tony Olula, I don't know if you're young, I don't know if you even know this man.
Just in the 60s, a black cop, black cops were not allowed
to even carry weapons. They had to get dressed
on bank hit at the Boys and Girls Club. They couldn't get dressed with the other white cops.
So black cops were not even allowed in the strip clubs on Vincent Ford, so they couldn't protect them
So any violence or carousal going on was white strip clubs owners back in the day because black people couldn't even get a license in the city of Atlanta
Let that be clear
Second thing when it come to the jails
So one thing happened
I'm in Atlanta where Maynard Jackson was
mirror. It was a different time, white versus black. So Maynard had to
galvanize, everybody had to go with Maynard. Where Maynard left, it was Andy
Turner and so on and so on. But what happened was there was not enough voter
education. People don't understand how politics work. So the sheriff, LaBotte
has nothing to do with people getting locked up. Your judges and the DA's office
had something to do with mental, people getting locked up over there. The sheriff, only the
sheriff is saying, hey, we need extra bed because people are living in humane condition. We need
this space. So whatever promises are made, I'm not here to talk about that. But let's be clear,
we need those beds and we need that jail. So whatever anything else going on, the city of
Atlanta and the western Atlanta owned no property to donate this space and create
whatever everybody else is arguing about. But people are living in humane
condition because the overcrowding is of jails. You have one judge seeing 49 people.
You got another judge seeing 200 cases. Y'all need to get on them judges over there who
not still know people to get them out of them jails. That's the overcrowding
problem. It ain't the sheriff's job. The sheriff's job is saying, hey listen, I
recognize a problem. I need your help City of Atlanta. Now back to this
nuisance thing.
Like a attorney here said, we do need to define that. And my problem is
Atlanta, this go talk with Mayor and everybody up here. The problem we have in Atlanta is
we are too clickish. We are too clickish. Councilman Boone represent on Wilsonville
Park so that's near and dear to her. Her and the Mayor grew up playing over there.
If something happened over there, it's going to get hot ticketed quick. A.D. William
where I'm from, born home, something happened, and a damn thing will happen over there.
Because ain't nobody going to call and escalate the situation and care about the little black
boys over there in the bank here at this street, let's just be clear.
And that nuisance beer has to be clear, because guess what?
We know y'all are not going to bring off the blanks down here in Mr. Burnett Market
that something happened, because they are billionaires in this city.
I understand that they get a special phone called to the mirror.
Guess what?
He's going to answer that phone.
And one of y'all can answer that phone, too.
But the local business owner, who may need a little help that don't know y'all,
phone call won't get answered.
So it's the first thing we got to stop in Atlanta is who we do it for and why we do it for.
We understand a lot of these people donated campaigns.
Now I'm saying there's some leeway in there, we understand that.
But to change Atlanta, we have to stop that.
And we have to stop splitting hairs between black and white.
That's the younger generation because they don't live in a racist society.
Um, as anybody who 40 years and older I'm from bank here. So by the time I grew up white flight had already taken place out of Atlanta
I didn't see a white person in Atlanta bank it until I went to Cumberland mall or Linux
I just didn't grow up with it. So that so guess what? Um, it's no wood
I don't have a problem with white folks because I didn't grow up in that time
So I could stand on my ground and say mirror know what I support you you look me in my face and say
Hey, the one I want to help you up your nose and your people I can go for that because I don't have that
the young people don't have that. It's the older folks like Vincent Ford and
everybody else who want to continue to divide. We can't have that Atlanta if we're
gonna move forward. But when you get up here and speak about the strip club we
can't do that Mr. Ford. That's dividing though. That's dividing my friend. But
when you do that you divide though. But when you do that you divide though. And I
stand on it but you divide when you say strip club though.
Listen listen so
So like I said, we have to move forward in Atlanta and stop the division.
Like he said, if you're going to say something to people, stand on it, don't back away from
it.
Don't get up here and do that.
But we have to stop this in Atlanta and order to move forward.
It has to be some realness and all that fake stuff.
Y'all got to stop double talking and saying one thing and don't want to stand on it
because the mirror get up here.
He from Atlanta.
He has to do better.
His team, half his team is born and raised in Atlanta.
We have to do better. We've had nothing but black mirrors in Atlanta since 74.
Ain't no way Atlanta should be number one in America for income inequality.
You know what I'm saying?
When all we had was a majority black city council and a black mayor, there's no way.
Your daddy fought hard for this. Your daddy fought hard for this.
There's no way. There's no way. We gotta just stop that.
It's a simple fix. Y'all got the money.
We the people need help.
You know what I'm saying?
We got a lot of billionaires, 100 millionaires that live in the city of Atlanta.
We can get things funded that we want to when you want to get something funded in your
district.
It happens.
If the mayor wants something funded, and we got to stop, and there's another narrative
that we got to stop believing.
No mayor, no police chief, no police department stop crying in no city.
It happens from people in the community like myself who born and raised here, who
plead with young folks and say, hey man, don't you do that?
Hey man, don't you do that? You know what I'm saying? This man here from Cleveland Ave.
Can you imagine the conversation this man have all night long trying to help these young folks?
You know what I'm saying? We got a young guy from Oakland City, a little baby,
that bought out the whole West End Mall, you know what I'm saying?
The school supplies for the whole city of Atlanta.
He did that because he can afford to and he'd give a damn.
Nobody else, he didn't wait for nobody else to help him.
So true leadership is when you want to do something it can happen
Wait, no I'm saying when you get out here and you ask them put those people to vote for you give you money campaign
Man, you say everything in the world. You say everything in the world. You did met some y'all darn. They'll cry
But when you get up here, they got a big you to do us, right?
No, man. And like you said that nuisance gotta be clear
It has to be clear and mr.
arrange you got a reputation of being hard and doing the right thing so I'm
not worried about that because everybody said your reputation precedes you
everybody said you hard and you do the right thing but we have to do the right
thing and we have some things from the nightclub owner that we asking and
majority and we can sit down and talk about it is hey once you've had the
conversation with nightclub owners you asked them do they're supposed to do
we asking for a fine.
If something has happened inside that nightclub after that first fine,
hey, maybe seven days closure. Hey, if it's a second, third time, hey, maybe 14 days closure.
We don't ever want to get to the point of shutting them down unless there's probably
a fourth instance. And we're talking about, we're not even saying a murder. We just
saying situation that happened inside the nightclub. And there's a third party that
And I think the police department, a good friend over here, Peter Ammon is working with,
that would take the ownership from the nightclubs is the third party that wants to hire the
APD, the same rate from the nightclub, but they take the ownership and the blame from
the nightclub on if you hire the third party who's contracting with APD.
There's only four black companies in the whole state of Georgia that have state security
license with the yellow card all the rest of them is have LLCs so the nightclub
was saying hey that helps us out a lot if we can contract with this third party
company on who the city have made get a $10 million insurance policy let them
hire APD directly so therefore if something do happens the nightclub owner
are held blameless it's on the third-party APD or Petlabot Sheriff they
want to help in and start helping because guess what 9-1-1 is down. APD is saying hey we
having a hard trouble coming. If it was an APD officer or something happened he or she
have to call for backup but guess what? Fourth account of sheriff can take you directly to
right street. You don't have to call 9-1-1 you go straight to right street but it alleviates
the blame on the nightclub owners if the third party which APD have already approved
hires APD, hires to share deputies, something do happen, the nightclub owners
are not held blamed. So that's the main thing that we need to focus on, the
taking a blame away from the nightclub owners and just putting a blame on where
it is because every city in America is facing crime right now. So please we
ask y'all, we humbly ask y'all, you know what I'm saying, to this take
consideration of those things that we're asking this fair for everybody.
Everybody, like the mayor said, there's nightclub owners, Linux, George Don, World Congress Center, etc. Thank you.
Next is Doc Allen.
Good afternoon, council. It's kind of disturbing because a week ago this time I was speaking in front of you.
We was talking about nuisance and the nightlife.
It hides the problem in the city of Atlanta. I really didn't know what to say this morning,
but it's an extremely difficult conversation I have to have with my 11-year-old daughter
because in her eyes, and she's very coherent of what's going on, in her eyes it says you
guys are attacking the nightlife division. And she wakes up, she watches the news every
day so as taking her to school this morning her question to me was how could
they attack you guys when I watched the news every day and it was a kid killed
yesterday and it was a kid killed the day before it's been a murder in this
city for the last seven days and no one has attended nightlife so it's an
extremely difficult conversation I have to have with her about things
happen and sometimes you just have to let it play out to the way it is. Ms.
Waites, I appreciate you dissecting the situation was going on and it's a
good I appreciate that. The first thing I want to speak on is I speak on facts. I
speak on numbers. So I want to speak on the fact of what you talked about. How
How do you police the other entities in these cities as Lennox and such as other places?
Let me give you a couple things I did.
I pulled an open records report in the city of Atlanta.
Let me tell you what's going on.
So the nuisance is that they're doing a lot of the black businesses are being targeted.
And it's kind of, it's good that I see Lieutenant Carter in here today because he's
over the permits division.
Let me give you a few instances, and I'm going to speak on.
Zari is a restaurant in the city of Atlanta.
They received the citation one night.
They've been to due cause on the citation.
Another business on Roswell Road, not going to name it, predominantly white business,
received the same citation the same night, hasn't been to due cause at all.
Nothing has happened.
I'm going to get even bigger.
When we talk about these corporations, and that's why I appreciated what you said earlier,
these corporations, February 2022 Whole Foods received a citation for serving alcohol to
an underage minor.
Open records, pull it up.
Let's get even better.
You have two years to serve at Duke Halls.
Two years ago, 2020, Whole Foods sold alcohol to an underage miner.
Nothing has happened to Whole Foods.
That's the conversations we need to be having, instead of targeting these black businesses.
You put people in these permits departments, such as Lieutenant Carter, he goes around
targeting the black businesses.
He's not going to, he's on the hot seat right now.
He don't want to be on the hot seat.
All start.
I stood outside of one of my establishments.
They came to the establishment.
I was arrested because it was too many people on the sidewalk.
I say, listen, I can't control the sidewalk.
That's the city of Atlanta.
That's a public easement.
What you can do is you can come inside and see if I'm over capacity.
They went inside, wasn't over capacity.
They said, well, there's too many people in front of your establishment.
Took me to jail.
They said, what you going to do?
Close it down and go to jail.
I said, well, I can't tell these people I hear what to do.
So I guess I got to go to jail tonight.
That shouldn't be a decision I have to make as a taxpayer citizen in this city.
You know, I've heard a lot of things about.
It's been problems going on or things going on in this city.
It's been problems and crime going on in this city for the last 10, 15 years.
It wasn't an issue until it got the bucket.
When they got the bucket, now it's a problem.
And Ms. Norwood, I'm not attacking your district. Guess what?
I live in your district. My home is only your district.
1.7 million. I live in your district. I didn't move out once the crime got bad.
I stayed there. I stuck with you.
Your time has well expired. I thought this was the previous timer, but this is your timer.
He's yielding his time to me.
Well, I need to know that beforehand.
hand. Alright if you look at this. So who is yielding? Freaky turn.
So let's do
this.
Everybody on this committee instead of, I'm not asking you guys to kill the
bill. That's the first thing. What I'm asking you to do is just let us be a
part of the conversation collectively. You have a nightlife division that has
been allotted by the city. Y'all have people in place that from the city of
Atlanta is making decisions on the nightlife.
That's not fair to us.
Let some people that are part of the nightlife
make those decisions and try to help you guys.
None of those people are club owners.
None of those people are operators.
None of those people.
Get some reform into the group.
Let us help you guys.
We're not asking you to kill the bill.
Just let us be a part of the conversation.
That's all.
Let's collectively figure this out.
But personally, I can say, and anybody that's on this district, and they know me, personally
whenever I've got a call, whether it's been back to school, Christmas, Turkey Drive, whatever
it's been, I personally pulled up with whatever.
I haven't sent nobody, I haven't done anything other than that.
Man, my 11-year-old daughter, we pulled up.
But we stood up.
We passed out toys.
So instead of pushing them back against the nightlife, push forward and help.
Let us help you guys.
And you know, I do want to speak on one issue that is kind of, and I know we have some
honorable APD officers in here, but this issue bothers me a lot because the administration
has dangled the carrot of, we will let, you know, officers work at the strip clubs.
The issue with, and I'm quite sure all of you are familiar with, and there's an elephant
in the room, don't nobody want to talk about it, but I'm going to talk about it.
The issue with Atlanta Police Department not working at strip clubs is because we had,
as Mr. Fort said, it was some dirty cops that were working at the strip clubs that
were following people home robbing them.
And it didn't become an issue until somebody white got killed.
So once somebody white got killed, they said,
no, y'all can't work at strip clubs anymore.
That's unfair to all the businesses.
The businesses hired the police department to protect their business.
Those dirty dishonorable cops, they're the one that made it a problem for the businesses.
So that was stripped away from the businesses.
It shouldn't be like that.
Those cops, I'm quite sure they serve their time to do whatever, but you can't penalize
the businesses for what a dirty cop did.
But it's the black eye that the Atlanta Police Department will have to forever live with.
And we shouldn't be, as business owners, held accountable for that at all.
They should be willing to work with us.
That's nothing we did wrong.
We asked for their assistance.
Thank you.
Your time's expired.
And they went outside the guidelines.
last.
Someone needs to tell me that not a council member.
Let me just be brief. I
don't need much longer. No, you have any more yield of time. Yes, sir. Tell me your
name.
So what's
the first name?
Did you sign the sheet?
I asked about 30 more
seconds. It did not be how you asked. So I say to this, Mr. Hillis, and I've
always pushed back against you. You know, we have a very big project in
your district. I asked that instead of us being, you know, on the opposing
When I try to West Side open up, which will be next month, I ask you to be there with me and cut the ribbon.
You've got 143 homes that will be allotted to the affordable community.
You should be there. I want you there.
So I'm asking you to let's not oppose each other. Let's work together as allies.
That benefits your community.
And that money for those affordable homes that came from the nightlife.
This is not a nuisance or whatever we took like as I explained before we took
back we took the money back we gave back to the community so I ask that you be
respectfully there when we cut that ribbon and let's work together as we
always have don't push back on us let's work together I'm extending all of
branch to everybody out here let's collectively work together I appreciate
y'all enjoy out there
Daniel O'Toole
councilmember we have a noted Atlanta
architect here who has a meeting to get to. Can I swap speaking spaces with him?
I have six minutes. He has nine. Can he speak now? Bill Day St. Aubin. What is it?
Just a second. What are we doing here? Can he speak now? And I'll speak when he's
on when his time. What is your name? Dan O'Toole. Daniel O'Toole. I need his
name as well. Bill D. St. Aubin on the list. Bill D. St. Aubin. He's on the
list a little further down. And he had nine minutes.
I'm not seeing anyone who's allocated time.
He signed in, and then
the allocated time came from
Greg Bonner, Gerard Maddox,
or Jaquiella Rouse.
They signed in right after me.
Go ahead. Thank you. He's got nine minutes.
I
apologize, my last name is Complex, it's D. St. Aubin.
I work for a seismor group.
We run an architectural and planning firm that's been involved in Atlanta for 40 years.
And it's an honor to speak here, and really it's a key show's legislation that brought
me here.
But hearing the speakers ahead of time and knowing the mayor a bit, it's really
I'd like to draw a circle around both those legislations and make them happen at once.
I think Natalie Hall said a lot of what I was interested in saying, but I'll speak from
an architect's point of view.
Also as a person, 30 years ago I worked for a firm that did prisons all over the country.
It was Fab, Ross International, work for CESA Alexander, and it kind of always took
me back when I drive around the country or drive around this region and look at Gwinnett
County and the tallest building in Gwinnett County was a jail. What does that say if you
came from another country or another world and came and visited, what does that say about
our society that the tallest building is a jail? And I saw that in DeKalb County,
I saw that all over the country. For my work, I made a lot of money doing prisons.
I'll work for them any more, I'll work for a firm that builds towns and cities
in places people love to live and I'm now the CEO of that company.
And I was fortunate enough to go on the link trip three times in a row.
I don't think I deserved any of those, but I learned a lot.
And the last one was in Austin, Texas.
And Austin, Texas was speaking to, the mayor of Austin was speaking to 120 leaders from
Atlanta.
And he could talk about anything.
here he is talking about his great city to another great city and he chooses to
talk about the homeless situation he said get your get your hands around it
before it's too late I've been to Portland in Seattle it's it's huge as
your city becomes a technology city as incomes go up people can't afford
housing and we've also I went from that to an AA conference in Chicago where
where I spent all morning learning about what they were doing at Bellevue in New York.
300,000 square foot used to be a mental health institution, and they're transforming it into
a facility just like Keisha's been describing, and they say it'll be the largest shelter
in the world. Well, the jail's bigger than that. And Alina, in my experience, especially
She's coming from the background of Seesaw, Alexander.
Elena's always led the American a lot of ways.
And I think back about the last civil rights movement,
some of the leadership Elena has done.
And I think you have another opportunity here
to do that with how you treat that jail facility,
how you transform it into a beacon of hope
for a lot of people that really need it.
And it was really the narrative that the mayor of Austin said just kind of hit it home.
You know, in Austin they were locking up people because they couldn't afford a home.
And they didn't have anywhere to stay. They didn't have family.
And that was just law. You know, you can't afford a home. You're going to get locked up.
You know, because you're sleeping on the bench.
So they decriminalized that. And we did decriminalize a lot of things in our society, which we probably should.
And, but.
That hasn't solved the problem. So people like my church and other church, I could relate because
we would put backpacks together and give it to homeless people. People were giving them
tents in Austin. They are giving the homeless people tents and all this beautiful riverfront
along Austin, which I really like, became tent city. And so the governor stepped in
and said, we're not going to allow tent city. So they made that illegal and then
And he gave them seven acres away from downtown, and it turned into a really big mess.
And they worked through it.
They have a huge budget that's dealing with that.
They went from like 50,000 a year to 7 million a year and four years trying to deal with
the situation.
And I think what I've seen Keisha described and the vision she described with the John
Lewis Center for Equity could really be a model that you can export all around the country.
And I think Atlanta should lead. I think this is a great opportunity. Now, let me talk practically
about as an architect. Our firm is known. There's a lot of different kinds of architects.
Some do hotels, some do office buildings. We do a lot of planning with the capital
P. When the Olympics came to Atlanta, we were honored. We master planned all
the Olympic venues. So I understand exactly, and the mayor and I both went to
tech, but I understand what he was saying. It's going to take some time. It's a
three-year process to really figure out what to do at that building. It involves a
lot of stakeholders, a lot of consensus building, a lot of analysis of the
condition of that building. And at the same time, Fulton County has an issue
with the jail. So I think you could combine those two things, but start
right from the beginning with the combination so you can build the
long-term vision and become that beacon of hope.
I have looked at it a little bit.
I got a tour of the staff at your jail.
It's amazing.
I met, I think it was Lieutenant Michael Holmes,
and he said, you know, the people that get locked up here
come back just to be rescued.
Because then you can just see them come back to life
once they've gotten water and get back
on their medication and stuff.
And what if you were proactive about all that and had a facility that could really help people and give them a handout.
It is complicated. I design a lot of courthouses. You've got to separate uses. You've got to make sure you don't lose any certifications for what you're trying to do in that building.
So it's not a quick process to try to figure this out. But a lot of ways you do that when I design courthouses, you do it separate circulation systems.
systems. You might have to add different circulation systems to it. When I say that, elevators,
it's a complex undertaking, but I've toured the whole building and I could see it. I mean,
I could just see that that would be an amazing opportunity for the city of Atlanta to kind
of lead again as we kind of transform our society from lock everybody up to help everybody
out that's that's all I really I know I got two more minutes but I'm not really
a speaker I don't know what else to say the truth I think it's a great
opportunity to get great leaders here that want to do something and I'm in
full support of what you know the two are trying to do to counter thank you
Daniel tool
good afternoon council members new time I'm sorry who did
you indicate was yielding you time?
