WEBVTT - Bad Mayor Monday: Andre Dickens

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<v Speaker 1>Happy Monday, and we have a very special Monday episode.

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<v Speaker 1>We're doing a return of our Shitty Mayor Monday episodes

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<v Speaker 1>for this Monday, June whatever the day. It is, twenty sixth,

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<v Speaker 1>during the sixth week of action in Atlanta to stop

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<v Speaker 1>Cop City, so that is ongoing. We're recording this is

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<v Speaker 1>slightly ahead of times so we can release it during

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<v Speaker 1>the week. So we don't know what exactly how exactly

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<v Speaker 1>things are going to get this report.

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<v Speaker 2>Nobody's been arrested so far, everything's gone great.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's sure. So yeah, we don't quite know what

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<v Speaker 1>the first kickoff rally is going to be quite yet,

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<v Speaker 1>but we do want to talk a little bit about

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<v Speaker 1>a certain mayor for this Shitty Mayor Monday. And I

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<v Speaker 1>have convinced Matt from the Atlantic Community Press Collective to

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<v Speaker 1>do my work for me this episodisode by writing probably

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<v Speaker 1>too many words about may Or Andre Dickens.

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<v Speaker 2>It was only a little over what you told me

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<v Speaker 2>to write.

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<v Speaker 1>That's good. That's good, that's good. So yeah, let's hear about.

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<v Speaker 1>Let's hear about mister Dickens. Man to take take it away.

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<v Speaker 2>All right? So Andrea to Shawn Dickens was born June seventeenth,

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<v Speaker 2>nineteen seventy four. The younger of two children. His mother

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<v Speaker 2>divorced Dickens's birth father before he was born, but stepfather

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<v Speaker 2>adopted him and his sister when Dickens was seven. Working

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<v Speaker 2>as an airline mechanic, Dicken's stepfather taught him how to

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<v Speaker 2>take things apart and put them back together, creating an

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<v Speaker 2>early interest in engineering for young Andre. He grew up

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<v Speaker 2>in Adamsville neighborhood, which went to Benjamin E. Mays High School,

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<v Speaker 2>which is in southwest Atlanta. Dickens says the neighborhood kids

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<v Speaker 2>were rough around the edges, As he told Atlanta Magazine

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<v Speaker 2>and quote, we fought often, but when the fighting escalated

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<v Speaker 2>to bats and brass knuckles, he changed course and turned

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<v Speaker 2>to baseball in books in instead. At age sixteen, Dickens

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<v Speaker 2>decided that he wanted to be mayor after watching then

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<v Speaker 2>Mayor Andrew Young. This is about the time he also

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<v Speaker 2>met Shirley Franklin, whose son he played baseball with. Franklin

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<v Speaker 2>was Mayor Young's chief administrative officer at the time and

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<v Speaker 2>spent time mentoring Dickens as a teenager. She would also

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<v Speaker 2>go on to become mayor herself.

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<v Speaker 1>Okay, so Andrew Young, I know that name because that's

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<v Speaker 1>the street where the hard Rock Cafe is.

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<v Speaker 2>The street where the hard Rock Cafe is. He went

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<v Speaker 2>on to become an ambassador ambassador to the hard Rock

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<v Speaker 2>to the hard Rock Cafe. That's also where the Swat

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<v Speaker 2>vehicle hung out.

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<v Speaker 1>Across the Hooters exactly.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's a very notable street in Atlanta.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>After a week long Minorities Interested in Technology and Engineering

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<v Speaker 2>program at Georgia Tech this summer before his senior year,

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<v Speaker 2>someone from the program handed him an application to Georgia Tech,

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<v Speaker 2>which he filled out while waiting on his mom to

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<v Speaker 2>pick him up. Tech was the only college that Dickens

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<v Speaker 2>applied to.

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<v Speaker 1>Huh. I mostly know Georgia Tech as the place that

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<v Speaker 1>like Raytheon and Lackey Martin go to recruit a whole

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<v Speaker 1>bunch of their employees.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you know, it's it's the tech engineering school of

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<v Speaker 2>the South, and all the good weapons manufacturers need to

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<v Speaker 2>get their good Southern engineering. Yeah, he did not go

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<v Speaker 2>that route, but it is kind of rare for black

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<v Speaker 2>politicians in general to come from schools outside of the HBCUs.

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<v Speaker 2>We've got that like big HBCU district here in Atlanta

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<v Speaker 2>can explain what that is perfectly. Historically black college and universities.

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<v Speaker 2>There are a group of them in kind of just

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<v Speaker 2>off downtown Atlanta in an area called the Atlanta University Center,

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<v Speaker 2>so they're all kind of together in that area, and

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<v Speaker 2>that is where most of our elected officials who become

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<v Speaker 2>mayor come from. Dickens is only the second mayor since

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<v Speaker 2>nineteen seventy four not to graduate from one of those HBCUs.

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<v Speaker 2>But Dickens did join Kappa Alpha Psia, historically black fraternity

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<v Speaker 2>when he went to Tech and was a member of

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<v Speaker 2>the student government, kind of keeping his dream of being

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<v Speaker 2>mayor alive. But after graduations he Brewefly left the state

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<v Speaker 2>before returning home in two thousand and two to take

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<v Speaker 2>care of his ill mother. This is around the time

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<v Speaker 2>that he started his public service career and he joined

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<v Speaker 2>NPUD NPUs our neighborhood Planning units. Atlanta is broken up

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<v Speaker 2>into twenty five of these neighborhood units and they're each

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<v Speaker 2>given a letter of the alphabet, so they are advisory

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<v Speaker 2>boards that give input to the city, but they can

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<v Speaker 2>issue like zoning variances, and some MPUs have built up

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<v Speaker 2>like considerable power over their neighborhoods. So this is where

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<v Speaker 2>a lot of people like first plug into Atlanta government.

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<v Speaker 1>Okay, so it's like, is this like really like the

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<v Speaker 1>zoning board process?

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<v Speaker 2>And yeah, if you need to get approval to have

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<v Speaker 2>a bigger awning than you're supposed to have, you got

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<v Speaker 2>to go through the MPU to get it.

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<v Speaker 1>Got it? Okay, So I'll consider that for when I

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<v Speaker 1>want to expand my awning.

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<v Speaker 2>Yes you're onning or build your onning.

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<v Speaker 1>Okay, yeah. Yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>At this point, Dickens and his sister also founded a

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<v Speaker 2>business called City Living Home Furnishings. And the company is

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<v Speaker 2>exactly what it's a for interest furniture store if you

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<v Speaker 2>found the furniture store. In an interview with Georgia State

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<v Speaker 2>University later in his life, Dickens reflected that this is

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<v Speaker 2>where he determined that he needed to act rightly to

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<v Speaker 2>ensure his good reputation.

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<v Speaker 1>What furniture store teach him this lesson?

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<v Speaker 2>Oh well, he said, Imagine I'm on TV saying trust me,

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<v Speaker 2>and all the people would have to do is call

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<v Speaker 2>the Atlanta Journal, Constitution or radio and say your furniture

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<v Speaker 2>was trash. Sure history to somebody who are all these

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<v Speaker 2>places that you know, you've really got to be consistent.

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<v Speaker 2>It's what he said, and you know, it turns out

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<v Speaker 2>now I have to know, Wow, spoiler, he goes bankrupt.

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<v Speaker 2>It turns out the AGAC wouldn't be much of a

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<v Speaker 2>problem for Dickens, as we've learned years later, that paper

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<v Speaker 2>would be on his side, bobbing those easy questions and

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<v Speaker 2>helping him build support for cop City. So, like I said,

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<v Speaker 2>the family business failed in twenty ten, you can't actually

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<v Speaker 2>blame Dickens for it was a product of the of

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<v Speaker 2>the Great Recession.

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<v Speaker 1>Okay, So I wonderf we can still find any of

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<v Speaker 1>his furniture lying around.

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<v Speaker 2>So there's there's actually a store called City Living Home

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<v Speaker 2>Furnish Furnishing. And I don't know if.

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<v Speaker 1>It's like somebody just laid little or Yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>I tried to look it up and I couldn't like

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<v Speaker 2>figure out if it was just somebody using the same

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<v Speaker 2>name or not. But there's one that exists in like

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<v Speaker 2>West Midtown.

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<v Speaker 1>Okay, Oh boy, sorry, we're gonna I'm gonna get a

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<v Speaker 1>lot of comments from people in Atlanta down because you

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<v Speaker 1>said a West Midtown, west Side or whatever you want

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<v Speaker 1>to call it, it's a it's a Southwest Piedmont. I

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<v Speaker 1>don't know.

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<v Speaker 2>There's there's also so no like south of North. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>we have all these these fun little little street or

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<v Speaker 2>neighborhood names. But so after the failing business, he changed

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<v Speaker 2>course and went to GSU for a master's of Public

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<v Speaker 2>Administration in economic Development.

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<v Speaker 1>So this was after twenty ten.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, after twenty ten. In twenty eleven he uh started

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<v Speaker 2>attending his master's program at Georgia State University, and then

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<v Speaker 2>he graduated in twenty thirteen, just in time for the

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<v Speaker 2>municipal election season. So Atlanta City Council, as we've learned now,

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<v Speaker 2>is comprised of twelve district seats and three city wide

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<v Speaker 2>seats or what we call at large seats, and so

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<v Speaker 2>Dickens ran for Post three against an incumbent named h

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<v Speaker 2>Lamar Willis. Dickens kind of historically when he has these campaigns,

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<v Speaker 2>either has really good fortune or good insight in choosing

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<v Speaker 2>his opponent or opponents. A month prior to the election,

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<v Speaker 2>Willis was disbarred after the Georgia Supreme Court found that

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<v Speaker 2>he violated numerous professional conduct rules, including it in two

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<v Speaker 2>thousand and nine, placing a settlement money from a child

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<v Speaker 2>injury case into his personal bank account instead of giving

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<v Speaker 2>it to the parents. Wait really, yes, this guy is

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<v Speaker 2>now back in Georgia government.

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<v Speaker 1>He is.

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<v Speaker 2>He's part of the Beltline that makes sense management program.

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<v Speaker 2>So this happened earlier this.

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<v Speaker 1>Year, stealing money from injured children.