Signed in right after me it was I
think
Jaquiella Rouse. She present?
Maybe not. Can I get the remainder of bills time?
You have six minutes. Thank you. Well first of all council members I apologize
for the confusion earlier thank you for the accommodation. I'm here because I'm
I'm afraid you're about to make a 1.1 billion dollar mistake, which I will explain in just a minute.
Last week, council members Bond and Waites introduced papers governing what's to become of the Detention Center,
with both proposals offering temporary short-term housing to Fulton County.
Immediately following that meeting, Mayor Dickens issued a press release stating that he'll be requesting ideas for what to do after that ends.
Now, I find that a little odd because Councilman Dickens submitted the paper
creating the ACDC Task Force, and that group spent $150,000 studying this
and creating a 110-page report outlining exactly what to do with the building.
In addition to that, over 160 stakeholders throughout Fulton, Atlanta,
and surrounding counties have been working on this issue,
and they pretty much have it squared away.
The work to convert that building has been done. It's done.
We have architects here that designed all 29 venues of the Centennial Olympics
willing to work on this. We're ready for this building.
Atlanta residents want and need this building.
Now, I stand here to urge you to combine the papers that both Council Member Bond and Council Member Waits submitted.
in order to provide that temporary housing that Fulton County needs, but then also tie
it to converting the building to the John Lewis Center for Equity with all the services
that we need in that combined building.
Now where did that $1.1 billion come from?
CVS Health has indicated that they're willing to create a job training facility training
center right in the building. And with that facility, they would train over 6,000 Atlantans
a year and then slot them into jobs within the CVS Health Network. If you just take the
average or even a below average wage from that, 6,000 residents times 15 bucks an hour
times a full year, that's $183 million a year for every graduating class going through
in terms of wages, that every year this project is delayed,
that's another $183 million that residents
are missing out on, Atlanta residents are missing out on.
Now, Mayor Dickens was here earlier,
and he said he doesn't want to be in the jail business,
and he wants to give people opportunity.
How can you give, like, this is an amazing opportunity
to give Atlanta residents, and as Bill was mentioning
about the homeless issue. One of the best ways to solve the homeless issue is to get
people trained and put them in jobs. And we have corporate sponsors and partners that
are super excited about this, and they want to get to work as soon as possible. In addition
to CVS, some of those other stakeholders include Grady Health, who need temporary occupancy
rooms to get people out of beds that they can't discharge, because for whatever reason
and they can't just discharge them to the street
with no home to go to.
We can create hotel-style rooms that they can use
which will free up space in Grady.
Emory is one of the partners who is interested in this
along with the Georgia Justice Project, PAD and others
and they have put thousands of hours into this already.
So it would be a complete slap in their face
to put more poor people in jail
without directly tying it to creating
a public services building, namely the John Lewis Center for Equity.
Now, you know, we, again,
every year that this is delayed is $183 million in wages
that are lost to people who need this, so I encourage you
create a work group, combine these papers, reduce the
intergovernmental agreement to three years instead of four, because that's about the amount of
time it will take the work group to finish parceling out the building,
getting construction drawings, getting bidding, doing all that.
In that time we can be helping Fulton County with their overcrowding issue,
but we can also be creating the services that would keep people from going to jail in the first place
and the services that would get those people out of jail once they're there.
There's a number of people in jail that are just there
because they are waiting for substance abuse training programs.
They're not available.
If they were in that building, they wouldn't be in jail anymore.
So,
again, I encourage you to combine those bills.
And if we had this building, that would be a national model for the rest of the country
in what to do to have all these services under one roof, including, you know,
Warrant Clearing Center, temporary housing, drunk tank and all the...
Again, we would be a national model, and Atlanta should, quite frankly, be a national model for the rest of the country on a number of different issues.
So the Mayor also mentioned, or maybe Mrs. Hall, that 80% of the people on Rice Street come from Atlanta.
So Fulton's overcrowding issue is really Atlanta's overcrowding issue.
The true humanitarian response, sorry, I'll finish up, would be to create this building,
have the jail space, but have this building so that you get people out there in the services
they need.
Thank you very much.
Next is Hon.
Jordan.
Give me honor to the spirit of God, everyone that's here.
He that leadeth in the captivity shall go in the captivity.
He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.
Here is the patience and the faith of the Saints, Revelation 13-10.
When you seek to bring someone into captivity, you shall go into captivity.
And God don't lie.
When you lead a person into captivity, then you shall be led into captivity, James Griff.
This promotes death for you.
This evil people would refuse to hear my words, which walk in the imagination of
their heart, and walk after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, should even
be as the girdle, which is good for nothing Jeremiah 13, chapter 10, 1.
The lesson of the message is the same as the girdle, was marred.
So God will more wound Judah's pride.
Do you want Judah to wound your pride?
And every man that strives for the mastery is temperate in all things.
Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we, an incorruptible crown.
1 Corinthians 9, chapter 20, verse 1.
But the lowly need to be encouraged that they are exalted before God,
whereas the exalted need to hear a message of humiliation.
Jesus says to rock me, it's as for death.
Hell and destruction are never four, so the eyes of man are never satisfied.
Proverbs 27, chapter 20 and 1, the tall of the miser is futile,
especially when he calls only for himself.
Those who seek to destroy ask for destruction.
The law was created to treat one another justly investigator Jackson.
I had a vision of what Christ would do, to fight for me, but called on Jesus Christ when
you get in that trouble, because you know your deeds, your unrighteous deeds.
David Jaffer?
David Jaffer.
Ron Shaqir.
Good afternoon.
Ron Shaqir and I have
his amputee and he had to make a little adjustment and he
haven't got back yet. I hope I can have his minutes. He's been here sitting in
the corner. He's been seeing them all day. I just want to say that I came here to
talk about public safety. An importance of public safety is rooted in solid
stable communities.
And when a child can't count on their mother or their
father for a home sweet home.
They're going to be some broken pieces.
And hearing the last
two conversations about repurposing this jail, it draw me near to his subject where he spoke
of other parts of the country where people was given tents by cities to live on. This
This is going on throughout the country. Do Atlanta want to give tents for people to live
on? For sure, I think that we should have a place when people are arrested. But the biggest
crime that has happened in Atlanta is legislators ignoring
the displacement of people who come
to the city who came to the city under the leadership of people who love this city, who
happen to be African-Americans like Maynard Jackson, where Atlanta was a place that was
attracting African-Americans because they felt something that was going on good here.
But for us to ignore gentrification and displacement,
every piece of policy that
come out of your legislators.
From this city council, Mr. Hillis, it should measure the impact of the displacement in the
reorganization of this city of Atlanta. And I would hope that we would do that and be very
serious and purposeful of doing it. Because right now, we have had most elected officials
who have come from public schools, most of them from Atlanta public schools in recent
in history, but the housing in the communities are under attack, and that attack is causing
people to be displaced in this city, and I think that we should not allow that to happen,
and that is the biggest crime, because for sure the public housing was a place of refuge
that gave people in this city a place to start in safe environments, and they produced
and became a part of a good culture.
And I think that we should look seriously about the housing that the gentleman just spoke of
and try to do something to make that happen.
But for sure, we don't need to fake ourselves out and think that we can push people out of public housing
and at the same time create something in the private market where we know, like Ford's Grove,
can be turned down. That can be turned up and turned down. Are you going to
recognize the gentleman as an amputee who had to make an adjustment? They cannot
allocate time. Say again? If they're not present they cannot allocate their time.
Thank you. Well I would just hope that you can run the meeting a little bit
better because people have stayed here a long time and some people are sick and
they cannot just stay here and hopefully we can be here meet your
requirements next time. Thank you. Eric Terrell.
Mark Spencer.
Hello. My name is Dr. Mark Spencer. I work
for Emory and Grady and I'm here on behalf of my colleagues. I bought you a letter signed by 300
healthcare workers in just the past five days growing every day. These include primary care
doctors like myself, experts in public health, mental health, addiction, and so much more.
I'll also email it to you so you can access the links for data and for those of you who
don't plan to read it, the summary is pretty simple.
What you're doing in proposing to lease ACDC to Fulton County will undermine both public
safety and public health and make our work harder, not easier.
I want to address what the mayor said earlier.
To be clear, to lease a jail is to very much so be in the jailing business.
If you can get on the phone with the Sheriff and the DA and the courts at Fulton County to discuss the jail space,
you can get on the phone with them to demand they solve the crisis they created by their addiction to punishment.
Overcrowding is not new nor unsolvable. Fulton County needs zero beds and zero days to address their overcrowding issue.
The Mayor mentioned humanitarian crisis.
What of the humanitarian crisis of incarcerating mentally ill patients?
Of incarcerating people for drug use?
Of fighting a drug war despite 50 years of evidence stating how harmful it is that kills more than the drugs kill themselves?
Of incarcerating for crimes of poverty?
The ongoing crisis of wealth-based detention?
The crisis of diversion-eligible people being ignored and stuck in cages?
What of the humanitarian crisis of affordable housing, of underfunded schools, of underfunded
and short-staffed hospitals and health departments, of extreme and growing wealth inequality in
this city?
To talk of humanitarianism in terms of only the number of cages for human beings is quite
something.
Demanding punishment is not the same as accountability.
My colleagues and I care deeply about safety.
safety. Safety and health are deeply intertwined, and 80% of health outcomes for everyone in
the city is determined right here by policies you make. Your choices for public safety are
not more or less jail space, but are instead limitless. It's your lack of extensive funding
of alternatives that's holding you back. The mayor's words might sound good, but
this might as well have been the 1970s. If you watched the speeches of Maynard Jackson,
He said the exact same things.
Tough on crime rhetoric is just that, rhetoric.
We have 50 years of evidence of the ineffectiveness of more police, more jail cells,
identifying that as public safety.
This tonal vision will get us nowhere.
Police and incarceration got us here and it will not get us out.
My colleagues and I will meet with you anytime to discuss evidence-based public safety measures.
We want all of our jobs to be made easier and more importantly communities to be safe and healthier.
We will not support policies that will lead our patients to experience preventable suffering and premature death.
Thank you.
I'll leave this here for you and also email.
Ann Coons.
I yield my time to Devin Franklin.
He can get one additional minute, but he is already at nine minutes.
So,
Devin Franklin, you have nine minutes.
I just have to go. It's already confusing enough with all the yield of time that wasn't documented, so I'll just have to go in order. So as Devin Franklin here,
nine minutes.
She was first on the sign-up, so I'm not sure what word you have.
What is your name?
Tiffany Roberts.
Okay, you have nine minutes.
These masks.
Okay, so good afternoon.
My name is Tiffany Roberts.
I am the Public Policy Director at the Southern Center for Human Rights.
We are a non-profit law firm committed to decriminalizing race and poverty in the Deep South.
And this is the first time I've been before this body in person.
since before the pandemic and I have left public comment for you all while you
were meeting in a virtual setting but I am very disappointed to be here today to
speak to you about the Intergovernmental Agreement that is proposed between the
City of Atlanta, Fulton County and the Fulton County Sheriff. I'm disappointed
because what it what it demonstrates to us as people who have been willing
partners to the City of Atlanta and Fulton County what it demonstrates
rights to those of us who have spent over a decade studying and working on this issue
and hundreds of hours working with this city on this issue is that you are committed to
enabling Fulton County's pathological abuses of human rights and overcrowding. The county
does not take jail depopulation seriously. Dr. King is often quoted as saying justice
is not justice denied. Unfortunately, today I'm before you because it is very clear that
there are members of this council who very much intend for justice delayed to come to
denial.
I would like to spend some time reminding you that Council Member Bond was
the only no vote on creating the Task Force to reimagine the Atlanta City Detention
Center. And I say that not to call a Council Member Bond, but to name that many people
who are still on council today were in favor of the work that we did on behalf of the city
and our community.
After that legislation passed, my dearly departed comrade, friend, sister, Marissa McCall-Dotson
and I served on that task force alongside our then executive director, Sarah Tatanji.
We worked with the city law department and others to draft recommendations around policy,
how the already small jail population could be even lower.
Other working groups worked on architecture and programs, hundreds of hours in this city
service because we were in fact in our community service, thousands of minutes away from our
families because we believed that we were building something that would benefit all
of our progeny, millions of moments when we could have been doing anything else.
Because the beacon of light coming from Maryland wind and women on the rise was too bright
for us to ignore.
We heard the mayor say a lot of things and take credit for a lot of things, but what
I found really interesting is that the city takes credit whenever something positive happens
and never gives community credit, but when we are in a bad way, you blame your constituents.
We never say thank you to community for stepping up.
We told you all in the beginning of the pandemic that you would see crime go down
as people became employed, housed, and cared for.
We told you that national experts were telling you
not to act rashly during this crime wave
because the pandemic had an impact on gun violence.
I even did the welcome at St. Luke's Episcopal Church
on behalf of my church at a forum about gun violence
as a public health crisis,
and then Mayor Bedickens vowed
to take the public health approach to curing gun violence.
But right now we're asking to give Fulton County
a blank check for more years.
Four years at once, past Mayor Dickens' first term,
gives Patrick LaBotte a blank check,
and I want to go into the language of the agreement
that I have, and perhaps it's been amended
since I laid eyes on it, but if it hasn't,
I want to enumerate for you all of the problems
that we found beyond the carceral footprint
that you are enabling Fulton County to have.
You'll also hear from my impact litigation director
at Southern Center and several others who have been at Southern Center long enough to
see Fulton County's habit of using the City of Atlanta's jail and other facilities in the
Metro to compensate for their unwillingness and inability to effectively partner to depopulate
their jail. It's important for us to understand that the talking points about sleeping on
boats are talking points that we raised time and time again. In fact, in the beginning of
the pandemic, we pulled together national organizations who were willing to bail people
out of Fulton County who cannot afford their bail. Those efforts were thwarted by members,
people who are employed by and elected in Fulton County. We have always been there.
We have been there for the children who were incarcerated. We have been there.
We have been there for the people sleeping in boats because it is us who visits them.
We don't rely on talking only to the jailer. We talk to the jailed.
And what I heard Mayor Dickens talk about over and over again is the way you government
actors are talking to each other. I have not heard one talking point lifting up the
necessity of speaking with subject matter experts because we're going to be serious.
Your understanding of criminal legal process is superficial and unsophisticated.
I'm going to go through some points about this intergovernmental agreement that are really, really concerning.
First, it gives Sheriff LeBotte full discretion to define overcapacity.
What does that mean?
That means if he says Fulton County is not overcrowded until it reaches 3,200,
then you're going to have a 3,200 person jail and 700 people at ACDC.
One month he could say it's 3,000.
The next month he could say it's 2,000.
That is in the letter, that is within the four corners of your document as needed basis
is defined by Patrick LeBott.
The agreement also de-prioritizes the most overcrowded facility.
You say you're concerned about what's happening on Rice Street.
I was a public defender, I stayed at Rice Street until two o'clock in the morning visiting
my clients.
I am not unfamiliar.
I visited at the overflow facilities like Bellwood was even there once when the locks
stopped working.
I stayed put and talked to my client, I wasn't afraid of them, right?
So we also understand how to treat people who mainly and not stoke fear in order to
perpetuate the remnants of child slavery, which is in fact what we are doing when we
are increasing an incarceration footprint.
Article five of this provision only allows the sheriff, the unilateral authority to
terminate the agreement.
He can do it for any reason or no reason at all.
The City of Atlanta under this agreement can only terminate this IGA if Fulton County doesn't pay.
So if a Fulton County employee who you are shipping in without even looking at their personnel records or their disciplinary history,
if they were to rape or assault someone in ACDC, that is not cause under this agreement.
If they were to commit any act leaving the City of Atlanta open to liability, that is not for cause under this agreement.
You have absolutely no authority to terminate this agreement and have not included any periodic reviews of the performance of this agreement through the four-year term to give taxpayers, advocates, families of incarcerated people.
You have not provided any pathways to evaluate this agreement for community.
It also requires the City of Atlanta to warrant that Fulton will be able to provide services
in ACDC, but does not mark what the requirements of those services are.
We don't even know.
I have colleagues who have worked in Fulton County for a long time.
A lot of those services that they say they offer, we are not aware of.
If you do not know what they currently do, how can you assess the feasibility of
this agreement?
If you don't know the space required to operate these things, how can you say that there will
be any revenue generated?
Because $50 to us sounds like a pretty low ball figure based on what we know about national
trends when it comes to what it costs to incarcerate a person per night.
And the other thing that I'll note is that this...
So what we'd like to present to you today is the Southern Center for Human Rights, is the long history that Fulton has of this kind of malfeasance, and the way that the city of Atlanta has an age gap.
Yes, Council Member Bond, to see a problem and do nothing is a sin.
But the larger sin is to see mass incarceration growing, to spread misinformation, and then expect for us to do nothing.
Thank you very much.
Devin Franklin,
Council Member Bond.
Thank you. I just wanted to respond and I appreciate your comments and the work that you've done over the years.
but about my vote about the panel that was in panel to study what to do with the jail.
I learned in January of 2018 that one of the first actions of the Bottoms Administration
was to do an analysis internally in the mayor's office of what to do with that facility.
That was headed by former planning commissioner Tim Keen.
He came back and reported to the mayor that they couldn't do anything with that facility unless they spent an estimated $120 million to refurbish it.
If you recall the work that you and other citizens did and the four recommendations that you had, the fourth recommendation came back with a similar number to repurpose that facility.
Having that knowledge six months later when the mayor surprised all of us who were serving with her that she wanted to move forward, I felt that the effort to impanel citizens to have them study something that they already knew the result of was insidious.
And I decided not to vote to support it.
Am I to respond?
I don't necessarily need to.
Okay. There are several recommendations regarding what could happen, including raising, right, building satellites.
Tens of millions of dollars.
This failing to act on this will cost us tens of millions of dollars. I can guarantee you that.
Oh, yeah. We don't agree with decriminalization. We don't disagree, rather, on having diversion programs.
what I've always disagreed with is doing it in that particular building.
The city of Atlanta has hundreds of thousands of empty space.
That persons who want to provide programs, much like Pat has done,
could have been providing programs four years ago, up till now, and still can do it.
So we're not in disagreement with that.
It costs taxpayers, if we listen to the proposals that have been introduced
by the architects and others. It'll cost us $120 million a minimum to turn that building
into anything else. I appreciate the symbolism, but there's empty space if people want to
provide services today for folks to divert them from the criminal justice system or
to provide services or to partner. That's all I'm saying.
I think your next is Devin Franklin who has nine minutes.
I
think I was next following Tiffany on the sign up sheet.
I have a list here.
Okay.
It changes.
People yield time to each other.
People leave.
People come and go.
I was standing by the sign that was Remlin in line so I know she signed up before.
I'm not saying she's done on the list.
I'm just going by the list I have.
And I would prefer to go in order.
With all due respect, I'm saying that the order that we signed up in, the actual order.
Well, there's different lists that are generated from, we have different lists that people sign up on.
But again, state your name and you can go.
So y'all can just run the meeting. So whoever's next.
Just before I begin, Caitlin Barnes ceded time to me.
Do you have that on the list?
What is your name?
Christina Remlin. That's R-E-M-L-I-N.
Yeah, you have six minutes.
Okay, thank you.
My name is Christina Remlin.
She hers.
I'm the Director of Impact Litigation for the Southern Center for Human Rights.
I'm from Atlanta.
I'm a District 5 constituent.
It's really nice to be before you all.
I'm a proud product of our public school system here.
I'm honored to speak today about the litigation history that we've brought in close partnership
with our clients for unfortunately 28 years addressing problems inside of Fulton County's
jails. We have always cared about the people in Fulton County's jails and we've worked in
partnership with them. Acquiring the South Fulton Jail was supposed to help with overcrowding,
but instead it invited a new lawsuit. Now Fulton is again trying with the ACDC.
The time is right for solutions, not more bed-filling.
In 1994, we joined a lawsuit, Stinson v. the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, and
made the case that overcrowding and poor conditions were the result of too many people
of limited means charged with minor crimes waiting to go to court to resolve their
case.