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<v Speaker 2>I think he gave it to the child eventually. But

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<v Speaker 2>you're supposed to put these in like escrow accounts and

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<v Speaker 2>not in your.

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<v Speaker 1>Own account, your personal account. No, so.

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<v Speaker 2>Former Mayor Sureley Franklin indoors Dickens in the twenty three race,

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<v Speaker 2>or former Mayor Surely Franklin indoors Dickens in the twenty

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<v Speaker 2>thirteen race, which drew iron attacks by both Willis, who

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<v Speaker 2>called Dickens out for his bankruptcy of the furniture business,

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<v Speaker 2>and what Willis alleged was quote unlawful use of Georgia

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<v Speaker 2>Tech government property. So on the bankruptcy, Dickens went in

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<v Speaker 2>to about a million dollars in debt and had some

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<v Speaker 2>tax lines against him, which he's now discharged through both

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<v Speaker 2>bankruptcy and settling the tax lines. But the unlawful use of.

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<v Speaker 1>Georgia Tech Georgia government property, what is that I have

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<v Speaker 1>no idea.

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<v Speaker 2>I don't know what they I searched pretty hard to

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<v Speaker 2>try to find it, and I can't, like other than

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<v Speaker 2>Will willis making the claim.

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<v Speaker 1>I found no evidence like a computers like what is.

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<v Speaker 2>I'm assuming like, you know, probably something like he went

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<v Speaker 2>to a computer lab and used it off hours for

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<v Speaker 2>some personal, weird business. But yeah, I found nothing that

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<v Speaker 2>actually really backs up the claim against him. So he

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<v Speaker 2>won the election in November with fifty three percent of

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<v Speaker 2>the vote, which is surprisingly strong victory for like a

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<v Speaker 2>relatively unknown candidate like Dickens was at the time. During

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<v Speaker 2>his first term twenty thirteen to twenty seventeen, Dickens worked

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<v Speaker 2>pretty quietly, but towards the end of his term he

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<v Speaker 2>started to introduce legislation make a name for himself. So

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<v Speaker 2>he created a forty million dollar affordable housing bond, as

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<v Speaker 2>well as a study to raise the minimum wage for

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<v Speaker 2>city employees to fifteen dollars an hour, which ultimately led

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<v Speaker 2>to the city enacting that wage. Dickens ran for his

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<v Speaker 2>second term unopposed, so naturally he won.

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<v Speaker 1>So that's twenty seventeen.

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<v Speaker 2>Now we're twenty seventeen to twenty twenty one, and this

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<v Speaker 2>is where the story starts to get interesting. We'll see

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<v Speaker 2>the themes that will play out in his first you know,

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<v Speaker 2>a couple of years as mayor.

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<v Speaker 1>Well and we will learn about that story after these

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<v Speaker 1>messages from our lovely sponsors. Or if you're subscribed to

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<v Speaker 1>you just hear us do the ad breaks without the

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<v Speaker 1>ads at all. So in lieu of that by gold

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<v Speaker 1>gold play by gold played played guitars, guitars, Thank you

0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:34.160
<v Speaker 1>by gold plated guitars. All right, we are back. I'm

0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:39.400
<v Speaker 1>strumming away on my on my electric gold plated bass.

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<v Speaker 2>Doesn't sound good. It doesn't sound like it's supposed to.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Danell, cut cut out all of the all of

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<v Speaker 1>the bad bass. Actually, I can go get my accordion

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<v Speaker 1>and play that instead if you want.

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<v Speaker 2>Let's not all right?

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<v Speaker 1>Well continue.

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<v Speaker 2>So we're in twenty eighteen now. So in twenty normal year,

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<v Speaker 2>completely normal year for Atlanta. Nothing happened anywhere else in

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<v Speaker 2>the world. One of the biggest conversations that was going

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<v Speaker 2>around in Atlanta in twenty eighteen revolved around an area

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<v Speaker 2>of downtown called the Gulch. So this is the area

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<v Speaker 2>that's surrounded by most of our sports team venues, kind

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<v Speaker 2>of like where Centennial Olympic Park is, and the streets

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<v Speaker 2>are all elevated in that area around above ground level

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<v Speaker 2>and at the bottom of the ground level, it's like

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<v Speaker 2>these early twentieth century like railway lines, but it's mostly

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<v Speaker 2>parking lots for those those to the stadiums for the stadiums.

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<v Speaker 2>And it's known as the Gulch because you know, kind

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<v Speaker 2>of which is a break in the ground.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, looks look it's like a gulch kind.

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<v Speaker 2>Of so back in it's like a coach.

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<v Speaker 1>Ooh wow.

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<v Speaker 2>Back in twenty twenty, twenty twelve, then Mayor Cassimri presented

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<v Speaker 2>an idea to give a Los Angeles based firm a

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<v Speaker 2>million dollars to build the Gulch into a mixed use

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<v Speaker 2>high rise area. The legislation finally passed in twenty eighteen,

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<v Speaker 2>but Andrea Dickens voted against it, saying directly that there

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<v Speaker 2>wasn't enough focus in the development plans on housing affordability,

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<v Speaker 2>and this helped cement Dickens's reputation as a housing affordability advocate.

0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:10.520
<v Speaker 1>And yeah, because he also did that forty million dollars.

0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:12.559
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he just did that forty million dollar bond and

0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:15.120
<v Speaker 2>we'll we'll have some more affordable housing stuff later. But

0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:16.920
<v Speaker 2>you know, I should say, we're like five years on

0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:20.080
<v Speaker 2>now and the gulch hasn't be gone. But they're they're

0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:22.720
<v Speaker 2>trying to get it done. But before the World Cup

0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:23.120
<v Speaker 2>comes in.

0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:25.640
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, they're also it seems like they've been preoccupied with

0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:29.720
<v Speaker 1>another another construction, construction project that's getting much more of

0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:32.679
<v Speaker 1>the mayor's attention, which oddly does not have anything to

0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:33.680
<v Speaker 1>do with affordable housing.

0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:38.920
<v Speaker 2>No, it just not. Dickens also introduced legislation that led

0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:41.560
<v Speaker 2>to the creation of the Atlanta Department of Transportation, which,

0:12:41.600 --> 0:12:44.280
<v Speaker 2>if I'm being fair, was a good idea and pretty

0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:48.199
<v Speaker 2>necessary to help address bennis decaying road infrastructure and proven

0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:51.160
<v Speaker 2>No the roads, you're fine, Yeah, so you you drove on,

0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:54.080
<v Speaker 2>you complained when when we had this last week of

0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:57.439
<v Speaker 2>action about decap Avenue and all the potholes. Yeah, and

0:12:57.520 --> 0:13:00.560
<v Speaker 2>that is now repaved. That got repaid. It is a

0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:03.160
<v Speaker 2>couple of weeks ago. They're in the process of repaving it.

0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:07.439
<v Speaker 1>So the infrastructure working. It's my favorite part. My new

0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:11.960
<v Speaker 1>favorite part is Moreland. Is that usually around Moreland's drive

0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:14.920
<v Speaker 1>there's an area where where you're trying to get to

0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:17.320
<v Speaker 1>the Wanti Forest that just is always constantly flooded no

0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:20.800
<v Speaker 1>matter what. And that's my favorite area of Atlanta.

0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:23.240
<v Speaker 2>And I hear that if you get rid of a forest,

0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:24.679
<v Speaker 2>that will improve.

0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:26.360
<v Speaker 1>Flood helps it flooding because there's more space for the

0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:27.400
<v Speaker 1>dirt to soak in water.

0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:30.640
<v Speaker 2>Exactly. That is how that works. It is science. So

0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:34.080
<v Speaker 2>in twenty nineteen, Dickens introduced legislation to create a task

0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:37.160
<v Speaker 2>force to decide how to repurpose the Atlanta City Detention

0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:40.000
<v Speaker 2>Center or ACDC, which is really weird. Every time I

0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:41.280
<v Speaker 2>hear ACDC, I think.

0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:42.360
<v Speaker 1>Of this thing.

0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:45.720
<v Speaker 2>It's jail, and everybody else is talking about something entirely different.

0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:48.640
<v Speaker 2>So it was built in nineteen nineties leading up to

0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:51.000
<v Speaker 2>the Olympics and replaced an older jail that now serves

0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:53.120
<v Speaker 2>as our primary homeless shelter.

0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:56.160
<v Speaker 1>So that's what ACDC is now.

0:13:57.360 --> 0:13:59.480
<v Speaker 2>It's called the Gateway Center. Now that was the old jail.

0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:01.440
<v Speaker 2>ACDC is the current jail.

0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:02.200
<v Speaker 1>Okay, okay.

0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:06.760
<v Speaker 2>So in a press release, after Bottom signed this legislation

0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:07.880
<v Speaker 2>to create the task.

0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:10.720
<v Speaker 1>Force, whose sorry, who's bottoms?

0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:15.440
<v Speaker 2>So from twenty seventeen to twenty twenty one, Atlanta had

0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:21.160
<v Speaker 2>a mayor name Lance Bottoms, and she was great and

0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:24.880
<v Speaker 2>did not approve legislation about cop City at all.

0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:27.520
<v Speaker 1>She did not, she did, she did, she did. So

0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:28.480
<v Speaker 1>it was a lot. You just lied.

0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:29.800
<v Speaker 2>I lied.

0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:33.479
<v Speaker 1>You already purposely spread misinformation on my news podcast.

0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:39.840
<v Speaker 2>Okay. So Michael Smith was Bottoms press secretary and also

0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:43.040
<v Speaker 2>currently serving as Dickens press secretary. So he wrote that

0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:46.600
<v Speaker 2>this legislation that authorized the task force actually authorized Bottoms

0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:49.840
<v Speaker 2>to close the jail, but the ordinance did not create

0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:53.360
<v Speaker 2>that authorization, only authorized this task force to recommend future

0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:56.640
<v Speaker 2>uses of the site should it close. And this is

0:14:56.680 --> 0:14:59.600
<v Speaker 2>going to be important. The task force met for about

0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:02.520
<v Speaker 2>a year, but before turning into options, which brings us

0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:05.560
<v Speaker 2>to June twenty twenty. We're going to skip straight over

0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:07.720
<v Speaker 2>there with all of this going on.