It sounds familiar.
At that time, Fulton County paid appointed lawyers $50 per case to represent people charged with misdemeanors.
Their representation did not even begin until the defendant was brought from jail to court.
Every incentive was provided to encourage the accused to plead guilty to get out of jail and go home.
Routinely, these people spent more time languishing in horrible conditions in the jail waiting for court
then they would have been sentenced to serve.
We settled that case with a consent order in 1999,
which required Fulton County to ensure
that people received legal advice within three days of arrest,
to provide adequate resources to the public defender program,
and to make good faith efforts to ensure
that the defender's offices had more manageable caseloads.
This settlement and other pressure from the Southern Center
and advocates across the state
field the creation of the first statewide public defender system in Georgia.
But following the Stinson settlement, almost immediately we brought another case because
of the conditions that were so horrifying inside the Fulton County Jail.
In 1999, Foster versus Fulton County, we sued, honored to represent a class of people
inside who are HIV positive.
The case targeted the complete lack of appropriate treatment of their physical health needs,
and resulted in a consent decree for preliminary injunctive relief entered a week after the
case was filed in 1999.
The result of that consent decree led to the replacement of the jails for profit medical
provider with one that offered HIV specialists, effective medications, and improved medical
care.
and all that the outcome in that case was life-saving the effort to monitor that
case revealed an unfathomable level of county-sanctioned indifference to human
suffering inside. The court-appointed expert in Correctional Medicine revealed
hundreds of people languishing in the jail again with minor charges for weeks
or months before ever making a court appearance or meeting an attorney. US
This district court, Marvin Shube, oversaw the release of nearly 200 people who had served
more time waiting for their court hearing than they would have served if convicted of
their alleged crimes.
In connection with the monitoring of that consent decree and settlement agreement, it became
clear that the culture, the jail allowed created systemic inhumane conditions affecting
all of the people inside there, not just the class of HIV positive people at issue
in our suit. As a result, in 2004, the Southern Center filed another class action complaint
on behalf of people detained there. The Harper v. Bennett case grew out of the horrifying
conditions exposed and allowed by the jail staff and their leadership exposed during
the monitoring of the foster case. That litigation, again, was resolved by a consent
entered into in December of 2005, but we spent the following decade monitoring the
terms of that consent order and trying to get the conditions on the inside to
improve in close partnership with our clients and partners who were
experiencing the most direct consequences of those horrifying abuses.
The consent order addressed understaffing, overcrowding, sanitation,
maintenance of the jails, failing physical plant,
medical, mental health care, and other issues.
It was terminated in May of 2015 over our objections,
despite the evidence that we provided at the time
of ongoing violence and deplorable conditions.
And just four years after, in 2019,
the Southern Center, along with the Georgia Advocacy Office,
and again, our very worthy clients,
filed another suit regarding the South Fulton Jail challenging their
practices of subjecting women experiencing psychiatric disabilities to
long-term isolation and solitary confinement cells into plurable
conditions and discriminating against women by denying those found
incompetent to stay in trial the same kinds of programs and services as men
receive. The South Fulton Jail's abusive solitary confinement and
extreme long-term isolation practices were an unconstitutional violation of
our clients' rights, particularly acute for people with mental health
challenges, but tantamount to psychological torture for anyone.
Following a four-day preliminary injunction hearing, Judge William Ray
granted our preliminary injunction and called the conditions repulsive and
remarked that the people who ran the jail really ought to have a hard time
I'm sleeping at night.
This suit is still pending in the monitoring phase.
In sum, for the last 28 years,
we have a history of bringing these suits.
The answer now is for actual solutions that are needed,
not more bedfilling.
Good afternoon.
My name's Mary Sydney Harbert
and Joya Thornton has seated her time to me.
Thank you.
Hello, those of you up there.
As I said, my name is Mary Sidney Harbert and I'm the Operations Manager for the Southern
Center for Human Rights.
I began working at Southern Center in 2002 as an investigator and I served in that role
for 15 years.
My work as an investigator spanned the end of the foster case, the entirety of the
Harper case, and the beginning of the current litigation at the South Fulton Jail.
So put another way, I've spent 13 of my 15 years as an investigator
confronting and working to eliminate human rights abuses in Fulton jails.
During that time, Fulton County spent about $1 billion
attempting to relieve overcrowding,
increase staffing and inhumane conditions under court order.
Essentially Fulton County has played a very expensive game of whack-a-mole
And now they are coming to you for help.
Let me just provide some details.
Under the consent order entered in 2006, Fulton County paid $55 million on repairs to the facility that took more than three years.
At the end of that project, the cell door locks in all the housing units still did not work.
To relieve overcrowding over the next six years, Fulton's share of signed contracts with Metro
Atlanta counties of Douglas, Gwinnett, Hall, Polk, Cobb to Cabb, City of Atlanta, and then the
distant Pelham City Jail in Mitchell County as well as the Cobb County Jail, excuse me, Cook
County Jail in Adel to hold people who would not fit in the Fulton County Jail. Between
In 2007 and 2012, it cost the Fulton Sheriff $49 million to outsource these people.
That's a horrible way of describing the situation.
We don't really outsource people, but I'll
move on.
Efforts to reduce the jail population over those six years did bear some fruit.
And in 2013, Fulton County did not fund the Sheriff to outsource any more people.
and everyone who had been detained in other jurisdictions were returned to Fulton County
Jail. The sheriff moved the women to the Union City Jail under a long-term lease agreement
and the population was reduced to 2357 with the use of various court programs, programs
that received additional funding from the county. For example, $250,000 went toward
accountability courts.
$650,000 went to the district attorney. $250,000 went to a jail reentry
program. $495,000 went to the superior court.
Finally, after 10 years and $4.7 million dollars
and I'm throwing lots of figures out, the cell locks and all of the housing units
were finally replaced. And the county moved to terminate the lawsuit. The sheriff didn't
join the motion to terminate the lawsuit and said, actually, the jail is still chronically
understaffed. And they were concerned.
That if the county got out of the lawsuit, that there would be no more money to pay for the staffing at the jail.
He went on, the sheriff went on to say that while the jail is no longer overcrowded, because all the women had been moved to a least jail in Union City,
that the move, quote, created a need for staffing, in addition to the need created by the county's refusal to fund positions needed at the main jail.
A situation that creates an unsafe atmosphere for the inmates and the sheriff's employees, quote.
The only way the sheriff came close to having enough staff was to pay overtime to work extra shifts.
In the first quarter of 2015 alone, the sheriff paid $663,644 on overtime staffing,
and that didn't even reach compliance with the consent order.
I saw the impacts of the inadequate staffing whenever I went to the Fulton Jail.
During those visits I heard of countless missed court dates, missed doctor's appointments,
missed medication grounds, missed legal visits, missed meals, mail, church services.
Nearly all activities ground to a halt for a time people were locked in their cells
20 hours a day and served meals in their cells, denied phone calls, regular showers,
or exercised because there wasn't enough staff.
Even the sheriff did his own internal staffing
study and found that they didn't have enough staff.
While I began documenting evidence
in 2002, the foster case was just ending. It was clear where things were already headed.
As Christina mentioned, the last court monitor's report for the case was used as evidence in
the complaint for the next case that was filed.
And when that case was terminated, the sheriff was already citing why the court should remain
and provide oversight.
We were already receiving complaints from women in the South Fulton Jail almost immediately.
I've seen what happens when the county tries to band aid the problems without
getting to the heart of its wounds and I've recounted to you all what I've
witnessed during my 13 years investigating conditions in Fulton's
jails. Endless spending, failed attempts to adapt staffing levels to overpopulation,
outsourcing people away from their families and lawyers, and a sheriff's
office that didn't think it could protect people absent a court order. So
today I am forecasting what is to come. Should the City of Atlanta enter
into a lease agreement with Fulton County and the Fulton County Sheriff. One billion
dollars spent and they are back where they started. If you enable the county with a lease,
the true solutions will be delayed. That is why the city needs to commit itself to
the only evidence-based decarceration effort it's not yet tried, route addressing wellness
center that the city's been researching for several years. Thank you very much.
My
name is Caitlin Childs and Victor, I'm sorry, I don't know your last name.
You have six minutes.
Deadler is ceding time to me.
My name is Caitlin Childs.
I'm a resident of the city of Atlanta and a senior investigator at the Southern Center for Human Rights.
I have served as the investigator on the South Holton Jail Litigation since 2019.
I have had the privilege of meeting with and hearing the stories of hundreds of individuals who have been detained
and continue to be detained at the jail in Union City.
City officials have claimed that moving people
from Union City to ACDC will address inhumane conditions
in existing county jails.
I wanna make it crystal clear
that the constitutional violations
that led to this litigation
were not about the location of our clients.
They were about the unlawful and unconstitutional
practices of the Fulton County Sheriff's Office.
office, the same sheriff's office that will continue to be responsible for their custody
and care even if they are housed in ACDC.
I want you to hear some of our clients' own testimony and statements in this case.
MJ, a 20-year-old woman with mental illness, was arrested and charged with criminal trespass
for failing to leave the West End Mall.
She was homeless at the time and could not afford her $500 bond.
MJ was kept in her cell 23 to 24 hours a day during her incarceration.
MJ said, quote, the isolation at this jail has made me very depressed.
It has made me suicidal.
I felt like harming myself.
I tried to hang myself with a sheet.
The police found me with a sheet around my neck.
I had been taken to the suicide cell at Rice Street more than once.
There, I was put in a suicide cell naked and alone.
I was in that cell for three to four days.
Or SHP, a woman in her late 30s diagnosed with bipolar, complex PTSD, and generalized
anxiety, was arrested when she refused to leave the Salvation Army, where she was
seeking shelter, but did not have $10 to pay for a place to sleep.
She spent 159 days in jail and was only allowed out of her cell a handful of times.
She was never offered recreation time outside and was only permitted to shower twice in 159 days.
She was forced to wear the same filthy clothing for months on end
and was not provided with basic hygiene products or adequate supplies of toilet paper,
nor was she provided with her mental health medication.
despite repeatedly asking for it.
She said, quote,
being locked in a cell all day and night
caused my mind to break down.
After a month or so,
I started to have hallucinations,
something that has never happened to me in my life.
I remember that the walls
started to look like they were moving.
On overcast days,
when the small frosted windows let in little light,
the days and nights seemed to blend together.
I became incredibly anxious, defeated, and in despair.
This was all made worse by the fact that I had no idea
when I would be released.
I began to think I would be locked in that cell forever.
I have never been so psychologically ill as I was
after about a month of being locked in an isolation cell in this jail.
Eventually she was transferred to Georgia Regional
where she received treatment, including her medications,
and started to feel better.
She returned to the jail six to eight weeks later,
was finally able to go to court,
and chose to plead guilty to avoid being returned
to the jail and to that cell.
She received a sentence of time served.
After her release, she said, quote,
the time I spent in the South Fulton jail
was the most disorienting and frightening period
in my life.
To this day, I cannot talk about my time
in the jail without breaking down. I'm receiving weekly counseling, trauma therapy, to help
me put this experience behind me. Or SP, a woman with schizophrenia who was initially
taken to Grady for inpatient treatment before she was transported to the jail, where she
spent 23 to 24 hours a day alone in the cell without any therapeutic services. Quote,
I have a very difficult time coping in the mental health pods. I've felt suicidal
many times and have had many episodes. I've been placed on Suicide Watch about
every week to two weeks. When describing Suicide Watch, she said, quote,
being on Suicide Watch is a horrible experience. When it happens, I'm usually
forced to go naked into a nasty and completely empty concrete room. The room
has a hole in the floor. I'm supposed to use the hole in the floor to relieve
myself. It is extremely cold in that room. They leave you in there for days
sometimes, naked and shivering cold. Or AS, who is just 17 at the time, has
multiple psychiatric disabilities and was incarcerated shortly after being
released from a residential treatment program with no community services in
place. Quote, being locked in my cell all day is extremely stressful and makes
me feel angry and lonely. When you sit in a concrete room all by yourself all
day, it feels like you have been kidnapped. I do not get to use the
a phone very often to call my mother or family
and it makes me feel sad and angry.
AS was placed on Suicide Watch at Rice Street
approximately 10 times in a five month period.
Quote, I often hurt myself in ways
that I know may seriously injure or kill me.
I do not wanna take my life, but I am always so lonely
and going to Suicide Watch is the only way
I know how to get in a room around other people.
Simply changing the location of where these folks
or jailed will have no impact on the horrors that you just heard our clients describe.
Community-based interventions on the front end that actually address root causes and
prevent incarceration, such as those that would be provided by a Center for Health and Wellness,
are the best solution to these problems.
If we truly care about the people incarcerated in Fulton County, we cannot simply hand over
yet another jail for Fulton County to fill with our most vulnerable community members.
Thank you.
My name is Hannah Riley, and my time was seated by Dominique Grant, I believe.
You have six minutes.
Good afternoon, committee members.
My name is Hannah Riley, and I am the director of communications at the Southern Center for Human Rights and a resident of Midtown.
It's my understanding that the people I stand before today are perhaps more accustomed to speaking with the jailers and not with the jailed.
This is problematic for a few reasons, including the reality that the experience of having lived,
however temporarily, in one of the Fulton County jail facilities is a very common one for your constituents.
In fact, the Fulton County jail system holds so many people in its facilities that,
if it were a town instead of a jail, its population would consistently rank in the top half of Georgia cities.
You've heard my colleagues talk about our office's nearly three-decade history of litigation.
You've heard the words of people formerly incarcerated in the jails.
Despite some patchwork improvements to the county jails for facilities, the conditions
today are not dissimilar from the conditions that federal courts found, these are quotes,
deplorable in 2000, totally unacceptable in 2002, a crisis in 2011, a significant
threat of serious harm in 2013, or repulsive in 2019, or what the AJC called
a dilapidating warehouse of bodies in 1998, a disgrace in 2006, or filthy and
dangerous in 2012. These buildings, to state the very obvious, are full of people, many
of whom are your constituents. I want to make sure that today we talk about them and
we lift up the ways in which they have resisted and organized and cared for one another.
The ways that they have attempted, literally for decades, to make the Fulton County Jail
a less torturous place to live. I could spend much more than the time that I have
allotted going through that rich history of resistance that has come out of the
hellish jails run by Fulton County. Here are just a few examples. In 1980, 17
people caged at the old Jefferson Street jail filed a lawsuit, handwritten,
that raised the alarm on what they were being subjected to, including traumatic
and unnecessary anal cavity searches, cells that regularly flooded with
sewage, non-existent medical care, and denial of access to the law library.
In April of 1981, conditions of overcrowding at the jail became so disastrous that people
incarcerated there held a press conference.
They described, among other things, tripping over bodies on the floor in an attempt to
reach the one available toilet.
In 1982, people incarcerated in the jail filed the first class action lawsuit against
the facility, alleging racist abuse from staff, racial segregation of the jail, denial of medical
care and access to the law library and more. As I'm sure some of you know, one of the very
facilities we've been discussing, the Rice Street Jail, was built in 1988 as a direct
result of organizing and agitation and eventual litigation brought by people caged in the
jail. In 1994 a man named Sam Stinson filed a pro se case in federal court
against the Fulton County Commission because he had been held in the jail for
four months without speaking to an attorney or an investigator about his
case. In 1998 my office received a letter from an HIV positive man at the
Fulton County Jail named Ruben Foster who described horrendous living
conditions, and a doctor who would read to people from the Bible and tell them they were
sinners instead of giving them their life-saving medications.
In 2008, people incarcerated at the jail filed a pro se lawsuit challenging the unnecessary
and traumatic strip searches they were constantly subjected to.
In 2014, people incarcerated in the jail sued Fulton County successfully after hundreds
of people were caged for as long as five days beyond their scheduled release dates.
Perhaps you've all been told that the Fulton jail facilities are uniquely dangerous in this moment
thereby justifying this lease, but history reminds us that these problems are anything but new,
that a new lease will solve nothing, and that the only solution is decarceration.
The lawsuits and articles and consent decrees and so on that have had the greatest impact
on conditions inside the jails have come about as a result of the resistance and determination.
of those inside. This kind of resistance takes bravery, risking retaliation, which could
come in the form of prolonged solitary confinement, risking the ire of their jailers, some of whom
have already shown their willingness to use violence against the people in their care. These
are acts of bravery, and to best honor them, Fulton should be shrinking the number of people
they cage pre-trial, not expanding it on Atlanta's watch.
Thank you.
Devin Franklin.
I had time earlier to see this to me by Anna Coon that I believe you acknowledged.
Mr. Franklin.
Thank you.
Last week, I had occasion to actually catch the news.
I don't watch it as often, but I knew there would be a story on it that I wanted
to hear about.
And in this particular story, Councilman Bond, you made some comments related to the proposed
lease of ACDC.
And you essentially tried to articulate that the lease of the ACDC facility to Fulton
County was a humanitarian response to a humanitarian issue.
Thank you.
I
immediately kind of questioned the humanitarian nature of continuance of
caged people who were in jail for offenses that did not quite measure up to
what you described as very dangerous crimes and I was curious as to why you
would use that language and I know that although I in Southern Center do
not adhere to the pejorative framing of people and their identity based on what they're charged.
I know that it's really easy to get public sentiment to think that. It's okay to lock
up people for certain reasons. But when we know the true reasons that people are locked
up, it doesn't quite hit the same way.
The comments that you made that day were
premised on two false beliefs. One that overcrowding of Fortin County is because
of the number of persons currently incarcerated being charged with these very dangerous crimes
you described them. And two, that one can claim to be acting from a moral high ground,
to be acting out of an obligation to, in your words, ameliorate the condition of human
beings while also profiting off of the occasion as this IGA agreement would contemplate.
In my several comments to this council and to the full council before, I've heard
some people today make reference to the number of people about 300 at the last time that I
was in the middle of my research who were in custody for misdemeanors or non-complex
felony offenses as defined by Fulton County. And again, that is a distinction made by
the county and not one that I personally subscribe to. But I understand that by the definitions
that we are working under and the definitions that we are being given that these charges
are not what we would describe as very dangerous crimes.
The last time I spoke, and I was again just partially through my research of the persons who were in custody,
it was about 300. I completed that research.
I'm
happy to meet with you and sit with you all to
discuss the cases of the more than 650 people
who are incarcerated for non-complex offenses and misdemeanors in Fulton County Jail.
And what I mean by that are charges such as those that we would contemplate would be resolved
if they had a wellness center or equity center to begin receiving treatment, charges such
as possession of small amounts of drugs, death by shoplifting, criminal trespass, criminal
damage, those kinds of things.
Without a consideration of what a person is charged for, so it could be a non-compliance
charge and one you would even describe is very dangerous. There are nearly 630 people who
have received bonds. That means that there are factual allegations that their criminal
histories have been assessed by a judge, arguments have been made by prosecutors and
defense counsel, and judges have granted bonds to people.
But these people have not
been able to make those bonds. 600 people are sitting in jail not because of their
their alleged risk or their alleged dangerousness. They are sitting in Fulton
County jail facilities because they are too poor to purchase their release. They
are too indigent to secure their freedom.
These numbers are current as of July
20th. This is a snapshot of what the jail look like on that day. I don't know
what the exact numbers are today, but I do understand that the Commissioner,
I
came in earlier today and she had some numbers and I hope that she would be as open with her
books as I tend to be with mine and that my research is completed and I'll be requesting
those records and hoping to sit down with you and her and anyone else to discuss what
can actually be done about relocating, not being an option, but releasing people who
otherwise would have their freedoms but for being too poor.
Additionally, out of the 3,000 people that were in jail as of July 20th,
I learned that
about a third of those people, 1,095 in fact, were sitting in jail unindicted.
If you don't quite understand what that means, that means they're sitting in jail actually
waiting to be formally charged.
Over a third of the population of the persons in Fulton County custody are not in a position
to bargain about their case. They're not in a position to seek a plea deal, receive diversion,
go to trial, because the prosecutor has not said that they are ready to go forward with the case.