0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:10.760
<v Speaker 1>So what was happening in June twenty twenty in Atlanta?

0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:13.800
<v Speaker 2>There were some protests going on which we're gonna key

0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:16.800
<v Speaker 2>in just after the jail fight. But the task force

0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:20.360
<v Speaker 2>offered four options, and the city indicated that was going

0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:22.320
<v Speaker 2>to go with the second cheapest of the four, which

0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:24.680
<v Speaker 2>was redoing the facade of the jail and turning the

0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:27.600
<v Speaker 2>interior into a center for diversions. So instead of having

0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:30.680
<v Speaker 2>a city jail, we would have this multi story diversion center,

0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:34.280
<v Speaker 2>you know, to stop people from going into the criminal

0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:37.640
<v Speaker 2>justice system. And in the middle of the summer of

0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:38.600
<v Speaker 2>twenty twenty.

0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:42.120
<v Speaker 1>This was how is that not just a jail, it's you.

0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:45.080
<v Speaker 2>Don't enter the criminal legal system. Yeah, so you don't

0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:46.880
<v Speaker 2>talk to it. You're not in front of a judge,

0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:50.520
<v Speaker 2>you are not technically arrested. You are given resources, and

0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:56.000
<v Speaker 2>you are given options to you know, attend courses or

0:15:56.040 --> 0:15:59.640
<v Speaker 2>counseling or whatever you need instead of entering like the

0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:02.040
<v Speaker 2>criminal just yeah. And so we have a diversion program

0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:06.440
<v Speaker 2>here called Policing's Alternatives and Diversions or PAD, which operates

0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:10.720
<v Speaker 2>in every zone of the city. And is is you know,

0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:15.880
<v Speaker 2>if somebody gets arrested, like stealing basic subsistance stuff, they

0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:19.240
<v Speaker 2>are supposed to contact PAD and enter them into a

0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:22.280
<v Speaker 2>diversion program where they get help instead of going to jail.

0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:22.760
<v Speaker 1>Okay.

0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:27.600
<v Speaker 2>And it works to the extent that the city of

0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:31.160
<v Speaker 2>or it works to the extent that APD actually does

0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:35.960
<v Speaker 2>contact PAD. And it depends on kind of the zone

0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:40.160
<v Speaker 2>how effective it is. But Basically at this point everyone

0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:43.160
<v Speaker 2>agreed that the jail was going to end its time

0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:45.520
<v Speaker 2>as a carceral space and become this diversion center to

0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:49.760
<v Speaker 2>help people avoid entering the criminal legal system. So put

0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:51.120
<v Speaker 2>it in that that is the plan.

0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:53.880
<v Speaker 1>Okay is during June of twenty twenty.

0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:58.040
<v Speaker 2>During June twenty because, of course, the bigger news of

0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:00.480
<v Speaker 2>the summer of twenty twenty was the George Floyd uprising

0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:03.400
<v Speaker 2>and at that point in Atlanta, the killing of Rayshard

0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:06.680
<v Speaker 2>Brooks by Garrett Rolf at the Wendy's in Southeast Atlanta.

0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:07.800
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:11.200
<v Speaker 2>So, after the killing of Brooks, Dickens posted on an

0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:14.960
<v Speaker 2>Instagram saying, quote, I am saddened to start this day

0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:17.399
<v Speaker 2>with news of another black person killed by police, and

0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:20.600
<v Speaker 2>especially dismayed to see it happen in our city. Police

0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:23.919
<v Speaker 2>must de escalate situations like these before they turned deadly.

0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:27.520
<v Speaker 2>Once the suspect fled, unarmed and intoxicated through a parking

0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:30.280
<v Speaker 2>lot of bystanders, this could have become an investigation rather

0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:34.480
<v Speaker 2>than a shooting. So, undoubtedly spurred by the fervor and

0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:37.840
<v Speaker 2>uproar of that summer, Dickens also co sponsored legislation with

0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:41.760
<v Speaker 2>fellow council members Antonio Brown and Michael Julian Bond that

0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:45.680
<v Speaker 2>would prohibit APD from using crowd control munitions in military

0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:50.760
<v Speaker 2>style vehicles against protesters. Okay, This legislation, though, unsurprisingly, went nowhere,

0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:55.679
<v Speaker 2>and we were shot by balls for the rest of

0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:56.159
<v Speaker 2>the summer.

0:17:56.320 --> 0:18:00.920
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and they still are using them to this day. Yeah.

0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:03.080
<v Speaker 1>But this is also happening at the tail end of

0:18:03.119 --> 0:18:05.639
<v Speaker 1>budget season. So our budget season goes from like March

0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:09.199
<v Speaker 1>to or April to June of every year. And the

0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:12.280
<v Speaker 1>biggest debate in Council that summer was about withholding seventy

0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:14.840
<v Speaker 1>three million dollars or about a quarter of the Atlanta

0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:19.119
<v Speaker 1>Police Department's funding, and so we were actually positioned police

0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:22.840
<v Speaker 1>defund the police. And while the legislation was under debate

0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:25.639
<v Speaker 1>in City Council, thousands of residents called in for public comment.

0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:29.400
<v Speaker 1>This is the only time that i've the only time

0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:32.359
<v Speaker 1>estenment I've seen for this public comment was about seventeen

0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:34.280
<v Speaker 1>hours according to mainline zine.

0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:37.479
<v Speaker 2>I seem to recall it being longer, but around that,

0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:38.639
<v Speaker 2>which is around seventeen.

0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:41.280
<v Speaker 1>Hours, comparable to the last public comment session related to

0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:41.800
<v Speaker 1>cop City.

0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:45.560
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and comparable even to the first public comment.

0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:46.399
<v Speaker 1>Session about seventeen.

0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:48.720
<v Speaker 2>How yeah, yeah, yeah, So the actual vote happened on

0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:52.520
<v Speaker 2>a especially called Saturday session of City Council. At the time,

0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:56.560
<v Speaker 2>like all other municipalities, Council was meeting remotely through zoom.

0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:59.920
<v Speaker 2>So the actual vote happened on especially called Saturday session

0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:03.080
<v Speaker 2>of City Council. At the time, like all of the municipalities,

0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:05.960
<v Speaker 2>Council was meeting remotely through zoom because of COVID. And

0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:07.680
<v Speaker 2>we're going to play a clip of one of the

0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:10.439
<v Speaker 2>few things that Dickens said during that debate and to

0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:12.879
<v Speaker 2>set the scene. Council Member Dustin hillis one of the

0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:16.000
<v Speaker 2>very pro cop members. Council proposed a much smaller cut

0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:18.280
<v Speaker 2>to the budget in the amount of like a few

0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:22.040
<v Speaker 2>million dollars to remove just quote unquote non essential expenditures

0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:25.320
<v Speaker 2>from abd's budget, sure without risking cutting into actual pay

0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:28.280
<v Speaker 2>for police or the raises to police stalary that Council

0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:32.080
<v Speaker 2>and the Mayor's office previously promised. Because this was a

0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:35.359
<v Speaker 2>special session on Saturday, Dickens was driving around his mother,

0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:37.800
<v Speaker 2>so there's going to be a bit of background noise

0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:40.800
<v Speaker 2>and the quality is not super outstanding.

0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:44.680
<v Speaker 3>And it is now as much as I'm trying to

0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:48.000
<v Speaker 3>figure out a way to support it. If it comes

0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:51.439
<v Speaker 3>down to being two million dollars or three million dollars

0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:55.680
<v Speaker 3>or each five million dollars, it just is so short

0:19:56.000 --> 0:20:01.280
<v Speaker 3>of reimagining. You can't reimagine something that almost three hundred

0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:06.159
<v Speaker 3>million and only take through the bombing and to reimagine

0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:10.600
<v Speaker 3>it right and to kind of think through what all

0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:12.600
<v Speaker 3>needs to be done at the end a strong signal

0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:17.080
<v Speaker 3>that we want reform and we want change.

0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:19.960
<v Speaker 2>What we hear in this clip is Dickens really doing

0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:22.280
<v Speaker 2>what he's going to continue to do for the rest

0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:25.120
<v Speaker 2>of his career, make overtures to the public while still

0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:27.000
<v Speaker 2>ensuring that at the end of the day, the police

0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:29.320
<v Speaker 2>are taken care of. He really wanted APD to know

0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:31.760
<v Speaker 2>that their personal salaries were not only safe, but they

0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:33.840
<v Speaker 2>were going to grow, and he would always be a

0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:37.840
<v Speaker 2>champion of that. So we're going to skip here over

0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:40.320
<v Speaker 2>the copsity vote in twenty twenty one. At this point,

0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:41.320
<v Speaker 2>I think it's been.

0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:44.760
<v Speaker 1>If you're listening to this show, you're also probably somewhat there.

0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:47.720
<v Speaker 2>There are several episodes that you can pause here and

0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:49.760
<v Speaker 2>go back and listen to it to kind of catch

0:20:49.840 --> 0:20:54.400
<v Speaker 2>up yes on on how that happened in twenty twenty one.