These are people who have spent months, weeks, sometimes even years.
In my 12 years of experience as a public defender, I regularly receive cases for
people who have sat over a year, sometimes two years before being indicted.
There are management issues within the case structure and the case system in
Fulton County courts. The burden should not be borne by those persons who are
incarcerated. Everything should be done by this body and its capacity and its
strength and honor to alleviate the conditions that deny them their due
process and their freedom of liberty. Again, I have data, I've completed that
it's like I can talk to you all in more about what I intend on doing. So, Cosman Bond, Cosman
Norwood, Cosman Hillis, Cosman Juan, Cosman Amos, I will be emailing you all. I hope to
receive responses and I hope to have meaningful, genuine conversation about actual options
that respect the humanity of human beings and don't see further caging as the only humanitarian response to forces over crowding.
I see the remaining amount of my time to James Woodall.
Thank you, Mr. Bond.
And for those that don't know, when you're called out by name, you get the opportunity to respond because during public comment, council is designed to just listen.
If you could, just blend into your mic a little bit. I can barely hear you.
Yeah, just because I was explaining to the public that when a member is called out by
name, they have the opportunity to respond.
Most of the time we don't because we're here to sit and listen to the public.
But since you called my name out on a particular issue, I'm going to take the opportunity to respond.
First, I'll say, of course, I'll meet with you anytime you like that we could schedule.
I'm more than happy to talk about the conditions at the Fulton County Jail.
Just suppose what we do with our own facility and how do we ameliorate the situation for our citizens who are
Contained therein and I can give you my number now
my
personal my city cell phone is 404
274
81 11 my
personal cell phone
The bat phone is six seven eight
eight eight six
two two eight six
My home phone, yes I still have one, is 404-589-1452 and of course my office is 404-330-6770.
Just to short to a response to you, those who are charged with the seven deadly sins
in Georgia are considered dangerous crimes.
And so those persons, as I was trained in corrections in August of 1989, correction officers have the responsibility to three C's, care, custody, and control.
And so you have to take care of an individual who's held within the facility, not only protect them from others but, you know, protect others from them.
You have to control the population there within the facility, making sure that people are housed correctly underneath whether it's a demographic housing, a medical housing, mental health housing, and you have to control that population.
You've got to have them in a situation where the other two factors don't come into play to harm the individuals, and I will submit to you in my response to you that that is not the case in Fulton County.
You and your colleagues have done an excellent job making the case for this contract here today
to help to ameliorate and relieve the overcrowding at the Fulton County Jail.
Sheriff Labotte is not the previous sheriffs that have served and have been subject to the lawsuits
that you all have so expertly explained.
Was he not part of the same types of lawsuit as Chief Jeller at City of Atlanta?
I didn't interrupt you at all when you were speaking,
and I hope that you would give me the same courtesy.
Is that all right?
Yeah, I ask my question afterwards.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
And so he is not the sheriff that was subject to those losses,
and one of the things your group's presentations were also missing
was the political dynamic that none of those previous sheriffs
have the ability to raise the funds to ameliorate the problems
that have faced the Fulton County Jail.
That constitutional authority, of course, rests with the Board of Commissioners.
And so if the Board of Commissioners is not willing to fit the bill for the sheriff,
the sheriff very well can't address those concerns, at least not in a financial capacity.
I have worked in corrections for four and a half years.
I was present when the Atlantis, the ACDC was under construction.
And I know why it was under construction.
Because the jail that is now the Gateway Center for homelessness in Atlanta was the jail that I worked at.
It was designed to hold 400 individuals.
We had an average daily population of about 1,600.
I worked the morning watch on that shift.
I was the classification officer.
So it was my job to interview every inmate that was going to be housed, discern whether
or not they were mentally ill, whether they had communicable disease, you know, male,
female, gender neutral, what have you.
That was my job.
And I assigned people based on that underneath those circumstances.
Because we had an average daily population of about 1,600 inmates, that was the cost
for the building of ACDC. It wasn't the Olympics, it wasn't to drive homeless people out from
downtown, none of that. It was to accommodate that so that we wouldn't get sued, the city
of Atlanta, for having an overpopulated space. The gentleman, the architects mentioned,
no, sorry, the doctor mentioned Maynard Jackson and I want to rehab Maynard's reputation
for a minute. He and Michael Lomax, who was chair of Fulton County, actually worked
an efficient agreement between the city of Atlanta and Fulton County to help to
ameliorate the overcrowding of the Fulton County jail back in the 80s. That
agreement stayed until Mayor Franklin was mayor and was she dissolved it for
financial reasons because the city was on its heels after the bubble burst in a
real estate market and that of course exacerbated the already deplorable
conditions that you also particularly outlined that was going on at Fulton County.
And I believe that the city of Atlanta, given the fact that,
this is what I want to say about the architect, I'm glad that he acknowledged
that the overcrowding at Fulton County is really Atlanta's problem.
And it is. In my philosophy, as I was raised as a activist and as a politician here,
is that all governments
That overlap as the governments have an obligation to one another, particularly when you serve
the same constituency. Almost 90 percent of Atlanta's in Fulton County. At any given moment,
the majority of persons held there on cases, and it goes up and down. It's a wave roughly
from about 60 to about 90 percent are there as a result of the work of the Atlanta Police
department on cases. And so Atlanta contributes greatly to the conditions at
Fulton County by way of the operation of our police department. And so I think it
is a moral obligation that we do something about the crowding at the
facility. If I had it my way I wouldn't charge them $50 an inmate. I'd give
them the building for a dollar and I'd ask the sheriff to take on our
corrections responsibilities, because I know the difference. As long as we have a police
department in Atlanta, we're going to have a need for jail space and detention space,
because there are those who are going to need to be arrested, unfortunately. And so this
agreement I think is a good step in helping to take some of that burden off of Fulton
County, having worked in the old jail, that ACDC, but what is now the Gateway Center,
that was four times overcrowded, I saw those same kind of conditions that exist in the
present Fulton County jail. I was injured on the job in that jail. I carried dead bodies
off of the floor out of that jail. I dealt with people with HIV, communicable disease.
I worked them in a health floor.
I'd done all of that.
I went to Grady, the lobby, when the new members go to tour the new jail.
The name on the lobby over there at ACDC is named for a man who had AIDS.
HIV was dying in a cell.
And the supervisor wouldn't allow then officer Ball to call an ambulance.
He went into a quad and called an ambulance from the payphone to get this man some medical attention.
I rode in the ambulance with him over to the greater hospital.
Now the lobby over there, the new jail is named after him.
And he smelled like a corpse. He barely made it over there before he died.
So I'm very well versed on how human beings ought to be treated in a corrections facility.
I saw it firsthand.
I worked at SHIFT 11-7, which was the lowest populated SHIFT as far as officers were concerned,
but it was the busiest and most dangerous SHIFT for four and a half years.
I worked the entire time on morning watch.
So I'm very familiar with the conditions and toured last year when the City Council
voted to do this a year ago.
When we went and saw the condition of people sleeping on the floor stacked on top of each
other.
Now I believe that I believe in accountability.
I believe Fulton County ought to be accountable.
I believe they ought to build another jail, but I also believe that one more minute of
any person that sleeps on that floor, when we've got a big empty building right across
the street two miles away, and we don't do anything about it, as I said, is sinned.
When we had our previous executive officer of the city speak in tandem for folks on the
border, 5,000 miles away and say, hey, those conditions are inhuman, and we ought to do
something about it.
And we're a mile and a half from Rice Street, and there was silence, and obfuscation, and
You know, and, you know, deflection and everything else, that to me didn't sit well with me.
So that's my position.
I'm sorry, you know, we'll, I think we can come to an understanding none of us wants
to see what's going on at Fulton County, but to stand by and do nothing is also equally
unacceptable to me.
And so since you called my name, that's my response to what you said.
And so thank you, Mr. Chair, for allowing me to respond.
Her next speaker?
Am I so am I clear understanding that your position is that the release of persons who
do not have very dangerous crimes as you described them is not something you would before?
Well, no.
I mean, if someone is charged with murder, if they're okay, so I said those crimes
that are not very dangerous.
Someone is charged with rape, and as I described to you at the beginning of my statement, I
said those who consider seven deadly sins, with the majority of those who are held there.
My question was about those who weren't considered seven deadly sins.
I'm not going to have it back and forth here.
Well, it's not a debate.
It was not a debate, but I have a particular question you answered.
I have the obligation to respond.
And so those who are held with dangerous crimes that are recognized by whether they're
seven deadly sins or what have you, they should not be released because they're
obvious their charges being them as a threat to the community. If they don't
have a bond. We're not talking about those charges. If they don't have a bond
that has been set they should not be released. And so but any person who
is over in the facility, if there are those who have bonds that are said
they haven't been paid, I believe it was someone attached to the organization
or either it was someone else here, said that there were non-profits that were available to bond people out.
They don't need the sheriff to do that. They don't need the county commission to do that.
They can organize that and go down there and bond those people out now.
So you're passing the stand on to non-profit?
Sir, Mr. Franklin, your time is extra.
I tend to respond to the response I was getting.
I gave you every number, so please give him a call.
I'm willing to sit down and meet with you.
I just sent you a text, we'll talk.
Well, you know, give me a text, we can call, we can sit down.
I'll be more than happy to do so.
Mr. Woodall.
Chairman Hill is members of this committee and to the council at large.
Good afternoon. My name is Reverend James, Major Woodall,
and I'm a policy associate at the Southern Center for Human Rights,
and I rise today in opposition to this lease agreement.
And as all of my colleagues have shared,
Chairman or committee, Councilmember Bonn, what we're arguing is that this is not
humanitarian and is for a number of reasons. One, people are currently in these
conditions that we've been talking about that span the course of generations. This
is not in a real sense a new issue and as we've talked about and discussed
about the priority of transfer and the standards of evaluation of who would
to be transferred.
The people that we heard, one of our colleagues,
Caitlin Childs, mentioned, those people
would not be transferred under this proposal.
And I want to spend a little bit of time
talking about the collaboration between
Fullerton County and the city of Atlanta.
One, the timeline of the center
being repurposed isn't clear.
And so if we were to say four years down the line,
we would be able to see this made into fruition.
The reality is it is not clear in the legislation.
The dates are not included.
And in the spirit of transparency, member Bond, you said that there's other spaces within the city of Atlanta that we could use.
To my knowledge, I don't recall any legislation being put forth in such fashion that would make that reality similar to this.
And so we see efforts to continue to use mass incarceration as you called it, the sin, the sin I recall in the scripture that God would ask Moses to address in four simple words, he says, let my people go.
He didn't say, let's find a way to make this work, what Pharaoh was doing. He said, just simply let my people go.
And that's what we're asking this commission, I mean, this council to consider, is to let
the people go.
And I also want to speak about this timeline because it is apparent to me as someone who
works at the Georgia General Assembly, and remember, wait, you may recall this some
time ago, is that there are efforts currently to make every single felony offense in Georgia's
cold bill restricted, meaning this is not going to be resolved. We say we open the jail
and 700 beds will be added while I guarantee you when the Georgia General Assembly, which
is led by Republicans, makes every single felony offense, which we have over 600 on
the books, every single felony offense requires a bond. Imagine what crisis we'll be in
in four years. And so what we're saying is there's things happening that are beyond
the control of the Lennon City Council that we may not have control over. I get it. But
as we work every single day, this is not going to solve the problem. This is not a humanitarian
response. This will only lead to more incarceration. This will only lead to more sin. This will
only lead to more disease and destruction. And so I'll also say this. This is not
Not an immediate response either, because in the agreement, there's no start date.
We don't know when staff will be on board and hired and allowed to be prepared to serve
our community.
There's nothing in there, and then there's zero evidence that proves that this effort
will be effective at all.
And so to suggest that this is the or a solution is just simply misleading and
it's wrong.
Granted, we all support public safety.
I've lived in this community my entire life, in Inglis Avenue, and so I get the concern
of being able to live in a community that you feel safe, but what we're saying is the
data, the research that we've all used.
I've used it at the George General Assembly, and it worked, and it's concerning to me
that we come to the LNC to counsel with people that we've supported who have ignored
the data, the research, the work that's been done for generations.
I'm new to the game.
There's people who have been leading the effort long before I ever was a part of it.
And so all I'll say, yeah, he's seated the balance of his time.
He can't do that legally.
All right. Thank you, sir.
Well, I'll just close and say we ask that you work with us to actually do the work.
And the platitudes and the posturing, that's not what we're here for.
And so we want to, and I thank you for giving us your information because we're going to
use it to work together on this issue.
Thank you, Mr. Pudall.
Mr. Bond?
Just a quick response.
When I was describing in space, I was making a comparison to the work that Pat has done.
Pat didn't wait for the jail to be sold or closed to do anything else.
They jumped in.
They reached out to the administration.
I think it's three administrations, Reed, Bottoms, now Dickens, and they have engaged
their program.
They've said it to work.
There are people who are part of the coalition that have represented, at least when they've
talked to me, that they say, well, let's defund the jail, let's close the jail, and
then use that money to do something else.
What I'm suggesting is that if the need is so great, if their ability is so good,
Why don't they follow the example of PAD and begin their programs now?
We have many recreation facilities around the city that are empty.
They're in need of programming.
They've got space.
They could be active now in helping to divert people from, you know,
getting into trouble or life of crime.
And that was my point about that.
That's all.
But I'm looking forward to talking with you.
Definitely, I just want to make mention that Pat is not in support of this legislation for
that very reason, that the work needs to be done now, and we agree, and so rather than
waiting four years to start that conversation, it's going to take some time to get that repurposing
done, and so we're willing to work on that issue, but to suggest that this is going
to happen tomorrow is just misleading, this is not.
And so that transfer place, I mean, takes time, the evaluation of who gets transferred
for it takes time, and at the same time there is work being done.
So what we're just simply saying is this is not going to get us to where we're wanting
to go together.
And so what we're trying to do is propose alternative solutions that will address it
in the time frame that we know needs to be experienced.
I think you're missing my point about PAD.
Right now PAD is paid out of the general fund, out of taxpayer funded money.
And so I'm not talking about that.
But what I'm saying is that PAD started several years ago.
They put their program in place.
There are those who are part of the coalition that say that they'll do a program one day
once X amount of things happen.
What I'm suggesting is that if they want to do programs, why not start their program
now?
Okay?
Ahead of whatever happens with the jail or whatever happens with Fulton County.
If they say they've got a program of diverting people from winding up in the criminal justice
system, the city of Atlanta has plenty of space in the recreation centers around and every
corner of the city that are empty.
Why not get involved and do it now?
And that work is being done.
Right now.
I think that's what we're saying is the work is being done right now.
So I don't see any active programs.
Go and finish up Mr. Bond.
You know, we'll talk, you know, we can talk.
Seconds to the citizen authority.
Have Stephanie Diaz listed?
I yield my time to Mr. Devon Barrington Ward.
He's at his maximum amount of time of 10 minutes.
So if you'd like to speak, you may, or Mr. Ward,
you have 10 minutes.
OK.
Thank you.
First, I'd like to thank my colleagues
at the Southern Center for Human Rights
for coming today with the facts, coming today
with truth, coming today with that fire.
You all stand in the legacy of Marissa Dotson and I'm proud to stand alongside y'all
My name is Devin Barrington Ward. I'm a proud member of communities over cages ATL and a member of the town
I'm going to ask for us to reimagine the Atlanta City Detention Center. When speaking in support
of transforming this center into the John Lewis Center for Equity, Wellness, and Freedom, I
think it's appropriate to bring the words of John Lewis into the space. A former councilmember
here, our beloved civil rights leader and former congressman. He said that even though the
truth. Can't be denied or erased. It can be systematically obscured, strategically misinterpreted
and hidden from mainstream comprehension. I don't think there's another quote from the
congressman that really sums up what is happening here. We have folks on this council that are
intentionally misrepresenting the facts that are trying to obscure what is actually happening
at ACDC and Rice Street.
So the question that I have for folks is today,
what is it that this city is intentionally hiding
from the public's mainstream comprehension?
Well, I have some answers.
The first thing that we are hiding is that the city of Atlanta
really has no real plan for proactive public safety.
And we continue to see that.
We had a mayor come at this podium
and brag about crime statistics that are going down over three weeks.
I live in Dixie Hills.
My neighbors don't feel safe.
The other thing that we're hiding is that the fact that the police cannot keep us safe.
We had four shootings this weekend, and what did the police do?
They responded after the fact.
Where was the proactive implementation from this city to prevent these types of harms
from happening to our residents?
What we're hiding from the public's comprehension is that the mayor has shown a preference for
for backroom deals with the sheriff rather than meeting with the community who helped
write the legislation he sponsored as a member of council. And the other thing that's very
interesting with this whole debate is that Fulton County was overcrowded when the legislation
was introduced. Fulton County was overcrowded when council member Hillis, when other members
of this body voted for that legislation and it passed with 11 votes. What is
What's also being hidden from the public's comprehension is that this proposal by the
mayor and the sheriff, there is no guarantees that there won't be a continuance.
Let's be clear.
If the sheriff is allowed in this building, he will never leave.
He views this as his own personal building.
There is ego that is attached to it because members of this community did the hard
organizing work to depopulate that jail, and there was no longer a need for him.
What we are hiding from the public's conscience is that we pay lip service, and we make businesses
the scapegoat for our public safety issues here in the city of Atlanta.
Our public safety issues are not grounded in a few nightclubs.
Our public safety issues are grounded in the fact that no one has really offered
a real strategy for how we get to the root cause of crime in this city which is poverty.
The other thing that we are hiding from the mainstream comprehension of the public
is that overcrowding is not new. I am 32 years old. Fulton County was overcrowded when I was in
middle school. When are we going to actually systemically address this issue and stop kicking
the can down the road? You know one of the things that I have concluded through this whole
processes is that some of the people that we love in this building, people who have murals
and portraits, folks like Dr. King, Frederick Douglass, John Lewis, I really believe though
that if Dr. King was alive today, many of you all would be in opposition to him. And
the reason I believe that is because there are some folks who have shown that you don't
like when the public peacefully protests when we show our disagreement with your public policy
it is viewed as disrespect rather than a part of the democratic process.
What has been really offensive to me is how council members have tried to lecture me about
the conditions at Rice Street.
I've been in Rice Street, not on a tour, I was there as an inmate with our beloved
Congresswoman Nakima Williams when we were arrested in 2018 for peacefully
protesting the mismanagement of the election by the Republicans. I don't
need anyone to lecture me about the conditions of Fulton County. I was on
those floors. I don't need anyone to lecture me about the conditions of
public safety on the West Side. I have been a victim of crime and so with
having holding that duality I can still come up here and demand that we
adhere to what we had originally agreed to. What the mayor put his name on when
he was a council member back in 2019. What many of you all who were a part of
that council voted for.
We're about to consider a lease that has no review, no
oversight, no terms that are favorable to the City of Atlanta. You all are
opening yourself up to so much liability. It financially from a business
perspective does not make sense. And so if you won't listen to the lawyers, if you won't listen to
the doctors, if you won't listen to the public, if you won't listen to the civil rights leaders,
if you won't listen to some of your own colleagues, if you won't listen to the votes
that you all made a few years ago, then who will you listen to? Well maybe you'll listen
to the sheriff who said with his own words at the Fulton County Commission meeting that if
If we got ACDC tomorrow, it would not fix Fulton County's problems.
So what are we even talking about?
So if you won't listen to any of those people, at least listen to the sheriff who has also
concluded that ACDC is a path to nowhere.
And so I'd like to close with this.
What side of history will you all be on?
I know I'm going to be on the right side of history.
Where y'all going to be?
I would offer you the invitation to be on that right side of history because we will
be right.
We have always been right because we have a pulse of the people.
We talk to the folks who are incarcerated in that facility.
We are the folks who have been incarcerated in that facility.
We are the subject matter experts.
We are the checks and the balance.
John Lewis also said that every generation leaves behind a legacy.
legacy. What that legacy will be is determined by the people of this generation. And so what
legacy do you want to leave behind? Thank you.