0:20:54.600 --> 0:20:57.360
<v Speaker 2>So suffice it to say that Dickens did not fight

0:20:57.440 --> 0:20:59.920
<v Speaker 2>against the legislation in its council phase, and what is

0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:02.160
<v Speaker 2>was one of the ten votes to approve the Cops

0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:04.800
<v Speaker 2>City lease in September of twenty twenty one. If anything,

0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:07.040
<v Speaker 2>Dickens was one of the quieter members of council when

0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:09.040
<v Speaker 2>it came to debating Cops City lease. He didn't really

0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:13.640
<v Speaker 2>say much while the debates were happening. So the last

0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:15.840
<v Speaker 2>few months, of course, of the Cops City fight happened

0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:18.440
<v Speaker 2>during election season, and instead of running for a third

0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:20.280
<v Speaker 2>term as council member, Dickens threw his hat in the

0:21:20.359 --> 0:21:22.960
<v Speaker 2>ring for mayor, which was an open race, with Mayor

0:21:22.960 --> 0:21:25.840
<v Speaker 2>Bottoms withdrawing her candid seat. All the way back on

0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:28.199
<v Speaker 2>May six, a mid rumors that she was on the

0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:31.960
<v Speaker 2>short list to be Biden's nod for VP, which did

0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:36.080
<v Speaker 2>which did not happen, which did not happen. So to

0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:39.320
<v Speaker 2>understand how Dickens won this election, because spoiler, we're talking

0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:45.320
<v Speaker 2>about Mayor Monday, Mayor Dickens, We've got to talk about

0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:48.480
<v Speaker 2>how Atlanta runs its municipal elections and how Georgia election

0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:52.160
<v Speaker 2>law plays out in effect, and who the presumed front

0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:55.960
<v Speaker 2>runners of the race were. First, municipal elections are run

0:21:56.000 --> 0:21:58.400
<v Speaker 2>on a non partisan basis. There are no party primaries

0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:00.359
<v Speaker 2>to weat out weeker candidates to run. All you need

0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:02.560
<v Speaker 2>to do is get the required number of signatures, pay

0:22:02.560 --> 0:22:04.639
<v Speaker 2>the fee, and file on time. So this leads to

0:22:04.680 --> 0:22:06.800
<v Speaker 2>a pretty wide field of candidates than you see in

0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:11.200
<v Speaker 2>most elections. Second is that quirk in Georgia election law

0:22:11.440 --> 0:22:14.280
<v Speaker 2>that everyone is probably familiar with by this point in

0:22:14.359 --> 0:22:17.200
<v Speaker 2>time from the last few national election cycles. In order

0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:21.199
<v Speaker 2>to win Georgia outright, you need fifty percent of the

0:22:21.440 --> 0:22:24.359
<v Speaker 2>vote plus one. If no candidate hits that number, then

0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:27.159
<v Speaker 2>the top two candidates go to a runoff election. The

0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:30.160
<v Speaker 2>state law also applies to any municipal elections for cities

0:22:30.160 --> 0:22:33.679
<v Speaker 2>with the population higher than one hundred thousand people like Atlanta.

0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:36.360
<v Speaker 1>Look Atlanta, which has six hundred thousand.

0:22:36.040 --> 0:22:38.199
<v Speaker 2>So just around five hundred thousand, I think it's like

0:22:38.240 --> 0:22:40.679
<v Speaker 2>four hundred and ninety thousand at this point, but the

0:22:40.720 --> 0:22:43.760
<v Speaker 2>greater metro areas, like the Greater Metro area is something

0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:47.560
<v Speaker 2>like six or seven million. Yeah, So the two front

0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:51.119
<v Speaker 2>runterers of the race were not exactly popular figures. I

0:22:51.119 --> 0:22:52.560
<v Speaker 2>would go so far as to say it, like in

0:22:52.600 --> 0:22:55.280
<v Speaker 2>many cases votes were cast against them, like kind of

0:22:55.320 --> 0:22:57.960
<v Speaker 2>like with Trump, instead of in support of.

0:22:58.000 --> 0:23:00.960
<v Speaker 1>Instead of voting for Biden, you're voting against Yeah.

0:23:01.080 --> 0:23:04.560
<v Speaker 2>So former Mayor Cassim Reid was one of those candidates.

0:23:04.600 --> 0:23:07.159
<v Speaker 2>He left office in twenty seventeen after a second term.

0:23:07.720 --> 0:23:10.120
<v Speaker 2>And then it has this two consecutive term limit, which

0:23:10.240 --> 0:23:12.680
<v Speaker 2>Reid had reached. However, you can run for a third

0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:14.159
<v Speaker 2>term if it's not consecutive.

0:23:14.240 --> 0:23:14.560
<v Speaker 1>Okay.

0:23:14.640 --> 0:23:18.359
<v Speaker 2>So during Reid's second term, lawsuits and scandaled propagated heavily.

0:23:18.880 --> 0:23:21.480
<v Speaker 2>Amongst the things that came out during both during and

0:23:21.520 --> 0:23:24.800
<v Speaker 2>after Reed's administration was that Reid made nearly nine hundred

0:23:24.880 --> 0:23:27.720
<v Speaker 2>thousand dollars in illegal bonus payments to staff, had a

0:23:27.720 --> 0:23:31.240
<v Speaker 2>bribery scandal in his office that resulted in an FBI investigation,

0:23:31.560 --> 0:23:37.440
<v Speaker 2>and ensured that airport contracts went to his friends and associates.

0:23:35.080 --> 0:23:38.920
<v Speaker 1>Based a legalist, a legalist demator.

0:23:39.520 --> 0:23:42.320
<v Speaker 2>And to make matters worse for Reid, a month after

0:23:42.359 --> 0:23:45.320
<v Speaker 2>he announced his candid seat, the AJAC release that it

0:23:45.359 --> 0:23:49.600
<v Speaker 2>believed Reid was under investigation for allegations of wire fraud

0:23:49.720 --> 0:23:53.160
<v Speaker 2>for quote using campaign funds to make purchases of jewelry,

0:23:53.240 --> 0:23:55.320
<v Speaker 2>resort travel, lingerie, and furniture.

0:23:55.400 --> 0:23:57.600
<v Speaker 1>I mean that would make sense considering everything else you

0:23:57.720 --> 0:24:00.000
<v Speaker 1>just said. That's not really surprised.

0:24:02.000 --> 0:24:04.480
<v Speaker 2>Then, on the other side was Fleesia Moore, who accurately

0:24:04.560 --> 0:24:07.240
<v Speaker 2>and not was seen by opponents as the face of

0:24:07.280 --> 0:24:10.879
<v Speaker 2>cop City after Joyce Shephard, who introduced the legislation authorizing

0:24:10.920 --> 0:24:13.920
<v Speaker 2>the lease for COPSDY and lost her seat on council

0:24:14.400 --> 0:24:17.400
<v Speaker 2>for that reason. While never forced to do so since

0:24:17.520 --> 0:24:20.560
<v Speaker 2>city council presidents only vote in tiebreakers, More did say

0:24:20.600 --> 0:24:22.960
<v Speaker 2>that she would vote in favor of copsidity if it

0:24:23.240 --> 0:24:27.679
<v Speaker 2>was needed. Then, a week before the election, Felicia Moore's

0:24:27.680 --> 0:24:31.479
<v Speaker 2>campaign Instagram account posted a video with Lee Clevinger, a

0:24:31.520 --> 0:24:35.800
<v Speaker 2>white Republican donor and supporter of Moore's campaign. Clevinger can

0:24:35.840 --> 0:24:39.520
<v Speaker 2>be heard saying all of Atlanta mayor since nineteen seventy

0:24:39.720 --> 0:24:43.080
<v Speaker 2>nine were quote not interested in anything except lining their

0:24:43.119 --> 0:24:43.800
<v Speaker 2>own pockets.

0:24:44.680 --> 0:24:48.119
<v Speaker 1>Hmm, I should know. I feel like this is gonna

0:24:48.160 --> 0:24:48.600
<v Speaker 1>be some Uh.

0:24:49.760 --> 0:24:52.840
<v Speaker 2>Since nineteen seventy four, a black person has been mayor

0:24:52.920 --> 0:24:53.680
<v Speaker 2>every single time.

0:24:53.760 --> 0:24:56.359
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Yeah, that's that's what I was thinking. Yeah, So

0:24:56.520 --> 0:24:59.840
<v Speaker 1>that sounds like he's over so well.

0:25:00.080 --> 0:25:03.640
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, More removed the post and return the campaign contribution

0:25:04.000 --> 0:25:07.000
<v Speaker 2>from Clevelander and said later quote, it was an unfortunate

0:25:07.040 --> 0:25:09.840
<v Speaker 2>statement by that constituent, and I should have corrected him

0:25:09.920 --> 0:25:10.639
<v Speaker 2>or walked away.

0:25:10.920 --> 0:25:14.640
<v Speaker 1>Unfortunate statement, not just like fortunate if someone saying something

0:25:14.680 --> 0:25:15.600
<v Speaker 1>incredibly racist.

0:25:16.440 --> 0:25:18.879
<v Speaker 2>So this was the setting that led to election night

0:25:19.359 --> 0:25:22.399
<v Speaker 2>that Tuesday. To everyone's surprise, Dickens eked out a second

0:25:22.440 --> 0:25:26.719
<v Speaker 2>place victory above Read with just under six hundred votes

0:25:27.440 --> 0:25:29.800
<v Speaker 2>for a total of twenty two one and fifty three

0:25:29.880 --> 0:25:32.280
<v Speaker 2>votes for Dickens. More had a much better showing with

0:25:32.320 --> 0:25:34.000
<v Speaker 2>thirty nine two hundred and two.

0:25:33.960 --> 0:25:35.600
<v Speaker 1>But neither of them was over fifty.

0:25:35.720 --> 0:25:37.840
<v Speaker 2>But neither of them broke the fifty percent, so we

0:25:37.920 --> 0:25:41.359
<v Speaker 2>went to a runoff. So during the runoff, More really

0:25:41.480 --> 0:25:43.400
<v Speaker 2>courted conservative Buckhead.

0:25:43.240 --> 0:25:46.679
<v Speaker 1>And Buckhead's like the northern we have more conservative like

0:25:47.280 --> 0:25:49.560
<v Speaker 1>not suburb, but like neighborhood of Atlanta neighborhood.

0:25:49.600 --> 0:25:51.719
<v Speaker 2>It's the one that wanted to turn it into its

0:25:51.760 --> 0:25:52.120
<v Speaker 2>own city.

0:25:52.200 --> 0:25:54.560
<v Speaker 1>Yes, which wanted to get to the kids succession, which

0:25:54.600 --> 0:25:56.640
<v Speaker 1>is built on a whole bunch of legacies of red

0:25:56.680 --> 0:25:58.080
<v Speaker 1>landing in segregation and blah blah blah.

0:25:58.200 --> 0:25:58.840
<v Speaker 2>We'll talk about that.

0:25:58.880 --> 0:26:01.480
<v Speaker 1>Okay.

0:26:01.520 --> 0:26:05.359
<v Speaker 2>So Moore also earned the endorsement of Reed, the.

0:26:05.400 --> 0:26:06.520
<v Speaker 1>Guy who just said the racist thing.

0:26:06.600 --> 0:26:10.760
<v Speaker 2>Guy who know, the former mayor who lost to Dickens

0:26:10.760 --> 0:26:12.560
<v Speaker 2>for second place by about six hundred votes.

0:26:12.600 --> 0:26:14.919
<v Speaker 1>Okay. So I'm trying to keep all these names straight

0:26:14.960 --> 0:26:18.080
<v Speaker 1>here because there's a lot of names coming into my

0:26:18.119 --> 0:26:18.640
<v Speaker 1>head now.

0:26:19.720 --> 0:26:22.359
<v Speaker 2>In a situation that led many progressives in advantage to

0:26:22.359 --> 0:26:24.360
<v Speaker 2>look at the guy who, well, he voted for copstate,

0:26:24.400 --> 0:26:26.560
<v Speaker 2>he still supported closing the jail, was willing to cut

0:26:26.600 --> 0:26:29.320
<v Speaker 2>seventy three million dollars from APD, and had been a

0:26:29.320 --> 0:26:33.280
<v Speaker 2>pretty consistent advocate for affordable housing on cancel On Council.

0:26:33.400 --> 0:26:36.919
<v Speaker 2>So it was between More and that guy. Yeah, so

0:26:37.240 --> 0:26:42.200
<v Speaker 2>progressives made a decision and went for Dickens in the runoff.

0:26:42.200 --> 0:26:45.280
<v Speaker 2>Dickens won by a landside with sixty three percent of

0:26:45.280 --> 0:26:51.040
<v Speaker 2>the votes, so and fifty five votes. Moore actually lost

0:26:51.280 --> 0:26:55.560
<v Speaker 2>thirteen thousand votes from her general election total. Interesting, thus

0:26:55.600 --> 0:26:59.439
<v Speaker 2>Mayor Andre Dickens becomes our next leader. Turn Out for

0:26:59.480 --> 0:27:01.440
<v Speaker 2>the runoff was in line with what we saw four

0:27:01.480 --> 0:27:04.440
<v Speaker 2>years earlier when Keisha Lance Bottom faced off against Scarrison's

0:27:04.480 --> 0:27:06.000
<v Speaker 2>candidate of choice. Mary Norwood.

0:27:06.320 --> 0:27:09.960
<v Speaker 1>Get wait, don't put what do you mean.

0:27:11.240 --> 0:27:12.399
<v Speaker 2>If she runs for Merrigan?

0:27:12.480 --> 0:27:13.440
<v Speaker 1>Right now?

0:27:13.760 --> 0:27:15.639
<v Speaker 2>I misunderstood everything that has happened.

0:27:15.760 --> 0:27:16.720
<v Speaker 1>She's a scary woman.

0:27:16.760 --> 0:27:21.960
<v Speaker 2>I'm not gonna So the Norwood Bottoms run off only

0:27:22.000 --> 0:27:24.640
<v Speaker 2>had four thousand more voters than we did in twenty

0:27:24.640 --> 0:27:25.560
<v Speaker 2>twenty one's run off.

0:27:25.640 --> 0:27:28.520
<v Speaker 1>So that was the twenty seventeen election. Twenty eighteen elections

0:27:28.560 --> 0:27:34.280
<v Speaker 1>got okay, no, the Mary Norwood, that was the twenty

0:27:34.880 --> 0:27:38.560
<v Speaker 1>Bottoms one. I'm gonna act like I know Atlanta history. Yeah,

0:27:38.600 --> 0:27:40.560
<v Speaker 1>also a US correct you on some of this Atlanta

0:27:40.720 --> 0:27:44.040
<v Speaker 1>history here. That's I feign ignorance to have you explained

0:27:44.080 --> 0:27:46.520
<v Speaker 1>concepts for the audience, making me sound more ignorant than

0:27:46.560 --> 0:27:49.640
<v Speaker 1>I am, but actually then explained to you. I continue,

0:27:49.640 --> 0:27:50.240
<v Speaker 1>Sorry I was.

0:27:51.280 --> 0:27:54.200
<v Speaker 2>We should say that twenty seventeen runoff was actually much

0:27:54.240 --> 0:27:56.800
<v Speaker 2>more evenly matched. Bottoms only one by eight hundred votes.

0:27:56.920 --> 0:27:58.240
<v Speaker 2>So that and that's scary.

0:27:58.320 --> 0:28:01.240
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's scary because Mary Norwood cannot be the mayor.

0:28:01.840 --> 0:28:06.600
<v Speaker 2>So Dickens it's Dickens has said that he won with

0:28:06.840 --> 0:28:09.240
<v Speaker 2>you know, consent to govern, and it's not really stretching

0:28:09.320 --> 0:28:11.560
<v Speaker 2>it when he says that Atlanta has supported him in

0:28:11.600 --> 0:28:12.879
<v Speaker 2>this particular election.

0:28:13.040 --> 0:28:13.560
<v Speaker 1>Yea, with this.

0:28:13.600 --> 0:28:15.320
<v Speaker 2>Particular opponent, we largely did.

0:28:15.520 --> 0:28:15.879
<v Speaker 1>Sure.

0:28:16.040 --> 0:28:18.560
<v Speaker 2>In the interim period, Dickens does the usual things. He

0:28:18.600 --> 0:28:22.160
<v Speaker 2>appoints a transition seam. This included your usual cast of characters,

0:28:22.200 --> 0:28:25.919
<v Speaker 2>but it is also worth noting that it included Dave Wilkinson,

0:28:26.080 --> 0:28:28.720
<v Speaker 2>president and CEO of the Advanta Police found.

0:28:29.600 --> 0:28:32.359
<v Speaker 1>I've heard of them, the Atlanta Police Foundation. That's like

0:28:32.400 --> 0:28:34.560
<v Speaker 1>a it's like a it's like a it's like a

0:28:34.640 --> 0:28:36.000
<v Speaker 1>charity for police or something.

0:28:36.119 --> 0:28:38.680
<v Speaker 2>Right, Yeah, it's a nonprofit, you know, your standard nonprofit.

0:28:38.760 --> 0:28:41.240
<v Speaker 1>Okay, they do cool thing tax deductible.

0:28:40.880 --> 0:28:44.080
<v Speaker 2>Tax yet you can donate to them, tax deductibly, just

0:28:44.120 --> 0:28:45.960
<v Speaker 2>like they might advertise, just like.

0:28:45.920 --> 0:28:46.880
<v Speaker 1>The stream or does today.

0:28:48.760 --> 0:28:53.440
<v Speaker 2>That's the second Destiny reference in as many episodes. So

0:28:53.560 --> 0:28:55.560
<v Speaker 2>as soon as Dickens is sworn in, he faces the

0:28:55.560 --> 0:28:58.960
<v Speaker 2>Buckhead secession crisis. And you know, we we explained a

0:28:59.000 --> 0:29:02.200
<v Speaker 2>little bit earlier what bucket is. But Atlanta is a

0:29:02.320 --> 0:29:05.840
<v Speaker 2>very large metropolitan area, and much of the Fulton County

0:29:05.840 --> 0:29:09.200
<v Speaker 2>itself was at one point part of unincorporated Atlanta, and

0:29:09.240 --> 0:29:11.800
<v Speaker 2>then in two thousand and five an unincorporated area just

0:29:11.840 --> 0:29:14.120
<v Speaker 2>to the north of Buckhead, called Sandy Springs, was the

0:29:14.160 --> 0:29:17.320
<v Speaker 2>first to become its own city. The initial breakaway cities

0:29:17.320 --> 0:29:21.360
<v Speaker 2>that happened after that were predominantly white, and racism played

0:29:21.360 --> 0:29:24.040
<v Speaker 2>a heavy role in their formation. But starting in twenty sixteen,

0:29:24.720 --> 0:29:28.080
<v Speaker 2>newly formed black majority cities also started cropping up around

0:29:28.120 --> 0:29:31.200
<v Speaker 2>the metro area, like the city of South Bolton and Stonecrest.

0:29:32.400 --> 0:29:34.280
<v Speaker 2>So Buckhead wanted to do the same thing. They wanted

0:29:34.320 --> 0:29:38.239
<v Speaker 2>to become their own city, and by no means was

0:29:38.440 --> 0:29:42.840
<v Speaker 2>that popular sentiment in Buckhead. But it's more complicated because

0:29:43.080 --> 0:29:47.640
<v Speaker 2>the city hood drives were not like part of incorporated

0:29:47.680 --> 0:29:51.960
<v Speaker 2>Atlanta the previous ones. Buckhead is incorporated Atlanta is Atlanta.

0:29:52.040 --> 0:29:54.440
<v Speaker 2>It's part of the Atlanta Public school system. It's also

0:29:54.480 --> 0:29:56.920
<v Speaker 2>an APD zone. It has its own parks, roadways, and

0:29:57.000 --> 0:29:59.560
<v Speaker 2>water system that are all like City of Atlanta property. Ye,

0:30:00.240 --> 0:30:03.400
<v Speaker 2>so to have the best chance of actually seceding, Buckhead

0:30:03.440 --> 0:30:06.239
<v Speaker 2>needs a state congressional vote, Otherwise it would require a

0:30:06.280 --> 0:30:08.520
<v Speaker 2>city wide vote, which it would buy with people.

0:30:08.840 --> 0:30:09.800
<v Speaker 1>Yeah yeah.

0:30:09.840 --> 0:30:12.400
<v Speaker 2>So in twenty twenty two, it found that Bucket seceession

0:30:12.400 --> 0:30:15.080
<v Speaker 2>bill started working its way through the legislature. The bill

0:30:15.160 --> 0:30:17.880
<v Speaker 2>didn't make it very far this first time around. It

0:30:17.920 --> 0:30:20.640
<v Speaker 2>dies on February eleventh, so just a couple weeks into

0:30:20.680 --> 0:30:23.760
<v Speaker 2>the session. But in order to kill it, Dickens reached

0:30:23.800 --> 0:30:26.680
<v Speaker 2>out to Governor Kemp and other Republican leaders and developed

0:30:26.680 --> 0:30:29.320
<v Speaker 2>a working relationship early on in his term as mayor.