If that concludes our public comment,
I can't hear you come up to the mic.
Excuse me. I had yielded my time, but you advised that Mr. Barrington Ward had already
in a lot of time. Is it okay if I am I able to say something? I will give you
two minutes not technically but go ahead. Thank you. Hi I'm Stephanie Diaz and I
come to you as a community member and a member of the Fulton County Crisis
Coalition and we have written something to share. The Fulton Crisis Care
Our coalition advocates for better services for people experiencing mental health crisis
and those seeking to support them.
Among us are people who are directly impacted, crisis care workers, community advocates,
who have all navigated enormous gaps in the local crisis care system.
We along with mental health professionals, practitioners and people in mental health
recovery in our broader Atlanta community are here to ask you to oppose the proposed lease
of the Atlanta City Detention Center.
Many of us have worked inside detention centers or experienced incarceration, the overuse
of our local jails to address mental health concerns and broader behavioral health and
issues such as the lack of mental health services and the inaccessibility of
supportive housing for people who experience mental illness. This is a
Georgia norm that must change. We know that the needs of people with mental
health concerns are not being adequately addressed in these facilities and
instead are exacerbated and often lead to preventable deaths.
An estimated
60 to 80 percent of individuals incarcerated at Fulton County Jail suffer from a mental
health concern and one-third of all people incarcerated at Fulton County Jail receive
some type of psychotropic medication.
So in closing we will also be providing this letter
and writing to you all to consider and read further along with the research attached to it.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you.
And that concludes public comment.
Before we move on to our presentations from our senior departments,
I do want to take one item under resolutions first,
because the sponsor is here with us and has somewhere else to be.
So, with no objection, I will handle, we will handle 22R4030, which is item number six under resolutions.
Read that in, please.
A resolution by Councilmember Alex I to amend Resolution 21R3040 pursuant to wish the City of Atlanta Alcohol Technical Advisory Group, ATAC3, was established to conduct a review and to identify recommendations for changes to the City of Atlanta's alcohol beverage licensing process.
In order to amend the ATAC-3 meeting location requirements and the knowledge of the return
to in-person meetings, to extend the time by which ATAC-3 must complete its review and
recommendations such that it shall be within 12 months of its first meeting and for other
purposes.
Council Member Juan, thank you for joining us today.
Thank you Chair Hillis and thank you my colleagues and members of the Public Safety Committee.
Thank you for the indulgence of letting me speak and kind of crash your party today.
I wanted to ask for your support of this resolution.
What it does is, as you know, ATAC 3 has been working all year
in terms of looking at and making proposed recommendations
to our alcohol code to support both communities
as well as license holders and industry.
Work is progressing well, but the committee has asked for more time.
There was a natural time limit and sunset in the original legislation
that Mr. Bond had put together, and we're asking just for an extension of that.
And while we're amending the paper, the law department has asked us to include a provision
in there that allows for remote meetings in the event that we go back into that state.
I have spoken with the author just to let him know about this in advance of today's meeting.
I'll entertain any questions, but I, again, ask for your support for this on behalf of
the
68, 0 nays that I'm as favorable. Thanks again, Councilmember one. I'll go back to presentations
and thank you to all of our staff and departments for sticking with us today. First up we'll
have Atlanta Police Department's bi-weekly report. Deputy Chief Peake.
Good afternoon, Chairman Hillis and all the esteemed members of the Public Safety
Council. We certainly thank you and always look forward to the opportunity of standing
in front of you and presenting our bi-weekly report as we move forward here.
Is
it here?
Okay, there we are.
So our first slide, what we find with this particular briefing here, when we look at our year-to-date
crimes as we want to focus naturally with the incidents that we've recently had,
the major focus that we've been moving forward with is gangs, illegal guns,
and illegal narcotics that are out on our streets with that because what we've
seen historically is that that has a direct impact on what happens with our
violent crime. So we're 4% up from this time last year, year-to-date. So as we're
looking at that, that's a 4% increase, but when we look at our 28%, we've had
a significant decrease over the 28 day and currently we're sitting at a 1%
decrease for that 28 day and then of course as we look at the actual current
week this is week 30 represented here there was a 13% increase 85 versus 75 as
to where we were this time last year. Additionally with those particular ones
what we're looking at although this covers the crime data for week 30 as we
look between weeks 29 through 31 we've had a significant reduction of about
11% with our violent crime. So we know that we are making gains in the actual
community as we're dealing with those issues. Doesn't mean that we still don't
have a lot of work to do in the streets as far as trying to partner with all of
the entities, particularly with the violent Reduction Task Force, as I'm
being instituted within the city of Atlanta, and of course then all the
other outside resources that we continue continually partner with.
We've certainly had a lot of great arrests as it pertains to that, and I know you've heard
and may are already speaking, state a lot of those statistics, so I don't want to be redundant.
But the homicide clear-up matter that we continually look at the national average is a 54 percent.
The city of Atlanta right now, we're sitting at 64 percent, but there are a number of
cases that warrants are already in place and we're either waiting to either identify or
locate that person or that person that's sitting in another jail and we can't clear that warrant
until we get them into the Fulton County justice system. So when we consider those
numbers, we're looking at a 94% reduction or not reduction but clearance rate for
our homicide number. So the men and women of the Atlanta Police Department are doing
trying to solve those cases.
Additionally, as we look at property crimes,
that's our number one driver.
Because of the numbers, when we talk about our vehicle break-ins
and those auto thefts,
shoplifting and other types of issues,
we're constantly working trying to drive those numbers down.
We're at 8% reduction for the period of week 30
and then a 2% up for the 28-day,
8% up for the year-to-date,
brings us a total crime number of 7% is where we are right now, which is a much better place
than where we were this time last year. So although that slight increase is there, those
numbers are really and truly been going in the right direction. So we want to continue
to keep our focus and ensure that we're in the right places doing the right things
and trying to build a partnership so that when we see things and we get that information
that we can act faster on it and really and truly get the people the help that's
need and then those that need to go to jail, then we will proceed with those particular
situations.
As we move forward, I just really want to highlight this next case here, and this was
a particular case where we served a search warrant in a 3,800 block of MLK, I'm sorry,
not MLK, Camelton Road, 318 Camelton Road.
In that particular one we were able to see, as you see, we took off about 159 grounds
of crack, 52 grams of marijuana, three assault rifles, two handguns, and made two arrests,
both of which had significant criminal histories.
The challenge with this location, just to let you know what was happening at that location,
we got the information and went over and started that investigation a number of months
ago.
But after serving that search warrant and clearing that particular location, probably
about two or three hours later, we received a shooting of a male that was shot.
We quickly responded back out to that location and dealt with that person.
Got him the medical help that he needed and tried to further his investigation.
We left that location probably another hour later there was another shooting that came up at the very same location.
So we know that it's a problem location that we're looking at it trying to really get to the root causes of what's going on.
But we know again narcotics is that piece that's over there.
And so homicide unit is really looking and trying to do all they can to bring all those
that are involved to justice.
But those are some of the things that we see when we really and truly put our units out
here and have such successes.
Additionally, just highlighting some of the work of the men and women on our crime
suppression unit that's really assigned to the Zone 6 unit over at Selena Butler
Park, really and truly over there trying to get services and get all the things
is needed and furthering investigations from a robbery over there while they're there to
hear gunshots quickly see vehicle fleeing from the area and they were able to make a
stop on that vehicle and inside their car again what do we see assault weapons and
other things of like that nature and narcotics so we know what's happening in the streets
we know that we have the right resources out there dealing with it is something
that we just have to stay focused and damn when we find those issues deliver those
people where they need to go to deal with whatever they're dealing with, and for those
that we can help, we'll help, and those that we need to move forward with the criminal justice
system, that's exactly what we strive to do, to make our community safe as possible, and
ultimately to answer the calls and the questions of our communities, because once
we get the calls and people are saying that they really and truly can't come outside,
they can't do these things, it's incumbent upon us to respond and go out and investigate
gate and try to restore order to that particular area.
Looking here at our next slide, repeat offenders.
As we see, there's not a whole lot of change there.
What we really and truly focus on is who are we dealing with when we have any particular
issues.
We know that weapon charges are the 21 percent of those cases.
Violent crime for this particular report out was zero, but then property crime,
that number is always consistently high at 37 percent.
So then we look at the averages of the number of people that we're dealing with.
49 years old is what we're dealing with with our repeat offenders.
We're constantly dealing with people around the 49 year old range in this particular one
and the number of res which are really and truly concerning, 40.
Now these are res very well may not be represented of a city ordinance
or just a simple shoplifting but it's a myriad of charges with that being narcotics.
A lot of it, most of the time we're looking at assaults and robberies and other types
of property crimes along with some violence.
Number of felony convictions is nine.
So ultimately trying to look at these cases to figure out what's happening with each
individual calling PAAC, calling those other resources that are out there to see what
we can do to try to make those people hold if we can, but again, making sure
that we restore justice in the communities where they are actually having the greatest
impact.
As we look at Connect-a-Lana, that's our real-time track and center Connect-a-Lana
trying to really and truly push the word out, continue to grow our network.
It's shown to be beneficial on a number of cases that we've responded to,
some homicide, some shootings to where we can actually get that footage,
really look at it and turn around and put the cases together
and present a case to the district attorney's office.
That would be compelling so that we would make sure that we would get a conviction
once those cases are solved.
Today, as we're looking at that, the registered cameras, I think we're looking at about 45,
43, and then the integrations are 6 to 652.
So that's slightly over 11,000 cases that we had, well, cameras that we've had adopted
into this system.
So the numbers are heading in the right direction.
We thank you for your partnerships and really pushing that information out and ask
that you continue to work with us.
We'll continue to share that information and particularly with our problem properties
to ensure that we go out and have conversations with those property owners, business owners
or whatever to see if we can certainly continue to get them to partner with us and put those
cameras into the feed and that will really and truly be beneficial for the City of Atlanta
for providing a higher level of safety.
And I believe if I'm not mistaken that really concludes the presentation here.
I don't believe there are any other slides passed there so at this particular point
open up the floor for any questions that you might have.
Thank you, Deputy Chief Peake. You mentioned the shooting over at Mechanicsville.
The six persons were shot and almost killed.
Has there been any update or has the person been caught or identified?
So, Humaside Unit is really and truly working those leads as fast as they can
and really and truly with the fine two comb, it's still an active investigation.
We have not brought anybody to justice at this point,
But we are partnering with all of those entities really working closely with Atlanta Public Schools
and the actual center itself to go out and do additional knocking talks
just to really see who's out there what's happening.
So it's a moving investigation.
Were there any cameras in the park?
Not specifically for my recollection of that particular part,
but there are some surrounding footages that we're really truly looking at
to see if they would be beneficial for us.
And just to follow up the shooting that happened over, I think they were leaving Howard's Barber Shop over there on Peter Street where the little boy got shot.
Yes.
And the head, they had gotten the headway on that.
Still an active investigation as well on that particular one. We were able to get the footage and I believe that was already released to the media so that we could really intrude this show and put together what happened.
The KUB is going back and really tracing the footsteps prior to to figure out if we can make some sense about what happens.
But that's the case that they have great leads and they're continuing to focus on them.
Now I know that when the acting chief share bond was here a couple of weeks ago,
and I don't want you to put words in his mouth,
but I know that he had talked about people kind of intervening before there's a shooting happen.
But I know he didn't mean for people to get in front of a shooter, but we want to continue
to urge people to try to help de-escalate things as much as possible.
Absolutely, absolutely.
No, by no means do we ever want anyone to put themselves in harm's way.
But to those extent where we have people that are out there who can be a sounding board
of some sort to where they can really and truly talk to people prior to things
escalating so high, we really and truly look forward to people having that.
just honest words just to say hey it's not worth it why are we having gunplay
because we're having a disagreement we can agree to disagree and turn around and
walk away today and live another day so that's certainly a concern and then
that's really and truly the thought process behind the violence reduction
program as I've had the opportunity to really go up to Baltimore and have a
in-depth look at that program that's exactly what's happening people who
are influential in the community who are having an opportunity to be out there and know that
there are specific things that are brewing in the community and how we're able to utilize
them and partner with them so that they can say, hey, it's not worth it. Let's squash
this and move on and everybody walk away and we don't have incidents that are going to
escalate to the level of gun violence. It's really and truly we have to appeal
to our people to make better decisions, put the guns down and, you know, if you
to do something which we don't condone fighting either. Just walk away if we can't have a conversation
and talk, then just walk away because everyone's lives are just really and truly way too valuable
for us just to have a simple disagreement to where we start pulling triggers and losing lives.
That's just really and truly. We can't continue down that road, so we look forward to those.
Okay, just one last point that I will withdraw. How is the recruiting of officers going at this point
So far everything is going well. We like the direction of where we are.
I am happy to report that we'll have about 16 new officers that are coming out of the academy
finishing up their 12-week field training this week and then will be assigned to all six precincts
starting August 11th, if I'm not mistaken, if that's what the Thursday's date is.
But to date, so as we're looking at it right now, we've hired about 107 as we're looking right here
and then with the fiscal year, we're really on track to continue.
We've sitting at about 107
versus 51 last year.
So that shows you and truly we're actually having a great number of opportunities for hiring.
We've had a number of events and really and truly I think the last major event we had
was at Lenox Mall a few weeks ago.
Focus was swarming people as well as our 911 center.
Last check, I think the numbers were somewhere around close to 100 people that we were able to process in that particular setting.
So those are actually certainly encouraging numbers as well.
As we look for the FY23, we already have 17 people which just started July 1st.
So looking at the onboarding of September, we plan to onboard already five people that we've already forecast because they're having to get other things
in order to prepare to move to Atlanta for these particular jobs.
But even here now, month of August while we're just in the first week, we are projecting
about 15 people and that number could increase based on what's happening with the data that
we get back with those packages.
So we're certainly having some success with the hiring numbers and so we're going to continue
to look, I think there are a number of places that we're looking for the month
of August to go somewhere probably about 11 or 12 different career fairs or different
events throughout the metro area and some that are out of state. So the focus on hiring
is serious and we're having a lot of success as we continue to meet with some of our surrounding
partners. I'm thankful that because we're really seeing a lot more interest than a
lot of our surrounding jurisdiction. So obviously we're doing something right.
Okay. That's very good. I withdraw, Mr. Chair.
Council Member Boone?
Thank you.
I would just like to again thank Major Jackson and Captain Claxton for being hands on last Tuesday night on Wilson Mill Road.
They were there personally and also returned the next day to speak with the elderly neighbors on that street. Thank you.
I'll certainly be sure to share that information and I know to get some other resolutions they're
actually meeting today.
They've already met it from my mistaken with the parks commissioner to really strategize
and do some other things so that we can ensure that we all work together and present the
best product we can for each one of our parks.
But naturally looking at that top 20 number that we had based off the data for crime
and what was happening, we've had significant crime reductions with those first top
20. However one is too many so we're still going to go and do all we can to
enhance all of our city parks and prioritize them so that we can get the
right people in place. Until then we're utilizing our mounted patrols to really
go out there and some of our other external units to get into those places
to try to provide a better buffer for safety. Thank you. Thank you Deputy
Chief, a few things for me. Number one, the Connect Atlanta.
I would like to see a little more...
This promotion and advertising of that, I know it has its own website, however, in my opinion,
it should be, you know, there should be a link to that website on APD's main page, because
this is a great program to get people to register and integrate their cameras, and we don't,
as far as I can tell, I can't find anything about the Connect Atlanta program on APD's
website. And like I said, it should be on the front page.
So I hope to see more
about that, promoting it, because as I said, it's a great program. Number two, I
know there have been a few changes at APD, including you have a new position, so
if you could just tell us about those. And one of those changes, of course, was
one that we approved in our fiscal year 23 budget, and that was bringing in a
chief administrative officer, Mr. Peter Amon. So, Mr. Amon, if you'd like to
come up after Deputy Chief Peek is through.
I would say introduce yourself,
but I'll believe most of us know you.
But tell us a little bit about your position
and what you're hoping to achieve.
So yes, yes, absolutely.
And I'll certainly yield so that Mr. Amen
can do his presentation as well.
So yes, I moved from Field Operations Division
back over to Community Services Division,
the division that I've served prior to as well.
I think I've served three different divisions
within the Atlanta Police Department.
community services field operations as well as criminal investigations. So, wherever, you
know, naturally we're trying to put people in place to where we feel as though at the
time of whatever is going on we can address whatever issues. Additionally, Chief Sinser,
we dissolved the strategy of special projects and then he's moved over to field operations
at this particular point in time. And so Chief Prinzena Spann also we've looked
and part of the units that made up her division, some of those have gone over to Chief Amon
as the administrative officer, so we're really and truly just trying to ensure that we align
the department with what we need so that we can have the great business continuity
piece that can always continue to move, and as we move around in the sworn positions
that we can be as effective as possible to do what we need to do.
And with that, I won't steal any more of Peter Amon's thunder.
We'll allow him to present so that we can all hear the great things that he has planned
for us as well.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for the opportunity.
I'll be very brief.
But as the Chief has mentioned on several occasions, with the approval of the Council and the
addition of the Chief Administrator of Officers' Position, we are trying to add functional
expertise and stability to the department, particularly surrounding areas such as fiscal
management, human resources, technology, and a number of other departments or units of the
department which rely heavily on process and technology. Not to exclude, however, the sworn
component. While we will be bringing in some additional professionals, non-sworn individuals
individuals into the department in these areas, we will always have a hybrid and really allow
for both the rotation of sworn members into some of these administrative functions perhaps
a little earlier on in their career to work with the functional experts and professionals
and non-sworn individuals.
But also over time provide more stability because as many of you have seen over time
we have a rotation of deputy chiefs and majors and captains and lieutenants which
which makes it difficult for areas such as HR and recruiting to really dig in and accomplish
what we want them to accomplish.
So by adding the functional expertise and the stability, we hope to really drive more
performance and professionalism through the department.
In particular, specifically, I'm looking after the areas I mentioned, fiscal management,
program management, which are some of our major efforts around facilities.
also looking into and managing code enforcement, license and permits, a fleet,
so that's the repair of our vehicles, and a number of other areas.
So, when you think of the area of the Chief Administrative Officer,
it really is focused on those non-sworn areas of law enforcement
and look forward very much to working with all of you.
I've had an opportunity to get to know many of you over time.
some I'm looking forward to get to know better, and I'll take any questions, but
I'm really only three weeks in, so I may not have as many answers just at
the moment as you might like. Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Amon? Councilmember
Boone? I just want to welcome Mr. Amon back. Thank you so much for coming back
to help us out. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Vaughn.
Yes, I'd like to
piggyback on what Councilwoman Boone said. It is great to have you back,
and glad to see you here. I know that you will bring so much to our operations and
just very, very pleased to see you. Great. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Councilman Bramis. Yes, sir. I just want to say welcome aboard. I'm glad you're
here to look at the processes. Our men and women of the Police Department do a
spectacular job, but I think what we miss is the process of when they're out there doing
their job, they say, if this would have happened then that may not have happened.
So I'm glad and I'm hoping I'm talking to the person who's going to find that medium
between all the rest of the departments, sworn, not sworn, social services, everybody
else to make the city safer.
So I'm just welcome aboard and if anything I can do to help you, let me know.
Thank you. And that is, in fact, absolutely correct. And public safety starts with the
9-1-1 call center in many ways, in addition to obviously proactive policing and social
services and so many other things. The 9-1-1 center is another area that we're all very
concerned about improving our response times and our call answer times. So yes, at the
end of the day, it's people process and technology, but you've got to have that
process part right. So I'm here to help. So thank you so much.
Chief Peake, did you have anything else to add?
All right.
I just want to make sure before I just walk away.
All right.
I think that is it.
Thank you very much for the bi-weekly update.
Thank you.
Next up, we will have our Atlanta Police Department Code
Enforcement Quarterly Report.
Director Talley, welcome.
Thank you.
Good evening now.