0:30:30.960 --> 0:30:35.720
<v Speaker 2>Dickens also kind of to quell this buckhead secession played

0:30:35.720 --> 0:30:39.239
<v Speaker 2>into the race of crime narrative that bucket secessionists were

0:30:39.240 --> 0:30:43.280
<v Speaker 2>claiming was the reason that they wanted to seceed. Dickens,

0:30:43.280 --> 0:30:46.480
<v Speaker 2>in partnership with local law enforcement agencies and the Atlanta

0:30:46.520 --> 0:30:50.360
<v Speaker 2>Police Foundation, created the Repeat Offender Tracking Unit. They claimed

0:30:50.480 --> 0:30:53.200
<v Speaker 2>most of the crime problem in Atlanta comes from repeat offenders,

0:30:53.200 --> 0:30:56.560
<v Speaker 2>and by sharing information about so called criminals between agencies,

0:30:56.600 --> 0:30:59.840
<v Speaker 2>crime would drop. Of course, this is very problematic from

0:30:59.840 --> 0:31:03.240
<v Speaker 2>an abolitionist perspective. When someone enters the criminal legal system

0:31:03.520 --> 0:31:07.240
<v Speaker 2>therein it haunts you. The task force only serves to

0:31:07.280 --> 0:31:10.400
<v Speaker 2>reinforce that, and in response to the formation of the units,

0:31:10.400 --> 0:31:13.240
<v Speaker 2>Southern Center for Human Rights said quote, if APD is

0:31:13.280 --> 0:31:16.440
<v Speaker 2>planning to double down on the vary strategies that they

0:31:16.560 --> 0:31:20.040
<v Speaker 2>themselves admitted do not work in pursuit of a solution

0:31:20.320 --> 0:31:23.440
<v Speaker 2>that keeps people behind bars, the effort is doomed to fail.

0:31:24.360 --> 0:31:25.880
<v Speaker 2>You know else is doomed to fail.

0:31:27.840 --> 0:31:31.440
<v Speaker 1>Our audience is actually buying these products that are advertising

0:31:31.480 --> 0:31:34.680
<v Speaker 1>on our show for some reason, probably, but who knows.

0:31:34.760 --> 0:31:37.040
<v Speaker 1>I've I've heard, I've heard the I've heard the blue apron.

0:31:37.120 --> 0:31:39.440
<v Speaker 1>The cooking boxes are really convenient if you live an

0:31:39.760 --> 0:31:42.560
<v Speaker 1>active and busy lifestyle. Like Matt from the from the

0:31:42.600 --> 0:31:44.480
<v Speaker 1>Atlantic Community Breast Collective.

0:31:44.280 --> 0:31:47.000
<v Speaker 2>I actually use Hello Fresh, Okay.

0:31:46.720 --> 0:31:48.160
<v Speaker 1>Good, because I think they're the ones that actually are

0:31:48.160 --> 0:31:50.160
<v Speaker 1>advertising on our show. So thank you, thank you for

0:31:50.200 --> 0:32:02.640
<v Speaker 1>that great, great work. You already got it, all right.

0:32:02.720 --> 0:32:05.800
<v Speaker 2>We are back, all right, so kicking back in with

0:32:05.840 --> 0:32:09.600
<v Speaker 2>the Buckhead session movement. In order to mollify Buckhead, there

0:32:09.640 --> 0:32:12.720
<v Speaker 2>was also an opening of a police precinct in Zone two,

0:32:12.920 --> 0:32:16.320
<v Speaker 2>in which Buckhead sits. This is the third precinct in Buckhead,

0:32:16.320 --> 0:32:18.840
<v Speaker 2>which is made up of just twenty eight square miles.

0:32:19.040 --> 0:32:21.440
<v Speaker 1>That's wild because like Portland only has like three or

0:32:21.480 --> 0:32:22.960
<v Speaker 1>four precincts in total.

0:32:24.160 --> 0:32:24.840
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so we have six.

0:32:25.160 --> 0:32:27.960
<v Speaker 1>Jortland has like more people in like Portland proper than

0:32:28.000 --> 0:32:28.880
<v Speaker 1>like Atlanta does.

0:32:29.000 --> 0:32:32.440
<v Speaker 2>I think our territory is more expansive, yeah, than like

0:32:32.440 --> 0:32:36.280
<v Speaker 2>your population wise there's actually more people in Portland proper.

0:32:37.040 --> 0:32:38.000
<v Speaker 1>Just pretty funny.

0:32:38.080 --> 0:32:41.520
<v Speaker 2>I should say that the third precinct in Zone two

0:32:41.640 --> 0:32:45.320
<v Speaker 2>was planned before Dickens took office, but he made sure

0:32:45.360 --> 0:32:45.800
<v Speaker 2>to talk.

0:32:45.680 --> 0:32:48.239
<v Speaker 1>About it a lot earlier. Yeah I bet I bet so.

0:32:48.840 --> 0:32:51.000
<v Speaker 2>And then, in what would fit perfectly as a scene

0:32:51.000 --> 0:32:53.320
<v Speaker 2>in the Wire, Dickens spent both this year and last

0:32:53.360 --> 0:32:55.760
<v Speaker 2>year talking about how crime and Buckhead dropped more in

0:32:55.800 --> 0:32:57.680
<v Speaker 2>both years than any other zones.

0:32:57.760 --> 0:32:59.920
<v Speaker 1>What's the Wire?

0:33:00.040 --> 0:33:01.920
<v Speaker 2>Well, there's a podcast about the wire?

0:33:02.040 --> 0:33:03.440
<v Speaker 1>Oh really a podcast? Yes?

0:33:03.800 --> 0:33:07.040
<v Speaker 2>Huh, I forget the name of What's the Wire? It's

0:33:07.080 --> 0:33:09.719
<v Speaker 2>a it's a TV show about oh police?

0:33:10.080 --> 0:33:12.160
<v Speaker 1>Is Is this one of like those like a millennial show?

0:33:12.200 --> 0:33:12.880
<v Speaker 2>Are we doing a bit?

0:33:13.640 --> 0:33:15.200
<v Speaker 1>Is this like one of those millennial shows?

0:33:16.800 --> 0:33:19.520
<v Speaker 2>It did come out in the early so this.

0:33:19.080 --> 0:33:21.160
<v Speaker 1>Is this is like succession for old people? Got it?

0:33:21.520 --> 0:33:22.560
<v Speaker 2>Secession for old people?

0:33:22.640 --> 0:33:22.880
<v Speaker 1>Yes?

0:33:23.160 --> 0:33:25.920
<v Speaker 2>I highly recommend watching it and check out the podcast

0:33:25.920 --> 0:33:26.920
<v Speaker 2>that I can't remember the name of.

0:33:27.080 --> 0:33:30.840
<v Speaker 1>Okay, yeah, plug someone else's podcast. Great, great job.

0:33:31.680 --> 0:33:34.680
<v Speaker 2>As the Buckhead secession issue wound down, a Southeast Atlanta

0:33:34.680 --> 0:33:37.640
<v Speaker 2>apartment complex started to draw increasing attention from the press

0:33:37.680 --> 0:33:40.280
<v Speaker 2>due to rampant issues in the complex. A lack of

0:33:40.320 --> 0:33:43.800
<v Speaker 2>care by the owners. This sad. This massive apartment complex

0:33:43.840 --> 0:33:47.680
<v Speaker 2>operator called Millennia. The company had a reputation across the

0:33:47.680 --> 0:33:51.440
<v Speaker 2>country is terrible and it is deservedly so. At Forrest Cove,

0:33:52.080 --> 0:33:54.520
<v Speaker 2>the complex was unfit for human habitation.

0:33:54.760 --> 0:33:55.960
<v Speaker 1>Oh really? Uh?

0:33:56.080 --> 0:33:58.400
<v Speaker 2>And we have to acknowledge that Dickens here had an

0:33:58.440 --> 0:34:00.840
<v Speaker 2>out just to blame Millennia. And but in February he

0:34:00.880 --> 0:34:03.880
<v Speaker 2>told the approximately seven hundred residents that the city would

0:34:03.960 --> 0:34:06.320
<v Speaker 2>be moving them to safer housing while the complex was

0:34:06.360 --> 0:34:10.320
<v Speaker 2>either fixed or rebuilt. The rollout of this wasn't perfect.

0:34:10.800 --> 0:34:13.600
<v Speaker 2>On April thirteenth of this year, Sean Keenan, a local

0:34:13.680 --> 0:34:16.160
<v Speaker 2>reporter really of.

0:34:16.080 --> 0:34:18.479
<v Speaker 1>The friend of the show, New York Times supporter Sean

0:34:18.560 --> 0:34:19.800
<v Speaker 1>Keenan makes another appearance.

0:34:20.280 --> 0:34:23.000
<v Speaker 2>So Keenan released a new story eight of this year

0:34:23.080 --> 0:34:26.880
<v Speaker 2>April thirteen, twenty twenty three, showing that the first that

0:34:27.000 --> 0:34:30.360
<v Speaker 2>a quarter of Forest Cove residents were relocated to complexes

0:34:30.400 --> 0:34:35.000
<v Speaker 2>identified as dangerous dwellings on the ajac's residential.

0:34:34.480 --> 0:34:37.839
<v Speaker 1>Watchdoglyph's that's pretty funny. So I have learned a little

0:34:37.840 --> 0:34:41.560
<v Speaker 1>bit about Atlanta's like rental situation here, and it seems

0:34:41.600 --> 0:34:44.840
<v Speaker 1>like it kind of sucks to be a renter in Georgia.

0:34:45.120 --> 0:34:46.880
<v Speaker 1>It seems like you have almost no rights.

0:34:46.760 --> 0:34:50.400
<v Speaker 2>No protection. I didn't have air conditioning for a little while,

0:34:50.560 --> 0:34:53.480
<v Speaker 2>and it turns out that you are not guaranteed air

0:34:53.480 --> 0:34:55.560
<v Speaker 2>conditioning in any.

0:34:55.400 --> 0:34:57.640
<v Speaker 1>Retali, which is hard being like in Atlanta, because like,

0:34:57.719 --> 0:35:01.240
<v Speaker 1>I never had AC in Portland, but that's that's Portland.

0:35:01.280 --> 0:35:03.440
<v Speaker 1>It's not We're not dealing with the Atlanta humidity in

0:35:03.440 --> 0:35:04.160
<v Speaker 1>Atlanta heat.

0:35:04.360 --> 0:35:06.879
<v Speaker 2>No, it's it's pretty miserable. Thankfully, my air conditioning did

0:35:06.880 --> 0:35:10.000
<v Speaker 2>get fixed eventually, but yeah, there's no recourse for things

0:35:10.000 --> 0:35:17.040
<v Speaker 2>like that. So until that report by Keenan, it it

0:35:17.080 --> 0:35:19.480
<v Speaker 2>appeared that the city was doing diligent work taking care

0:35:19.520 --> 0:35:22.480
<v Speaker 2>of displaced residents and ensuring that they retained access to

0:35:22.520 --> 0:35:25.640
<v Speaker 2>care and services with as little disruption as possible. And

0:35:26.440 --> 0:35:28.640
<v Speaker 2>by and large that that happened, but you know, for

0:35:28.680 --> 0:35:31.360
<v Speaker 2>a quarter of residents not so much. At this point,

0:35:31.400 --> 0:35:34.000
<v Speaker 2>more questions are cropping up, so the story is likely

0:35:34.040 --> 0:35:35.399
<v Speaker 2>going to continue to develop, but.

0:35:36.400 --> 0:35:38.480
<v Speaker 1>We don't really know where's the point going to go

0:35:38.520 --> 0:35:40.280
<v Speaker 1>because this is like current events. Yeah.

0:35:40.360 --> 0:35:42.600
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so another force cove issue that will probably come

0:35:42.680 --> 0:35:44.920
<v Speaker 2>up later in Dickens's term was that he made a

0:35:44.960 --> 0:35:47.520
<v Speaker 2>promise to residents that they'll be able to return to

0:35:47.560 --> 0:35:51.239
<v Speaker 2>the apartment complex eventually. But Millennia was denied hot assistance

0:35:51.320 --> 0:35:53.520
<v Speaker 2>to fix the property, and it's unlikely that they'll do

0:35:53.600 --> 0:35:55.440
<v Speaker 2>so on their own, so the fate of the complex

0:35:55.600 --> 0:35:58.960
<v Speaker 2>is pretty up in the air. The city does own

0:35:59.120 --> 0:36:02.560
<v Speaker 2>approximately eight acres in the neighborhood, which could and should

0:36:02.560 --> 0:36:05.440
<v Speaker 2>go to building low income housing, but it's prime real

0:36:05.560 --> 0:36:09.480
<v Speaker 2>estate for further gentrification. So yeah, we'll see how that

0:36:09.560 --> 0:36:10.040
<v Speaker 2>plays out.

0:36:10.160 --> 0:36:12.680
<v Speaker 1>No. One of the first things like that I noticed

0:36:12.680 --> 0:36:15.560
<v Speaker 1>when I was visiting Atlanta like last year, was that

0:36:15.640 --> 0:36:17.200
<v Speaker 1>like all of like this most of the Section eight

0:36:17.200 --> 0:36:19.840
<v Speaker 1>housing has been converted into like luxury condos or like

0:36:19.920 --> 0:36:24.040
<v Speaker 1>new new like like a like a five story apartment complexes.

0:36:24.680 --> 0:36:28.239
<v Speaker 1>And no, like the speed of the gentrification was was

0:36:29.360 --> 0:36:32.239
<v Speaker 1>kind of surprising to me coming coming from Portland. Like

0:36:32.600 --> 0:36:36.120
<v Speaker 1>there's still gentrification of Portland, absolutely, but did the the

0:36:36.160 --> 0:36:38.239
<v Speaker 1>expansiveness of it here and the speed of which it's

0:36:38.280 --> 0:36:40.400
<v Speaker 1>accelerating was was surprising to me.

0:36:40.520 --> 0:36:43.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and we're not building like low income housing complexes,

0:36:43.360 --> 0:36:46.279
<v Speaker 2>but what's happening here is that they're they're adding a

0:36:46.280 --> 0:36:51.280
<v Speaker 2>certain percentage of new like if you're building a massive complex,

0:36:51.440 --> 0:36:56.040
<v Speaker 2>a certain percentage of your off like your dwellings have

0:36:56.120 --> 0:36:58.840
<v Speaker 2>to go at at a certain point of the average

0:36:58.880 --> 0:37:02.680
<v Speaker 2>monthly income. Yeah, but that's not really addressing this like

0:37:02.880 --> 0:37:05.280
<v Speaker 2>large scale issue that is going because you still.

0:37:05.040 --> 0:37:07.560
<v Speaker 1>Have hundreds of them that it costs like three thousand dollars,

0:37:07.600 --> 0:37:09.560
<v Speaker 1>and you have like a dozen that are a low

0:37:09.600 --> 0:37:12.120
<v Speaker 1>income and you just you do the barest amounts to

0:37:12.120 --> 0:37:14.640
<v Speaker 1>script by while still filling up most of the available

0:37:14.719 --> 0:37:16.640
<v Speaker 1>real estate with very expensive apartments.

0:37:16.680 --> 0:37:18.759
<v Speaker 2>And I should plug here. There is a fantastic book

0:37:18.800 --> 0:37:22.520
<v Speaker 2>called Red Hot City by GSU professor named Dan Immerglock.

0:37:22.560 --> 0:37:25.719
<v Speaker 2>If you want to learn more about gentrification in Atlanta.

0:37:25.800 --> 0:37:30.560
<v Speaker 2>It's great. Yeah, absolutely and set vital reading. So towards

0:37:30.560 --> 0:37:32.760
<v Speaker 2>the end of Dickens's first one hundred days in office,

0:37:32.960 --> 0:37:36.240
<v Speaker 2>APD chief Rodney Bryant announced that he was going to retire.

0:37:36.760 --> 0:37:39.920
<v Speaker 2>Bryant was not very well liked by city leadership. Felicia

0:37:39.960 --> 0:37:41.799
<v Speaker 2>Moore had made a campaign promise to get rid of

0:37:41.840 --> 0:37:43.960
<v Speaker 2>Bryant on her first day in office, but Dickens said

0:37:43.960 --> 0:37:46.480
<v Speaker 2>he'd give him one hundred days to improve public safety

0:37:46.480 --> 0:37:48.920
<v Speaker 2>and kind of see where things were at before firing him, and.

0:37:48.920 --> 0:37:50.640
<v Speaker 1>What happened after those one hundred days.

0:37:51.160 --> 0:37:54.760
<v Speaker 2>Bryant stepped down and Dickens tapped then Deputy Chief Darren

0:37:54.760 --> 0:37:56.640
<v Speaker 2>Sheerbaum as interim replace.

0:37:57.120 --> 0:37:58.600
<v Speaker 1>I've heard of this guy before. This is the guy

0:37:58.600 --> 0:38:01.080
<v Speaker 1>who made that weird confess about having sex in the

0:38:01.080 --> 0:38:03.440
<v Speaker 1>woods with all those police officers. I heard that a

0:38:03.480 --> 0:38:06.279
<v Speaker 1>podcast recently. That's so crazy.

0:38:06.960 --> 0:38:10.279
<v Speaker 2>Sheerbom, who may or may not have said those things.

0:38:10.320 --> 0:38:13.759
<v Speaker 2>His prior role was overseeing the Cop City development, and

0:38:13.800 --> 0:38:16.120
<v Speaker 2>he was also pretty well liked by APD officers, so

0:38:16.200 --> 0:38:19.279
<v Speaker 2>Dicks officially hired him in October of twenty twenty two.

0:38:19.360 --> 0:38:21.719
<v Speaker 2>But if you're a leftist or even just against Cop City,

0:38:21.760 --> 0:38:24.120
<v Speaker 2>this is actually like kind of a lost Cheerbomb is

0:38:24.120 --> 0:38:27.240
<v Speaker 2>incredibly pr savvy, as you saw in that city council meeting,

0:38:27.280 --> 0:38:29.680
<v Speaker 2>and he does pretty well when he's talking to them.

0:38:29.719 --> 0:38:31.560
<v Speaker 1>No, when I was first doing stuff on Cops C

0:38:31.800 --> 0:38:34.080
<v Speaker 1>I remember when he was just like the spokesperson for

0:38:34.239 --> 0:38:36.960
<v Speaker 1>he wasn't actually like the chief yet. And then he

0:38:37.080 --> 0:38:42.560
<v Speaker 1>became the chief in like last fall, and they've gotten

0:38:42.600 --> 0:38:44.960
<v Speaker 1>better at their propaganda since then, a lot better.

0:38:45.040 --> 0:38:46.680
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And you know, I watched this like every week

0:38:46.719 --> 0:38:49.400
<v Speaker 2>he does a pretty good job. Yeah, this brings us

0:38:49.440 --> 0:38:52.399
<v Speaker 2>to budget season twenty twenty two. In April, Dickens tells

0:38:52.440 --> 0:38:54.320
<v Speaker 2>the AGC that he wants to hire two hundred and

0:38:54.320 --> 0:38:57.279
<v Speaker 2>fifty APD officers a year for three years, hoping that

0:38:57.360 --> 0:38:59.520
<v Speaker 2>the total of seven hundred and fifty new hires will

0:38:59.560 --> 0:39:02.440
<v Speaker 2>net a four hundred and fifty increase in officers for

0:39:02.520 --> 0:39:03.000
<v Speaker 2>the department.

0:39:03.120 --> 0:39:05.719
<v Speaker 1>Okay, so hiring a lot, some of them might nutrition raise,

0:39:05.760 --> 0:39:07.960
<v Speaker 1>other people might not stay on, but you're trying to

0:39:08.120 --> 0:39:10.720
<v Speaker 1>like net to get another like four hundred or so officers.

0:39:10.880 --> 0:39:14.920
<v Speaker 2>Yep. So Dickens also approved four thousand dollars bonuses for APD,

0:39:15.360 --> 0:39:18.160
<v Speaker 2>paid using American Rescue Plan Act money.

0:39:18.080 --> 0:39:20.160
<v Speaker 1>And great useful.

0:39:20.920 --> 0:39:23.759
<v Speaker 2>Initially, in June, Dickens promised police a raise of three

0:39:23.840 --> 0:39:27.080
<v Speaker 2>and a half percent, but in November it became apparent

0:39:27.120 --> 0:39:29.240
<v Speaker 2>that the city would have a budget surplus, so Dickens

0:39:29.320 --> 0:39:32.200
<v Speaker 2>and council raised that to nine percent, bringing APD to

0:39:32.280 --> 0:39:34.680
<v Speaker 2>a total of a twenty seven percent raise over the

0:39:34.719 --> 0:39:35.920
<v Speaker 2>course of three years.