My name is Daphne Tally, I'm the Director of the Atlanta Police Department Code Enforcement Section.
Let me click here.
Wait for the presentation.
Thank you.
So the last time code enforcement presented before this committee was in January earlier of this year.
So, today we're going to cover FY period 22, focusing on our inspections, our complaint
intake versus complaint resolution, which are the complaints that are filed with our
office versus our complied cases.
We'll also update you on our junk vehicle process.
These are the vehicles that we remove or abandoned vehicles that we removed from
private property.
compliance resolution, which is our administrative interim division, process
improvements, and of course our challenges.
So FY22 we conducted over 24,000
inspections. These includes our initial inspections. This is the first time that
code enforcement is actually accessing the property to confirm violations. Also
our reinspections. This is generally the second time we visited the property
as well as our court reinspections.
Court reinspections, of course, are inspected after a citation has been issued.
This is a 90% increase from the previous year.
Of course, during FY21, our inspectors were not in the field from March of 2020 through
July of 2020.
So when we returned to the office in August of 2020, we focused on our initial inspections
because court was closed for a period.
But in January of 21, we continued to do our re-inspection so that is the reason for the spike.
Also our compliance or the number of complaints that were filed with our office in FY22 was over 7500 complaints.
This was a 44% increase from the previous year.
27% of those complaints were proactive so that means that our inspectors continue to feel generate
a lot of those complaints that come in through our office.
Our goal each year is try to close out
as many complaints that are filed with our office.
So of course in FY21, due to the pandemic,
we did not close as many of those complaints
as we have liked, but FY22,
we're back up to our pre-pandemic numbers.
We complied about 75% of those cases
that were filed in FY22.
Our junk vehicle process,
This is something that we started last August of 21.
This process allows us to tow vehicles, abandoned vehicles from private property.
Since August of 2021, we've removed 58 junk vehicles.
564 of those vehicles that we placarded came into compliance.
Either they were removed or they were registered.
We have 44 vehicles that are pending tow.
Now, one of the things that we wanted to really, really bring to your attention is vehicles
that are parked on the street.
Those are vehicles that you guys would have to call or the citizens would have to dial
911 for.
If those vehicles are abandoned, APD will go out and placard those vehicles.
I believe their process is three to five days.
If those vehicles remain, they will tow those vehicles off the property.
Compliance resolution activity.
So for FY 21, I'm sorry, FY 22, we've demolished 79 properties.
That's 30 more properties than we did in FY 21 and 21 less properties than we did in FY 20.
44 properties are clean and closed.
76 clean and, I'm sorry, clean and cuts were done.
These are properties where property owners have abandoned those properties that does not need to go through any type of formal property.
These are properties that have overgrowth or trash and debris.
The city has authorization to access those properties and clean those lots.
That accounted for about 27% of our budget in FY22.
We're finding ourselves doing more and more of those.
We used to have a collaboration with the Department of Public Works as well as the Department of Corrections.
We no longer have those services, so we are electing to go out and abate those properties.
We have an additional 59 properties that have been awarded to a contractor, either for demolition,
cleaning clothes, or cleaning cuts.
They're an additional 92 properties that are pending demolition, meaning that we've
received a demolition order, and they are pending award to a city contractor.
There are an additional 1,386 properties that are pending some type of review, either by the administrative
end-run process or clean and cut by a city contractor, or through a nuisance process.
So some of the things that we are working on for FY22, we're looking at revising the 1987 housing code.
We want to bring over some of the codes from the International Property Maintenance Code.
A lot of the things that are in that 2018 code is kind of redundant, so we went through that code
and selected those things that are missing from the 1987 housing code.
More specifically, there is a code when it comes to transferring of ownership,
meaning that it is unlawful for anyone to sell a property knowing that there is a
code or not disclosing that there is a code violation on that property to the
buyer. So we want to bring that over to our code. There's some other things
regarding maintenance of swimming pools that's missing from the Atlanta housing
code that we would want to adopt and make a part of the 1987 housing code. We
We also dedicated a staff member to train new and existing code enforcement officers.
We were using our senior code enforcement officers to train our new and existing officers,
but dedicating that person, that one person to train those newcomers as well as those
existing officers cuts down on a lot of different activity that goes on out in the field.
so that brings some consistency to the division.
Also, we continue to collaborate with our partners,
with the City of, I'm sorry, the City Solicitor's Office regarding the priority
blighted properties with the council members, the problem apartment detail. We also collaborated or
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm a little cold today, but we also participated in the Walk with Me
Wednesday with Councilmember Amos's office as well as the cleanup detail with
the Department of Public Works.
We continue to collaborate with Fire Rescue
Division. They provide us with a copy of the fire report that actually was
suggested from the committee during our administrative interim work session
back in April. And the newest collaboration that I really wanted to
pointed out today is with the Fulton County Environmental Health Division, so
there is this email that's going around regarding the public storage that I think
all of you guys are on, so there is a rodent issue, a huge rodent issue, at the
public storage facility on how
And we partner with the Fulton County health division to go out and do that inspection.
And we're going to start doing more of that because what happens is when we get those calls
for those storage facilities or even those vacant lots that are overgrown,
Fulton County health department will go out to the property that is complaining to determine,
they will do an interior, I'm sorry, an exterior inspection to determine if there are any holes,
how the rodents are getting into that property.
They will also provide the rat poisoning or the rodent poisoning to the property owner
to put down themselves.
So this is a new collaboration that we're excited to be a part of.
Also in FY22, we started using drones to assist with code enforcement activity.
A lot of times we get these complaints about violations that's behind an opaque fencing
or a deteriorated roof, so we've been using our drones to do flyovers to confirm these
code violations. This is a property on Virginia Avenue that we could not really see from the
ground, but the drone assisted in
seeing those violations. This is a property on Danforth
Avenue. The neighbors for a long time had complained about property issues or violations
violations in the rear yard. We were able to use the drone to confirm that those violations
existed in the rear and side yard. Another example, this is on Eisenhower. Storage in
the rear yard also saw activity of the property owner working on cars in the backyard.
Two
challenges that we wanted to point out today is, as I stated earlier, when we returned
to the office in August of 2020, we focused on those initial inspections. And so we did not really
focus on our reinspections until January of 2021. And so that has caused a little bit of a backlog
with serving those criminal citations. Of course, these are the citations that we have to serve
personally. So we have a process server that we use as well as our police officers and code
enforcement officers assisting in serving those citations.
So we do have a little bit of a backlog
that we're trying to work through.
And of course, as with city of Atlanta,
all department staffing levels for us
are a challenge at this time.
We have 21 vacancies.
Our critical positions that we're working with HR
to feel as soon as we can.
We have a code enforcement supervisor vacancy,
2 code enforcement senior officers and 10 code enforcement officers that we are missing
currently.
We have 13 officers in the field.
Of course pre-pandemic we had 21, so we are in need of those positions.
And I think this concludes our presentation today.
I thank you for your continued support and I am available for questions at this time.
Thank you, Director Talley. A few questions for me.
So when we speak of criminal citations,
it says you have a process server, so I can take it. Those can be served by unsworn personnel?
That is correct. Yes.
Have we looked at either, is that, are any of your vacancies process servers, or have we looked at
contracting with a process serving service, or?
So we have. And so now that we have the new budget and so we are trying to, we've reached
out to some other process servers who are interested in serving citations for the City
of Atlanta. So there are about two or three more that we are entertaining at this time
and we'll be doing a solicitation through the Department of Procurement.
Okay. Thank you for that. And of the 21 vacancies, how many of those are actively
posted right now if you know that number?
The Code Enforcement Officer positions as well as the Code Enforcement Senior Officers.
And I think the Code Enforcement Supervisor position will be posted this week.
Okay, so how many is that total that's posted?
That would be 13.
So I kind of wanted to speak.
I have legislation on our agenda since you're already up here.
And you went over your backlog.
So colleagues, I have 22.0, 16.19, which is item number two on our agenda.
This is something that we did last term.
And last term we added an additional 1.5 million for code enforcement demos.
Assaults, given the funds available on that fund to double that to 3 million.
So just talk about number one, what's already in your budget in FY23 for funding.
addressing what you expect or have currently in CDBG money and how this $3 million would
assist you in addressing the backlog because even if we just count the 37 plus 92 that have
already been awarded or have orders, that's roughly, probably almost $4 million, if not
more.
And then we wanted to talk about the 990 that's pending in rent service, which all
of those will not be demolitions but that's a lot of money and so speak to us a
little bit about that. So for FR-23 we received two million dollars for
abatement projects through the general fund. Currently there's seven hundred
thousand dollars from CDBG for abatement projects. We've well on our
way to spending that. I believe the CDBG we may have about five hundred
$100,000 left in that. The 1387 projects that are awaiting some type of review. So if a demolition
project, because our current demolition contract includes as best as abatement, so the average
cost of a single family demolition is around $24,000. And as I stated, we're doing more
cleaning and cut then we are cleaning closes and so that accounted for 27% of
our budget. So again every house or of those 300 1386 complaints that we have
those are not 1386 demolitions but there is some type of abatement that
needs to be done to those to those properties. So that additional three
million will definitely assist in eliminating a lot of those projects not
all again the average cost of a demolition is $24,000. That's great to hear.
Before I yield the floor to have one more general request for all of APD so
Chief Peek or Mr. Aiman we haven't received one in a while but if we could
get an updated org chart for APD given the changes and usually that
includes you know the name and the contact number if we could get that
that'd be much appreciated. Colleagues any questions for Director
Dr. Talley,
Council Member Amos.
No question, just basically want to say thank you and I'm going to say it slowly because
I don't want people to think that you did not do it anyway, but every time I have sent
your e-mail, someone from your office have gotten me the information that was needed.
And that's very helpful because now I'm able to talk to the constituent and tell
them that although the property seems as if nothing is happening, you have given
me dates, time, citations, court numbers, everything we needed to make that constituent
feel better, so just thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome.
Council Member Boone. Yes, Director Talley, do you have any information on the
property on Bakers Ferry Road? Yes. So and thank you for sending that
information to us. So the one property that you identified, there are actually
three properties and they're owned by family members. And so we sent code
enforcement officers as well as sworn officers out there on Friday and spoke to the tenants.
I think there's a father, a couple of brothers, sisters that all live in those properties.
And so they were to go back out today.
I've not received an update because they were going to issue citations because they
were giving us misinformation, but once they came back in and we did the research,
we saw that they're all related.
And so we'll be issuing citations for those properties.
We found several code violations out there on Friday.
The altercation at Wilson Mill Park apparently started at one of those homes where they congregate
and have parties in the yard daily on bakers.
It's across from 3798 Bakers Ferry.
Right.
So the sworn officer that we sent out there with the code enforcement officer was very
familiar with the property.
So he was going back out there again today with them to issue those citations for
those code violations.
Any other questions, comments for Director Talley?
All right, thank you so much. Thank you.
Next we will have our quarterly update from our
City Solicitor's Office, Solicitor Carter.
Good evening Chairman Hillis and all members
of the Public Safety and Legal Administration Committee. I am Rains Carter, City Solicitor.
I am joined today by Deputy Solicitor Erica Smith and thank you as always for this
opportunity to give you an update on our activities for this quarter for FY 22.
Today we will go over record restriction. We would also talk about our participation
with APD in the new recruit training. So we're very very much in line with getting these officers
up to speed so they can get out and protect us as soon as possible. And of course we'll be
talking about the nuisance properties initiative, our collaboration with our
district attorney's office, and our community prosecution and outreach.
As I
always talk about record restriction, what I've added this time is just to
give you a little bit of a handoff on the restriction process. Most people
call it expungement. Of course it was changed by state law, by the
legislature, and so anyone arrested before July 1st, 2013, have to complete an application
with the arresting agency, APD, or other agencies. If it is after July 1st, 2013, we have set
up a process, and thank you for the support you all have given us on this, where you
You can complete your form directly online with the City of Atlanta Solicitor's Office
on our website.
And the way that process works is that the documentation is submitted, including identification
and then any certified disposition letter that you may receive from your court proceeding.
We have an attorney dedicated to that process that actually reviews the file, checks
the histories that are necessary and then makes a determination under the state law provisions
regarding if a person is eligible for that record restriction. Once that is submitted, it comes
across my desk personally to take a look at and to sign off on and we try to have these back to
people within four to six weeks. We're going to continue to work on that time to try to get
that time down a bit. But we think this is very important in terms of people having a
second chance to go on with their lives. And the legislature is working on some provisions
and I think they may come up in the next legislative session to expand those types
of things which can be restricted and these things are being worked on by prosecutors
On our next slide, I'm proud to be a part of the ongoing training sessions with the Atlanta
Police Department.
Now we've always done in-service training where we have officers that come for review
and updates, but this year we're particularly focusing on the new recruit training.
And so we have attorneys in the office, Deputy Solicitor Andrew Taylor and others.
They are very active in terms of going out and helping with the new recruits.
We've done training sessions between four to eight hours,
and the most recent session was held on May 4th,
so we will be working as we are bringing on officers.
Ticket writing, of course, writing the citations.
Effective police report writing,
which can be extremely critical in terms of building an evidentiary basis for cases in court.
We also put them through exercises with courtroom testimony and demeanor.
It's a lot to be a police officer, and we want to make sure that we cover all the aspects that are needed.
So we actually set up mock, direct, and cross-examination of questions so that they won't get rattled in court
and they'll be able to properly present the evidence needed.
And we have other types of interacting learning exercises.
And our next slide takes us to a nuisance property initiative,
and I'll ask if Deputy Solicitor Erica Smith will come forward
and take us through the rest of the presentation.
I remain here for questions,
and as always, it's an honor to be before each of you.
Good evening.
I'm Erica Smith, Deputy Solicitor, and I'm going to talk about the
We still have our bi-weekly committee meetings for our problem properties, but also if we've
added a layer, we actually meet with the mayor's office and the members of housing to talk about
on our multi-family dwellings that are problem properties.
We also attend weekly APD meetings, the COBRA meetings,
because crime statistics actually puts us in the direction
of what property we're gonna take in
or what property actually makes our list.
So the problem properties actually are divided
into three different buckets.
We have our nightlife problem properties
and those nightlife problems are the clubs,
bars, adult entertainment establishment, and restaurants. We have multi-family units which
are apartments and we have the commercial and residential properties as well. And many
of those commercial properties are convenience stores and gas stations. We have our next
upcoming nuisance hearing on next Thursday, which is August 18th.
In regards to the
multi-family dwellings, we have partnered with the Fulton County District Attorney's
office to form a collaboration to identify problem properties that have substandard living
conditions. Also, we're able to share information. Certain properties, if you have sexual offenses
and crimes or drug offenses, are a nuisance per se. So, if someone is arrested for a drug
violation, we can partner with the Fulton County District Attorney's Office to see
if that person was indicted and if they were convicted, because the conviction
will lead to the property being a nuisance per se. We also work together to work together to
find if there's any misconduct or criminal activity that's coming with the property owner
as well as the landlord of those particular properties.
We have been really busy this
quarter and over the summer. The Solicitor's Office has many partnerships that we work with
NPU members, the community, as well as with council members in various city departments
to volunteer and guest speak at several events throughout the city, including the following.
We had our fight against blight in action, where many of our office members participated
in cleanups throughout the city of Atlanta.
We also had on Friday, June 10th and July 15th, we had our third and our fourth senior
citizen public safety events.
And those events were hosted along with Council Member Bond and Council Member Boone.
So thank you all for your participation and your hosting of those events where we can talk with our seniors
and talk to them about crimes that are being perpetrated against them
and just talk to them about public safety issues.
Also, we've been volunteering at the Mayor's Vintnight basketball games as well as various food distributions
and at back-to-school events.
These are just a listing of all of the partnerships
and the events that we participated in.
And again, we've had various participation in food drives
with council member Boone, council member Bond,
the mayor's basketball games, midnight basketball.
We partnered with council member Amos
for his food giveaway at Rodney Cook Park.
We also had our fight against blight in action
on May 14th at C.T. Martin Recreation Center, and again our senior citizens public safety
events that we held on May 9th, June 10th, and June 15th.
And also we had a senior community health and wellness fair that was held on June 9th.
These are just some photos of Fight Against Blight in action where members of our office
volunteered to clean up various pictures of the food giveaways that we participated
in to help people that were having food insecurities.
And again, Midnight Basketball, as well as other community events
that the Solicitor's Office has participated in over this quarter.
Our partners, and it's this time if you have any questions
for myself or Mr. Carter, we'll be happy to answer them.
Thank you.
Mr. Carter, episode for Smith.
I don't know who had their hand up first, but ladies first.
Council Member Boone. Thank you Mr. Chair. Mr. Carter, Ms. Smith, Mr. Carter, thank you for your leadership, sir.
Especially you all attending our meeting with our district attorney. This issue with the nuisance properties, the negligent landlords has really, really, really taken our community by storm.
We did not realize how many people were living in these horrible, dreadful conditions.
So thank you for putting this on your priority list.
And also, as far as 3657 ML King Junior Drive, the SITCO, that particular gas station has really, really, really destroyed that part of the Martin Luther King Junior Drive quarter.
So we are looking forward to our day in court on August 18.
But again, your presence and your leadership, sir, we really appreciate it.
Thank you.
Council Member Barne.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And I want to also thank both of you, Mr. Carter, Mr. Smith, for Halecari and the staff that
accompanied her to our food drives every Wednesday.
They're there without fail.
and they left a lot of boxes. They do a lot of blue collar work in the service of
Atlanta citizens and of course the senior citizen education seminars that
we are doing around the city are tremendously helpful for our seniors
and I hope it's something that once we hit, I believe we've done four so far
and once we hit all six zones that hopefully next year
There's something that we can continue.
So just want to give my hats off to you, along with Councilmember Boone, on the extemporaneous
work that you're doing outside and around your office.
You know, I really, really do appreciate it.
Do you have any other colleagues, comments, questions for the solicitor's office?
I think I do have one, just to follow up, I would like to,
I don't know, staffing
is an issue across all departments, but would love to again do a, what I mentioned before,
some corridor sweeps. I was thinking a hollow well in my district, just making sure and educating
people at first, giving them notices as to what is wrong, how they can improve, and then
following up in a month or whatever appropriate time is, because we have tire shops that
have mounds of scrap tires out that will eventually end up in our creeks and rivers on just a lot
of other issues.
So if we could get together on that soon, that would be great.
Colleagues, all right.
Thanks so much.
Thank you.
The Municipal Court quarterly update, Chief Judge Portis.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the committee.
I'm Chris Portis, the Chief Judge of the Municipal Court of Atlanta, and it is a pleasure
to be here this afternoon to provide our quarterly presentation.
This one is promised to be brief.
What we did want to do was provide a very quick snapshot of what the caseloads are
looking like as we move further into Cali New Year 2022.
looking at the trend of where we started in January steel trailing out of the
COVID volume that we were receiving and moving into the spring which you can see
especially once we get to April, May and June the case volume begins to
increase especially with the month of May in particular and that represents a
volume of matters that matches what it would have been in a regular year like 2019. Month
over month at this point we are averaging about a 33% increase over where we were a
year ago and especially over 2020 with the new traffic cases that are coming in. We
We have been able to work to get our staffing levels somewhat replenished.
It's almost a shield game in some respects with the number of resignations.
So as we hire one, we lose two, but we've been trying to keep pace with that, which
has allowed us to keep pace with the volume of cases.
Also we are back running full calendars as we have moved away from COVID into 2022,
which has also allowed us to not only handle the volume but also maintain the clearance
rate of at or above 100 percent when we factor in the number of cases that are aging that
are also being disposed over the new caseload.
Same type of metric for the criminal case count.
In this case demographic here takes into account all case types that are designated
with a CR case number, that's anything from a disorderly conduct to a drug paraphernalia
to even the housing and code violations that are designated with the CR case designation.
Looking at these numbers, these numbers are yet to return back to the levels that they were in 2019
and are still trending somewhat on the anemic side.
We have a regular flow of the run-of-the-mill basic criminal matters.
We are still running will behind what we typically are with the housing and code-related violations.
We do watch these metrics because it has a lot to do with where we actually target court resources.
For instance, right now there is a dedicated courtroom for housing and code, where these numbers are trending.
However, we're taking a look at that to see if we will be changing that, divesting that
subject matter across all courtrooms.
The numbers for 2021 and now in 2022 just don't dictate the need for a dedicated courtroom
at this time moving forward.
This is something we'll continue to watch the trend as we move through the end of
the year before we make that decision.
Looking at the failure to appear rate, there is some good news in this slide, especially
especially in relation to the first slide.
Looking at this number at the beginning of the year, it was unseasonably high, especially
in relation to the new caseload that we were receiving.
We instituted a zero-tolerance policy moving from January into February.
You can see that number dip down.
If you look at May, June, and July in particular, you see that number raised back up.
But remember on that first slide, we nearly tripled quadrupled the new case count.
So in proportion to the new cases that we're receiving, we're still trending relatively
seasonal on where we should be with an FDA rate, obviously 5,700 is much too high, but
we have instituted policy procedure on the court side that is working to reduce that
number and also close out those cases for individuals who do go into FDA status.
Just looking at where we are in particular with the FTA walk-in court, which is primarily
aimed at individuals whose license of going in suspension because they have missed that
court appearance.
Since we started that process in the January, early February, that is allowed us to close
just short of 12,000 cases.
It is a labor intensive operation because of the nature of those cases.
We will continue to operate a specialty FDA division through the end of this year to handle those cases.
We'll see where we are in December to see whether or not this is something that we especially do moving into January of 23,
or if it's something that can be phased out.
But we obviously keep an eye on the trend and what it means for the ageing case demographic.
One of the things that I told this committee in the past,
As we did not come out of COVID with a typical backlog, the thorn in our side coming out
of COVID were the number of cases that were in FTA status and wanting to get those cases
in resolved before they aged to a point where it was difficult to get them closed.
That's why this is very important to us as we move through the balance of the year.
Also another piece of good news about this, as we have now moved through the summer,
90% of the cases that are appearing on the FTA court docket now are 2022 cases, so we've
moved beyond the cases from 2020 and 2021 that are in FTA status. These are now cases
that have gone into that status and that are less than 90 days old from their initial
court appearance. And that is it for the quarterly presentation on the demographics,
and I'm happy to answer any questions that this committee may have.
Thank you, Chief Judge Portis.
Colleagues, questions, comments?
Council Member Bonn.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Chief Judge, for your presentation.
I know that you had issued a, I guess,
executive order for operations at the court,
including your presentation.
Is that part of the turnaround that we're seeing on the FTAs?
In part some.
The strict compliance with state law,
especially on the traffic cases for the fade to appears,
has been very critical, but also following the Atlanta Ordinance
Anyone who's already out on bond, who fails to appear, that bond is subject to be revoked
as well as we've worked with APD to make sure that we can get warrants up for those individuals
immediately. So if you have been arrested previously on your case and then you fail to appear,
the judge handling that case issues that warrant, we've worked with APD to also get
those fast-tracked on GCICs so that we can get you back into the system, get you back
answer in that charge and we can also see that you are already out on a bond that you
did not come back to court on. Follow up with a couple of the conversations that you and
I had end of the spring and I think this will be some welcome news to you in particular.
What we've been doing since we've talked is working to ramp up what you formerly
knew as our pre-trial services department. We have field some key positions and we're
going to be working with corrections so that fingers crossed as we move into the end of
this month starting in September, the pre-trial services department will be re-engaged with
reviewing individuals and their eligibility for signature bonds to make sure that more
individuals not only have access, but the proper cases, proper information is looked
at and vetted before an individual is released.
We've heard a lot of concern from corrections in trying to effectuate that process.
The House, do we do this?
What information do we need to take into account beyond the four corners of a citation?
And we're looking to supplement some of the work that they're doing in an effort
to aid in public safety in general.
So I keep you posted, but I'm looking towards a soft launch at the end of this month,
full engagement at the beginning of September.
It's going to be a tough revamp because this is a 24-hour operation, as you can imagine.
Keeping staff and the times that we are in now has just been more than a notion.
So we're hoping that we'll be able to maintain the crew that we have,
been able to hire and train, get them mobilized,
and bring back a very needed component to that evaluation.
No, that is very good news. Will that require legislation from us or is it something you
all working out?
Right now it won't, but I keep you posted on how it operates and if we need any assistance
on that front, but I'm expecting that this should be a pretty seamless integration and
it should help make a major difference.
So that will, I guess, address the question between, I know they said that the jail
system wasn't talked to the court system, so this is making those connections again
directly.
Right.
And you know from experience that you can desire to have a magic program that's going
to set off a red light or a green light, but the information concerning the individuals
has to be reviewed every case, every instance.
If that wasn't the case, then we wouldn't be in a constant business of updating GCIC
for aliases, known addresses, tattoos, that type of thing, because so much change is about
the dynamic of an individual, especially those who get creative about how to mask identity.
So it's something that has to be done.
It's best done by someone who's trained to do it.
That's what we are hoping to add to this element to make sure that these cases are
getting the proper review that they need.
Okay.
Well, thank you very much.
That is good news.
Absolutely.
I withdraw, Mr. Chair.
Council Member Vaughn, colleagues, any other questions, comments for Chief Judge Portis?
Chief Judge, I did have a few items.
You stated that the court is back, I don't think it's at full time or some version of
that.
What's the appearance policy?
Does both the defendant and the victim now have to be in person at the court?
The appearance policy has been in person since we opened full-time back in October of 2020.
I think the part that you're speaking of of back full-time is we have increased the calendar capacity
to be reminiscent of what it was back in 2019.
So the traffic calendars, for instance, have max loads of 100 positions per calendar.
A victim or a witness is on the honor system to appear unless one of the sides subpoenas
them to be present in court, and that's something that either the city or the folks who are
representing the defense will handle if that is their prerogative in any particular case.
As for individual defendants, yes, it is mandatory.
appearance failure to appear will carry with it whatever penalty can be levied
for the run-of-the-mill traffic cases in most instances that starts with the
license suspension process for individuals who are previously out on
bond because they were initially arrested those individuals have to appear if
they do not appear a warrants issue that morning for their rest. I understood
So thank you for that.
And one follow-up item, he would raise this concern.
And the budget hearings about the upgrade
of the camera system in the court,
which we included in the FY23 budget.
What is, can you offer an update on that?
We're working on it.
You know, we have to get it through procurement.
So we have to identify, we've identified a vendor.
Now it is whether or not we can legally move that vehicle
through the procurement process.
So that is a work in progress.
Everything is a go.
Otherwise, the Department of Finance, the Chief Financial Officer,
dedicated his attention to it, made the resources available.
So at this point, it's a matter if we can get the contract through,
then we'll be able to make the purchase and that system will be upgraded.
We'll be better for it because it hadn't been upgraded at all
since it was first installed some 20 years ago.
I'll keep you posted on that once we're actually able to get to an implementation phase, then we'll at least know it's just a timeline at that point.
Okay. Thank you for that. One last check with my colleagues. Any questions, comments for our Chief Judge?
I thank you, Chief Judge Portis. Absolutely. Thank you. Have a good afternoon. You as well.
All
right, colleagues, we will now move to our consent agenda.
I will make a motion to accept all favorable claims.
Items 1 through 10.
Is there a second?
Second.
Second by Councilmember Norwood.
Please prepare the vote.
The vote is open.
Waits is aye.
I'm having trouble getting into the system.
Please vote.
Councilmember Rohn.
The vote is closed.
All right.
The 60A is at zero nays.
those items are favorable. I will make a motion to adverse all unfavorable claims
items 11-3-1-0-2. Is there a second?
Seconded by Council Member Amos. Please
prepare the vote. The vote is open.
Council Member Boehme.
The vote is closed.
Six yeas, zero nays. Those items are adverse. And as a follow-up, thank you
for the law to the law department. A number of items on the consent agenda.
So thanks for working through those claims.
Moving on to our regular agenda ordinance for second read, 22-0-13-56.
Adorned by Councilmember Dustin Hillis, Jason Dozier, Matt Westmoreland, Jason Winston,
Mary Norwood, Howard Shook, Liliana Bakhtiari, Alex Wan, Andrea Elbun, and Amir Farouki.
as substituted by Public Safety and Legal Administration Committee, to amend Chapter 74 Article 5, Section 74-175 of the City of Atlanta Code of Ordinances to authorize the Municipal Court to order the abatement of a public nuisance established as a result of violent conduct or crime during with certain properties through the immediate closure of such properties.
To require the municipal court to order the abatement of such a public nuisance through
the immediate closure of such properties where the municipal court has determined such a
public nuisance to have occurred twice regarding the same property within 24 months and for
other purposes.
All right.
And as was discussed when the mayor was with us, we want the nightlife advisory
council to review this and some additional conversation has while I make a motion to
to hold, is there a second?
Second by council member Norwood.
Please defer the vote.
The vote is open.
The vote is closed.
The 68-0 nays that item is held.
Next item is item number two, 22-0-16-19.
And earnest by council member Dustin Hillis,
authorizing the chief financial officer
of the city of Atlanta to amend the FY20-23 budget
by transferring funds from the Planning
Private Property Demolition Fund
and adding funds to the Atlanta Police Department private property demolition
fund in the amount of three million dollars and zero cents for the purpose
of providing funding for the performance for the performance of the
in-rem demolition of the lapidated structures and for other purposes.
There is a substitute Mr. Chair it does not change the caption. Yes we do have
a substitute so I'll just add some missing account number so I'll make a
motion to substitute, is there a second? Second by Council Member Norwood, please
approve the vote. The vote is open.
The vote is closed.
680 nays that substitute is before us. I'll make a motion to approve a
substituted, is there a second? Second by Council Member Amos, please
prepare the vote. The vote is open.
The vote is closed.
Yays at zero nays that item is favorable on substitute. Item number 3, 22-0-16-24.
An ordinance by Council Member Andrea Elbone to amend Chapter 10, Article 2,
Sections 10-92b of the City of Atlanta Code of Ordinances,
so as to provide an exemption from the distance requirements listed in Section 10-881
for package stores licensed to sell malt beverages and or wine
and foreign establishment located at 510 Fairburn Road,
Southwest Atlanta, Georgia, 30331, and for other purposes.
Motion to approve.
Is there a second?
Second by Council Member Boone.
Please prepare the vote.
The vote is open.
The vote is closed.
68, zero, nays, that item is favorable.
Item number four is 2201632.
An ordinance by Council Member Michael Julian Bond
to authorize the mayor or his designee
on behalf of the City of Atlanta, Georgia,
to enter into an intergovernmental agreement
with the Fulton County Sheriff and Fulton County, Georgia
for the temporary housing of adult Fulton County detainees
at Atlanta City Detention Center
in the custody of Fulton County,
which have been charged with
or convicted of violating federal, state, or local law
or held as a material witness on an as needed basis
where the number of Fulton County detainees
So how's an ACDC at one time shall never exceed 700 detainees for a term of a peer for it for a term of a period not to exceed
Four years with no renewal
No renewal term options with such an agreement to be revenue generating all such revenues to be deposited into the accounts listed here in and for
other purposes
So we have a substitute to correct funding streams
Is that correct? Yes, Mr. Chair. I'll make a motion to bring the substitute forward.
Second by Council Member Norwood.
The vote is open.
Please vote. The vote is closed.
Yeah, zero nays. The substitute is before us.
Motion to approve by Council Member Bond.
Second by Council Member Norwood. We do have some speakers.
Council Member Waites and then
Thank you so much Mr. Chair. While I again support the spirit and intent of the legislation,
I think the subject matter experts here today spoke to all the reasons why we should not
rush to enter into this agreement. I think we need more time to answer many of the
questions that have been asked before us. In addition to the thousands of emails
and phone calls that I believe each of you have also received, I think that there is a strong need
for a work session in addition to some type of group that would regulate the populations
of individuals who would go to these facilities. It has been brought to my attention by those
who actually serve in this area that many of the folks who are housed at the Fortin County
Jail Facility are actually eligible for PAD services and by that I mean these are individuals
individuals who are nonviolet, some of them, these are non felony issues, these are often
failure to appears, in addition to individuals who are waiting.
For specialty supportive housing, such as mental health beds, drug and alcohol treatment, or
either a competency evaluation. And so for this reason, I don't believe that this particular
piece of legislation resolves the challenges that are before us. Again, I thank you, Council
Member Bud, for moving and putting the legislation forward. I just believe that a work session
would be in order, in addition to some type of oversight committee that would vet which
individuals would be housed at this facility. And so, for that reason, I rise in strong opposition
to moving this forward today. Thank you, Council Member Boyce. Council
Member Block, T.R.? Thank you. So, the first one is prefaces by saying that I have a great
great deal of respect for our administration, for our mayor, for my colleagues that introduced
this legislation. I just,
I believe that good governance is asking a number of questions
before we enter into something that has been discussed at this point. I feel like for decades
you heard some of the folks say today that overcrowding has been an issue at Fulton County.
Some have said, you know, for 10 years we know it's been happening for decades,
for far longer than that.
But there are a number of questions I still do not.
I feel like this conversation has been entirely anecdotal,
and there's been no justifying data.
I've toured the facility.
I know that it's in terrible, in terrible condition.
I understand all that.
To me, that does not mean that you add more beds
and increase jail size to address an incarceral issue,
to address overincarceration.
Instead, I mean, I still have not seen evidence
provided as to how Fulton County has demonstrated that they've attempted to address overcrowding.
I still don't know how many cells are being leased at Cobb County and why that hasn't addressed the problem.
I still don't understand when people detained at Rice Street would actually be moved
because this IGA, after looking at it, if Rice Street is such an issue and overcrowding,
there is such an issue, then why is priority being given to Union City over Rice Street first?
I don't understand if overcrowding or rice free is such an issue.
Why are they not first being addressed in the IGA?
In addition, there are multiple other partners in metro areas that could be utilized for this partnership from Cobb,
Gwinnett, DeKabb, Clayton, East Point.
I still don't understand the full assessment of the people being incarcerated at Fulton and why.
How many people are being detained because they are indigent, cannot afford to pay their fines or for bonds?
How many homeless people cannot provide an address?
And so therefore, oftentimes when you're going before a judge, an address has to be provided in order for your case to be heard.
We know, I know that there is a backlog with judges hearing these cases.
I know that that's a big issue and that it is not entirely on Fulton County.
But these are some of the questions that have to be answered before entering into such an agreement.
I still don't understand how many people are incarcerated on technical violations for missing a meeting with a parole officer.
How many people are incarcerated for low-level offenses?
How many people are being held because of potential mental illness or developmental disability,
because I know our familiar FACES program isn't being followed to the letter of the law.
APD is the highest-resting agency in Fulton County,
and what percentage of those currently being arrested by APD are not being diverted to PAT.
In June, there were only 25 diversions from APD to PAT,
and I know that we're going to say it's because PAT is not 24-7,
but it seems as though to address that we shouldn't be moving towards making,
we should be doing exactly what Council Member Waitz has put forward in order,
I mean this presentation, Council Member, is beautiful and we can do both and so anyways,
the point is in all of this, I think that to the Council Member's point, rushing into this,
I mean the Justice Policy Board I think should be charged with implementing a jail review
committee that takes 90 days to assess the people being held so that we know who can
be diverted out and who can be held.
It's extra work, but we can do all of this.
I don't see why we can't, I don't understand what the rush is at this point.
And Justice Policy Board is co-chaired by our PSLA chair.
It's a perfect opportunity to take a deeper dive and to do an assessment of the people
being held because I do not think that we have, we still don't have data, full
data justifying the situation. And also for the fact that the IGA discusses going over
the four-year mark and the $150 that would be put up by Fulton County, I think the city
needs to put up matching funds because it needs to hurt us too. We need to have the
city will just continue making money off of incarceration, which to me is abhorrent.
So if to push for there to be to push for us to get out of this agreement at the
end of the four years, the city should also have to put up matching matching funds
from the general fund to ensure we actually exit this agreement if it does go forward.
It shouldn't just hurt Fulton.
It should hurt us, too.
So, my case.
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Bakhtiari, any other?
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Bakhtiari.
Just briefly,
just want to speak to my colleagues, and I appreciate your statements and appreciate
your comments, but, you know, this is going on longer than just the two weeks
that this legislation has been introduced, you know, a year ago, more than a year ago,
year and two months ago, the City Council put in a resolution requiring that if the Mayor
didn't come to an agreement with Fulton County about the overcrowding that the City of
100% contributes to that the council will act when we'd have a contract.
The mayor at that time asked for a couple of more weeks and nothing ever happened.
They didn't do anything.
They just let it lie while citizens of Atlanta who are accused of crimes who were arrested by APD
sleep on the floors and exist in abhorrent conditions.
Now the story of the jail is a long one.
The story of ACDC is a long one.
But as I remarked to those who made this excellent presentation today,
they actually made the case for why we need to do this.
Because past sheriffs have not been able to address the issue.
They do not control the budget at Fulton County, so they can't, they don't control their own budget.
They have to go to the commissioners to control their own budgets.
So it's well established that the issues at Fulton County have languished.
They've not been addressed effectively or they've been only addressed incompletely.
And so those of us who live and exist in Atlanta, which is almost 90% in Fulton County,
We're not getting away clean by pointing a finger at Fulton County and saying,
hey you need to solve this problem. We're a part of that problem. You know, we're
funding what goes on at Fulton County. We're represented by those past
commissions or have been represented by those past commissioners that did
nothing. And so at the end of the day it is the human element that screams
There's an old African proverb that says when elephants fight, it's the grass that suffers.
The people who are on the floor in the boats, who are in the system over there at Fulton County,
they are the ones who are suffering.
Now of course, there are only about 1,300 beds in ACDC.
This is about half of them.
This is not going to solve every problem in Fulton County.
But it will provide a bomb for some to get out of those conditions,
at least during the periods that the Fulton County can get organized.
They can begin to plan and build their facility that everyone now agrees that they need
and that the commissioners that are there today say that they're going to support.
And so delaying it, though there should be more conversation, we can continue to have conversations with our partners at Fulton County.
But we desperately need to act. We're in a position to solve a problem or solve the conditions of some at Fulton County.
We should immediately do that. And that's what I'm asking the committee to do today.
Any other speakers before I move back to Council Member Weitz?
Council Member Weitz.
Mr. Chair, I'm not going to belabor the hour tonight.
Again, I think many of us have made our decisions.
But I also think, given the financial implications of this legislation,
it would be important to have this legislation vetted by the Finance Committee.
And I'm surprised that did not happen.
And lastly, there are 108 sworn men and women that serve in the current Atlanta Detention Center.
I have not seen anything in terms of what the plans are for them and their careers given
the years that they've dedicated to the city of Atlanta.
So I would also like, hope at least, that we would be able to answer many of the questions
that were raised here today in terms of how we address the existing staff that serve
in that facility given that the facility will be leased to my understanding to Fulton
County.
and also to speak to the financial implications.
And so for that reason again,
I rise to suggest for a work session
to work through some of these challenges.
And again, it is my hope at that time
some of the questions that Council Member Battiari
has raised or concerns rather
that we can address those at that time.
Thank you, Council Member Weitz.
Any other speakers?
Council Member Battiari?
And I'll try to be as quick as possible.
Well, one, I want to say there's been a lot of words like humane thrown around.
I want us to address the fact that there is no such thing as humanely caging a person.
So, yes, there are better conditions.
They are not humane.
Secondly, again, I second, Council Member Waits is what she has put forth.
I mean, there are, as I said before, no justifying data, all anecdotal.
I understand.
I understand that Rice Street is abhorrent conditions.
I get that.
But to me, a shortcut is extending and giving more beds to what is already a crisis rather
than properly vetting and understanding why people are being incarcerated.
In the first place, there is a possibility that I don't see a need to rush.
Three months is not four years.
Taking three months, Georgia Justice Project has already promised three full-time employees
to address this and comb through the jail's logs to find out, to address the questions
that I have put forth and the concerns that have been brought forth.
And then my constituents in my district whom I represent have brought to me.
So to that point I echo a work session and also confused as to why this was not dual referred.
But I yield my time. Thank you.
Any other speakers?
We have a motion on the floor for approval from Councilman Revan to second my Councilman Menorwood.
Please prepare the vote.
The vote is out there.
The vote is closed.
5A is 1A. The item is favorable on substitute.
Next is item number 522R1425.
A resolution by Council Member Byron Amos authorizing the Mayor or his doesn't need to extend the term of FC-7522 inmate pharmacy services on behalf of the Department of Corrections was correct.
our Ex-Pharmacy Services Incorporated on a month-to-month basis effective August 11,
2022 and continuing on a monthly basis for a period not to exceed 12 months, in and
amount not to exceed $350,000 and zero cents. All calls shall be charged to and
paid from the accounts listed herein and for other purposes. There is a
request to file this paper. Yes, my understanding. Department of Law's request
to file the paper. I'll make that motion. Is there a second? Second by Councilmember Amos.
Please prepare the vote. The vote is open.
The vote is closed.
6 EAs, 0 Nays. That item is filed.
Moving on to item 7, 22 R, 4034.
A resolution by Councilmember Andrea L. Boone,
authorizing the re-employment of City of Atlanta Department of Corrections Employees,
Stephanie Scruggs, Revenue Collection Supervisor, under Section 3-505A of the Charter of the
City of Atlanta and for other purposes.
Motion to approve by Council Member Boone.
Is there a second?
Seconded by Council Member Boone.
Please prepare the vote.
The vote is open.
The vote is closed.
Six-eight-zero nays.
That item is favorable.
We're going to item number eight.
A resolution by Councilmembers Antonio Lewis, Jason H. Winston, Jason Dozier, and Liliana
Battiari encouraging youth entrepreneurship by requesting that the mayor or his designee
review existing regulations requiring any licensing, permitting, or payment of fees
for youth under the age of 14 and a half to legally operate a temporary vending
stand on private property to report findings and recommendations, removing burdensome requirements
to the City of Atlanta, to the City Council within 30 days and for other purposes.
Motion to approve.
Is there a second?
Seconded.
Second.
please refer the vote.
The vote is open.
Please vote.
Vote is closed.
5BAs, zero nays, that item is favorable.
Moving on to item 9, 22R4039.
A resolution by council members Antonio Lewis, Keisha, Sean Waits, Michael Julian Bond, Jason H. Winston, Jason Dozier, Andrea L. Boone, and Marcy Collier-Overstreet, requesting that during the 2023 session of the
General, Georgia General Assembly, the General Assembly that local governments including counties
and municipalities with the specific authority to utilize their police powers in order to
enact regulations of retail gas stations, service stations and convenience stores to
require installation of surveillance cameras and to require integration of cameras to
the local police departments, public safety program networks and for other purposes.
A commotion to approve.
Is there a second?
Second by Council Member Boone.
The vote is open.
The vote is closed.
5, 8, 0, nays.
Item is favorable.
Item number 10, 22R, 4043.
A resolution by Council Member Keisha,
Sean Waits, requiring the City of Atlanta
to commission an independent appraisal
of the Atlanta City Detention Center
to determine the true market value of the building
and property in order to make informed decisions
regarding the highest and best use of the asset and funds allocated to
operations at the site and to identify funding for the creation of a Center for
Equity as suggested in the final feasibility report of the reimagining
ACDC task force and for other purposes. Waits.
Motion approved by Councilmember
Waits. Is there a second?
Second by Councilmember Amos. Please refer to the vote.
The vote is open.
The vote is closed.
Three A's, three abstentions.
Autumn has failed for lack of four votes.
I will make a motion to, what is your pleasure?
First, Council Member Wates, I'll make a motion to hold.
I'd like to speak to the bill, sir.
Okay, go ahead.
I
think given the value of the asset that we're debating today,
I think it's worth the public's time to have a conversation surrounding
what the building is actually worth and to have a conversation surrounding its best use.
And so aside from Council Member Bunn's legislation, which I support the spirit and intent, I
think it's reckless and irresponsible to not have a conversation surrounding what the actual
commodity is worth with respect to value and its best use, which is what this particular
piece of legislation does.
because it doesn't have anything to do with policy or use of the building for an equity
center or anything of that nature, or leasing the space, if you will.
But I do believe that it is reasonable to make an assessment, or at least have determined,
what this actual piece of property is valued at today, given the market.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Mr. Waitson.
I was just reminded that it's automatically held since there was a lack of four votes.
Yes, sir.
Moves us to item number 1122R4044.
Mr. Chair, there is an amendment that will remove one of the sponsors.
Okay.
A resolution by a resolution by Council Member Keisha,
Sean Waite, authorizing the mayor or his doesn't need to repurpose the Atlanta City Detention Center
into a separate diversion and crisis support center to include mental health,
drug alcohol treatment services, space for nonprofit service providers,
space for a warrant clearing center, space for job training facilities,
low barrier sheltering, and all for transitional housing,
and to name the center, the John Robert Lewis Center for Equity and for Other Purposes.
Thank you.
And that amendment is to remove co-sponsor Antonio Brown or excuse me, Antonio Lewis.
I will make that motion to amend.
Is there a second?
Second.
Second by Council Member Norwood.
Please move the vote.
The vote is open.
The vote is closed.
Five ayes.
One nay.
It is amended.
And before us, Council Member Wates.
So this piece of legislation actually has a conversation surrounding what happens after
the lease agreement that's been approved here today.
And it's my belief that if there's any sincerity with respect to the administration,
then certainly we would have a discussion surrounding what happens next.
And I think to wait a period of four years to have that conversation
or any period of time, again, would not be in the best interest of the individuals
that we speak that we are interested in serving today.
And so for that reason, I ask for your favorable support to repurpose this facility
into the previous legislation that's been supported
by our previous administrations,
including the mayor of the city
who previously held the post-3 seats.
So for that reason, I ask for your favorable support.
Thank you.
All right.
Any other comments?
Do you want to come back to Council Member Bonn?
Well, I'm just going to speak brief.
I've mentioned this in my comments earlier today,
but the previous administration has already studied
what would happen with this building.
They estimated in January of 2018 that it would take $120 million to convert this building
into anything else.
They set up citizens on a mission to fail with a steady group six months later.
Those citizens came back with four recommendations to turn this building into anything else.
each one ever increasingly back up to $120 million for any type of revisions.
It was built to be a jail. It's a jail.
And I understand the symbolism of trying to convert it.
That idea came from New York when they had the hurricane in New York
and it damaged the women's prison in New York.
But that building was deemed, you couldn't put human beings in that building anymore because of the damage.
But then New York turned that building into something else, some type of service center.
But New York still turned around and built four more jails.
As long as the Atlanta Police Department exists, we're going to have a need for a jail.
The re-demonstration did a study on and calculated how many arrests are made by a standing police force.
And at that time it was 1,500 officers.
This current mayor's goal is to bring on 300, 250 by the end of the year.
Experts have said within the last 20 years that we really need over 2,300 police officers.
If we don't at least avail ourselves of some of the space that we already own,
if we get to the goal of hiring 2,000 police officers again,
we'll go from owning our own facility and saving money to having to pay someone else to hold our arrestees.
And you don't want a sheriff of a county being responsible to hold all those detainees because a sheriff could refuse to take our municipal arrestees.
And if they refuse to take our municipal arrestees, that means that every person who gets arrested in our jurisdiction gets a state charge.
So, I'm not going to vote against you, I'm going to abstain, you know, but I just want
to put it out there that when people think that Atlanta could quote-unquote go out of
the jail business, I mean, unless you're going to go out of the police business, you
know, that's just never going to happen.
And you know, you have a jail, you know, in much the same logic that you have a fire
station.
You know, we have the lowest fire rate in the history of the city of Atlanta.
You have fire stations just in case, you know, there's a fire or emergency.
The jail follows the same logic.
You have a place to detain people who break the law.
It goes subject to the jurisdiction of the court just in case.
And, you know, you're going to have police.
They're going to arrest people.
You know, you can always have to have some place to put them.
Council Member Bond, any others before we go back to Council Member Wates?
I will speak, and then we'll get to Council Member Wates, but I supported
the intent of the legislation,
but I don't support much to the Council Member Bond's points converting a jail into this type of facility.
We're doing that somewhere right now with, you know, the Justice Policy Board was mentioned
earlier, which I co-chair with Judge McBurney, the Portland County Superior Court.
But it's my belief that, you know, as a council member, Bond stated, the city is always
going to need a jail.
And number two, our former planning commissioner, Keen, evaluated this facility because what
What could it be repurposed for, and the conclusion was it could be a jail.
Councilmember Weitz and I visited with the Justice Policy Board, Tucson, and they built
an awesome facility, which I would love to have here in Atlanta, for these services,
but they issued a bond for that, so many hundreds of millions of dollars of a facility,
and that's what these services and these people that need those services deserve
is their own facility that's built specifically for them because most of the
people that this type institution would serve as people that have been in this
jail before and I just feel that that's you know there's some stigma tied to
that when they're going back into the facility that jailed them and they're
supposed to get you know helpful services there so definitely support
again the chair of the Justice Policy Board has been the chair of this
committee and support these services and expanding those services, but I want to move in a direction
of working with Fulton County to look into building our own facility dedicated to these
very special and needed services.
Thank you.
Councilmember Waitz, back to you.
Thank you again, Mr. Chair.
Final thought, I think that the whole purpose of the Equity Center is to address some
of the needs that create and lead to violent crime.
And I think this particular proposal will lead in that direction.
And finally, I want to speak to the funding piece.
We've had a number of businesses and corporations that have signed on that agree that locking
up and detaining people clearly is not working, nor is it effective.
And lastly, Mr. Chair, I want to call a point of order.
I remember very early on trying to abstain from several pieces of legislation to which
I was advised that that was not possible.
So, can you explain to me the process for abstaining with respect to a vote?
In committee, you can abstain for anything you want to and not have to give a reason for it.
If you abstain in full counsel, you have to have either a personal tie or a financial tie to the legislation
to be able to abstain and you have to fill out a form for that.
But in committee, you can abstain for anything for any reason and not state that reason.
Thank you, sir.
Any other questions or comments, Council Member Amos?
I just want to speak to the legislation and be clear so there's no mismessages.
I believe the City of Atlanta needed jail, but I also believe in this legislation and this legislation, I believe, starts a conversation,
a conversation that we can attempt to find money.
I know it'll be massive, but it at least starts a conversation.
So I will be supporting this, but I want to be clear, and I even asked the sponsor of this legislation.
At the end of the day, will there still be some type of detention space in this building that we're envisioning for these services?
So I just want to put that on the record.
So I see different votes taking place, so my constituents will be clear where I stand.
So I just want to say that.
Thank you, Council Member Ramis.
Council Member Baum.
And just to follow up on the point that you made and the earlier legislation about that
was held about the value of the building, you know, this building is used as collateral
for bond issuance.
It was used as collateral to build the police and fire headquarters.
So there is a path to flow to bond to build a facility to have these services.
I've said from day one when the conversation came up to convert the jail to something else
that I support all those services.
I support that mission.
I just don't support it at the jail.
And so, I mean, there is a way to float a bond.
I think it's called, what is it, the public safety, there's a commission that we appoint
people to.
is an authority that oversees and issues the bonds that built the Atlanta, the fire and
police headquarters.
And I think they're going to be a part of the bond issuance for the
The training center down on Key Road. So there is a path to build a facility through a public
bond using those buildings, this building in particular, as collateral. And of course you'd
have to know the value of it to use it as collateral.
All right, any other questions or comments?
All right, we have a motion to approve on
the floor made by councilmember Boates and I believe it was seconded by councilmember
Amos. Is that correct Council Member Amos?
Please refer the vote. The vote is open.
The vote is closed.
Motion is not carried. Two yeas, one nay, three abstentions. That item will be held automatically
in committee.
Next is 22R4045, item number 12.
A resolution by Council Member Dustin Hillis
amending resolution 21R3869 adopted by the Atlanta City Council on October 4th, 2021,
establishing the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center Community Stakeholder Advisory Committee
to amend the manner in which members may be appointed to the committee to allow for future appointees to be submitted
in the form of a communication and confirmed by the Atlanta City Council and for other purposes.
Thank you, colleagues. This is just a paper to make it easier to appoint members of this committee by doing it
as a communication sort of an ordinance,
so I'll make a motion to approve.
Second by Council Member Norwood, please prepare the vote.
The vote is open.
The vote is closed.
The A-0 nays.
That item is favorable.
Moving on to item 1322R4148.
A resolution by Public Safety and Legal Administration
Committee authorizing the mayor or his designee
on behalf of the city of Atlanta
to enter into an agreement for IFB S120215 on-call post-certified officers with
Cloverhurst, Aaron, JV, and Metropolitan Security Associates on behalf of the
Department of Parks and Recreation in an amount not to exceed $750,000 and
zero cents annually and for other purposes.
A motion to approve. Is there a second? Seconded by Councilmember Boone. Please
Mr.
Chair, we need to make a motion to hold this paper.
There is supposed to be an IPRO attached to it.
Okay. I'll
make a motion to hold there.
Second.
Second by Council Member Bonn.
Please refer to the vote to hold.
The vote is open.
The vote is closed.
The A0 and A0 is held.
We will take items 14 through 18
And item number 20 has a block as their settlements.
A resolution by Public Safety and Legal Administration Committee authorizing the settlement of all claims against a defendant city of Atlanta in the case of Eddie Hewley versus city of Atlanta.
Civil Action File Number 2021-CV348903,
pending in the Superior Court of Fulton County, Georgia
in the amount of $22,500 and zero cents,
authorizing the settlement amount to be charged to
and paid from the accounts listed herein,
authorizing the Chief Financial Officer
to distribute the settlement amount
and for other purposes.
A resolution by Public Safety
and Legal Administration Committee,
authorizing the settlement of all claims
against Defendant in the case of Sandra Lanier and James Lanier versus City of Atlanta Civil
Action File Number 19EV001407 pending in the State of the State Court of Fulton County
of Georgia in the amount of $50,000 and zero cents, authorizing the settlement amount
to be charged to and paid from the council listed here in, authorizing the Chief Financial
Officer to distribute the settlement amount and for other purposes.
A
resolution by Public Safety and Legal Administration Committee authorizing the settlement of all claims against defendant in the case of Bernita Miller and Bianca Pache versus City of Atlanta City action file number 16EV002636 pending in the State Court of Fulton County of Georgia and the amount of $245,000 and zero cents, authorizing the settlement amount to be charged to and paid from the
councillor sit here in, authorizing the chief financial officer to distribute the settlement
amount and for other purposes.
A resolution by Public Safety and Legal Administration Committee, authorizing the settlement of all
claims against defendants in the case of Carlton Scott v. City of Atlanta, civil action
file number 22 MS161848, pending in the Magistrate Court of Fulton County of Georgia
in the amount of $4,000 and zero cents, authorizing the settlement amount to be
charged to and paid from the count numbers listed herein,
authorizing the chief financial officer
to distribute the settlement amount
and for other purposes.
A resolution by Public Safety
and Legal Administration Committee,
authorizing the settlement of all claims
against defendant City of Atlanta
in the case of John Vera versus City of Atlanta,
civil action file number 19EV005750,
pending in the state court of Fulton County, Georgia
in the amount of $9,500 and zero cents.
authorizing the settlement amount to be charged to and paid from the count
numbers listed herein, the chief financial officer to distribute the
settlement amount and for other purposes.
A resolution by Public Safety and
Legal Administration Committee authorizing the settlement of all claims
against the defendants in the case of Lewis Osborne versus City of Atlanta,
civil action file number 20EV002111, Fulton State Court in the
amount of $350,000, authorizing that amount to be paid from the count numbers listed here
in, authorizing the chief financial officer to distribute the total settlement amount,
and for other purposes.
Make a motion to approve those items.
Is there a second?
Second.
Second by Council Member Norwood.
Is this part of the vote?
The vote is open.
The vote is closed.
Okay.
Zero nades.
Those items are favorable.
That brings us to item 19, which is $22R4154 if you go and read that in.
A
resolution by Public Safety and Legal Administration Committee authorizing the settlement of FMLA
claims against the city of Atlanta in the case of Tamara Baines versus the city of Atlanta,
Georgia, and Robin Shahar in her individual capacity.
Civil action file number 119-CV00279, United States District Court, Northern District of
Georgia, and the amount of $65,000 authorizing said amount to be paid to and from up
the account numbers listed herein, authorizing the Chief Financial Officer to distribute the total
settlement amount and for other purposes.
The Department of Law has requested an executive session on this.
So, Ms. Robinson, number six, and if you could state the reason for an executive session.
Yes, the executive session is for the purpose of discussing pending litigation.
Thank you.
I'll make a motion to enter into executive session to discuss pending litigation.
Is there a second?
Second by Council Member Boone, please prepare the vote.
The vote is open.
The vote is closed.
680 nays, we will enter into executive session in committee room 2.
Is that okay? Good.
And given the late hour, we have coordinated dinners, box dinners,
so feel free to grab some food on your way to executive session.
Are
y'all finished?
Ah, I'm not.
Make a motion to come out of executive session. Is there a second? Second by Councilmember Norwood,
please write the vote.
The vote is open.
The vote is closed.
5, b, a, 0, nays. That item is approved. Colleagues, we're going to go back to the park security
paper.
You can remind me what item number that is. Item number 13.
Okay. I'm going to make a motion to reconsider that as we have received the IPRO report,
so we're going to consider it, amend, attach the I-PRO, and go from there.
So I'll make a motion to reconsider. Is there a second? Second by Council Member Norwood.
Please fire the vote. The vote is open.
The vote is closed.
Five ayes, zero nays. Item is reconsidered. And before us, I will make a motion to amend to attach the I-PRO report.
Second.
Second by Councilmember Bonn.
Please prepare the vote.
The vote is open.
The vote is closed.
5-8-0-Naze.
Item is amended to attach the I-PRO.
I'll make a motion to approve as amended.
Is there a second?
Second.
Second by Councilmember Norwood.
Please prepare the vote.
The vote is open.
The vote is closed.
Mr. Chair, this will also be referred to CDHS.
Say that one more time. This will be referred to CDHS.
Okay, thank you, yes. Five Y's, zero nays at item is approved as amended.
Was it already referred to CDHS or do we need to make that motion?
It was already referred. Okay.
Well, colleagues, I believe that completes their legislative agenda.
Oh, I thought we... Item number 19.
Okay, I thought we had already, never mind.
I still have to approve.
Move item number 19, which we had the executive session on 22R4154. Just go ahead and read that
back in for the record, please.
A resolution by public safety and legal administration committee authorizing the settlement of FMLA
claims against the city of Atlanta. In the case of Tamara Baines versus city of Atlanta,
Georgia, and Robin Shahar in her individual capacity, civil action file number 119CV00279,
United States District Court Northern District of Georgia in the amount of
$65,000 authorizing set amount to be paid from the account numbers listed herein
authorizing the Chief Financial Officer to distribute the total settlement
amount and for other purposes. Make a motion to approve, zero second. Second my
Councilmember Boone, please refer to the vote. The vote is open.
The vote is
closed. 580 nays, that item is favorable. Now I've carefully looked
over my agenda and I believe that now completes our legislative items. Anyone
with any general comments? Councilmember Bond.
Just one announcement. The Hello
Fresh Grab and Go this week will take place August the 10th at 3 p.m. at the
Harriet G. Darnell Senior Center in West Atlanta at 677
Fairburn Road in partnership with us will be Commissioner Natalie Hall and
Sheriff at LeBotte.
Yeah, I have a digital flyer I can send it to you. Yeah, I'll send it to you.
So it's no prerequisite to get the help. See you there on 3 p.m. on Wednesday.
Thank you, Council Member Bonn. Well that completes our committee meeting. We are adjourned by unanimous consent of members present.