0:39:36.000 --> 0:39:39.120
<v Speaker 1>Funny how much money they're just getting pumped this past.

0:39:38.880 --> 0:39:41.080
<v Speaker 2>Three years, and I don't know what happens, Like three

0:39:41.160 --> 0:39:43.960
<v Speaker 2>years ago, but it seems like something shouldn't.

0:39:44.239 --> 0:39:46.319
<v Speaker 1>No. I mean, like you were talking about how like

0:39:46.800 --> 0:39:50.920
<v Speaker 1>how Dickens was like previously working to get like like

0:39:50.960 --> 0:39:54.480
<v Speaker 1>a seventy million reduction in police budget. You know, probably

0:39:54.480 --> 0:39:56.680
<v Speaker 1>probably in some ways, probably just like for pr raates,

0:39:56.840 --> 0:39:59.040
<v Speaker 1>because during twenty twenty that was the popular thing to do.

0:39:59.400 --> 0:40:02.080
<v Speaker 1>And now we used to like funneling millions and millions

0:40:02.120 --> 0:40:06.480
<v Speaker 1>dollars towards the police Foundation, towards individual officers, towards raises, bonuses,

0:40:07.480 --> 0:40:09.440
<v Speaker 1>you know, standard mayor stuff.

0:40:09.560 --> 0:40:11.719
<v Speaker 2>Oh, and we're not done. In November, it was an

0:40:11.719 --> 0:40:15.920
<v Speaker 2>early Christmas for APD. Dickens also debuted forty new SCAD

0:40:16.040 --> 0:40:18.040
<v Speaker 2>and so SCAD is the Savannah College of Art and

0:40:18.080 --> 0:40:20.120
<v Speaker 2>Design Arts college.

0:40:19.840 --> 0:40:21.080
<v Speaker 1>A big art college in Georgia.

0:40:21.200 --> 0:40:25.279
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. So they designed these police Ford Explorer vehicles for

0:40:25.360 --> 0:40:26.920
<v Speaker 2>an officer take home program.

0:40:27.360 --> 0:40:28.120
<v Speaker 1>Via looked like shit.

0:40:28.560 --> 0:40:32.279
<v Speaker 2>Each vehicle cost sixty thousand dollars. So the total price

0:40:32.320 --> 0:40:34.640
<v Speaker 2>tag of this was two point four million dollars to

0:40:35.120 --> 0:40:36.800
<v Speaker 2>improve officer morale.

0:40:37.480 --> 0:40:39.959
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, let's let's get them, get them, you know,

0:40:40.120 --> 0:40:42.400
<v Speaker 1>two million dollars with the cars, just to make them happy.

0:40:43.239 --> 0:40:45.800
<v Speaker 2>U seventy additional take home vehicles are in the pipeline

0:40:45.920 --> 0:40:49.120
<v Speaker 2>once equipment becomes available to out cool. So yeah, this

0:40:49.120 --> 0:40:50.839
<v Speaker 2>this program is just continuing to grow.

0:40:51.000 --> 0:40:55.759
<v Speaker 1>Fuck whatever scad designer was paid to fucking design those

0:40:55.920 --> 0:40:56.680
<v Speaker 1>shitty cars.

0:40:56.960 --> 0:40:58.759
<v Speaker 2>So one of the things that was missing during the

0:40:58.840 --> 0:41:02.040
<v Speaker 2>budget season back back in spring was the very thing

0:41:02.080 --> 0:41:05.720
<v Speaker 2>that helped Dickens solidifies his image as a Progressive Council

0:41:05.760 --> 0:41:09.839
<v Speaker 2>member affordable housing. In his initial budget, Dickens put no

0:41:10.160 --> 0:41:12.879
<v Speaker 2>increase in affordable housing for his alleged ship.

0:41:12.960 --> 0:41:15.640
<v Speaker 1>You had a budget surplus, and you're like, no, let's

0:41:15.640 --> 0:41:17.320
<v Speaker 1>give them a to give all the money to the

0:41:17.320 --> 0:41:20.160
<v Speaker 1>police who are already getting a ninety million dollar training facility.

0:41:20.200 --> 0:41:22.680
<v Speaker 1>Let's giving even more money. Sure. Great.

0:41:22.719 --> 0:41:26.080
<v Speaker 2>So Dan Emergleckt, the GSU professor I just mentioned he was,

0:41:26.520 --> 0:41:28.719
<v Speaker 2>he's an affordable housing advocate and he was part of

0:41:29.040 --> 0:41:33.000
<v Speaker 2>Dickens's transition team, and he told Capital B after the

0:41:33.080 --> 0:41:35.960
<v Speaker 2>prospective budget was released, quote, for this to be his

0:41:36.000 --> 0:41:39.600
<v Speaker 2>first budget to make a step backwards is extremely disappointing.

0:41:40.040 --> 0:41:43.120
<v Speaker 2>And that's basically how all the progressives felt. Yeah, so

0:41:43.680 --> 0:41:47.040
<v Speaker 2>Dickens did cave to housing advocate pressure and he added

0:41:47.040 --> 0:41:50.200
<v Speaker 2>an additional seven million dollars in the affordable Housing budget

0:41:50.719 --> 0:41:52.560
<v Speaker 2>before the budget was passed in June.

0:41:52.920 --> 0:41:54.040
<v Speaker 1>Cool cool, cool.

0:41:54.400 --> 0:41:57.400
<v Speaker 2>Remember back in twenty nineteen and twenty twenty one, everyone

0:41:57.760 --> 0:41:59.840
<v Speaker 2>was in agreement that the jail was going to close.

0:42:00.360 --> 0:42:02.600
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, the a, they were going to convert it to

0:42:03.120 --> 0:42:03.640
<v Speaker 1>that other thing.

0:42:03.680 --> 0:42:04.920
<v Speaker 2>That it was going to be a center for Diversion

0:42:04.920 --> 0:42:06.960
<v Speaker 2>in Equity. Yeah, it was going to be great. And

0:42:07.000 --> 0:42:08.600
<v Speaker 2>by this point it actually had a name, the John

0:42:08.640 --> 0:42:10.280
<v Speaker 2>Lewis Center for Diversion in Equity.

0:42:10.520 --> 0:42:10.840
<v Speaker 1>Great.

0:42:12.200 --> 0:42:15.000
<v Speaker 2>But in June of twenty twenty two, city council voted

0:42:15.040 --> 0:42:18.520
<v Speaker 2>down legislation authorizing the mayor to close the jail. Then

0:42:18.680 --> 0:42:22.200
<v Speaker 2>plans came out in early August that instead of closing ACDC,

0:42:22.360 --> 0:42:25.040
<v Speaker 2>Fulton County in Atlanta were in talks to rent seven

0:42:25.120 --> 0:42:28.600
<v Speaker 2>hundred beds from the facility to Fulton County to address

0:42:28.680 --> 0:42:32.600
<v Speaker 2>the overcrowding problem at Rice Street, Fulton County's main jail.

0:42:33.040 --> 0:42:34.840
<v Speaker 1>Maybe they should just keep less people in jail.

0:42:35.680 --> 0:42:38.840
<v Speaker 2>Activists warned that the lease would not alleviate these issues

0:42:38.840 --> 0:42:42.080
<v Speaker 2>and that city council needed to instead focus on decarceration.

0:42:42.280 --> 0:42:44.799
<v Speaker 2>And then there was an acl report that came out

0:42:45.080 --> 0:42:47.600
<v Speaker 2>later in the year that found forty five percent of

0:42:47.640 --> 0:42:51.080
<v Speaker 2>the overall jail population in Fulden County is unindicted.

0:42:51.600 --> 0:42:54.000
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, they're just holding people that actually have not been

0:42:54.000 --> 0:42:54.799
<v Speaker 1>indicted offertic crime.

0:42:54.840 --> 0:42:57.840
<v Speaker 2>Great. Remember it was Dickens who introduced the legislation to

0:42:57.920 --> 0:43:00.960
<v Speaker 2>find a way to repurpose this jail, he said in

0:43:01.000 --> 0:43:05.320
<v Speaker 2>a statement when the lease to Fulton County was coming up. Quote,

0:43:05.560 --> 0:43:09.240
<v Speaker 2>as I've continually supported since my time on Atlanta City Council,

0:43:09.280 --> 0:43:12.839
<v Speaker 2>I remained committed to fully repurposing the ACDC facility for

0:43:12.920 --> 0:43:16.480
<v Speaker 2>non incarceration purposes. But we are also confronted by a

0:43:16.520 --> 0:43:20.000
<v Speaker 2>real and immediate crisis of overcrowding at the Fulton County Jail.

0:43:20.440 --> 0:43:23.880
<v Speaker 2>Many of these detainees are Atlanta residents, and our conscience

0:43:23.920 --> 0:43:27.080
<v Speaker 2>calls us to act. This is a temporary lease agreement

0:43:27.120 --> 0:43:28.920
<v Speaker 2>and will allow the City of Atlanta to play a

0:43:29.000 --> 0:43:32.759
<v Speaker 2>role in alleviating this humanitarian crisis and to provide the

0:43:32.840 --> 0:43:35.960
<v Speaker 2>necessary time for Fulton County to develop and implement a

0:43:36.000 --> 0:43:40.040
<v Speaker 2>long term solution humanitarians, because we always know adding more

0:43:40.080 --> 0:43:46.280
<v Speaker 2>prison beds really reduces the problem. So the temporary solution

0:43:46.320 --> 0:43:48.759
<v Speaker 2>that we're talking about is a four year agreement, and

0:43:48.800 --> 0:43:51.360
<v Speaker 2>Fulton County is paying the City of Atlanta fifty dollars

0:43:51.440 --> 0:43:54.040
<v Speaker 2>per bed per night. So when the full seven hundred

0:43:54.080 --> 0:43:57.080
<v Speaker 2>beds are taking Atlanta will be making twelve point seven

0:43:57.280 --> 0:43:58.520
<v Speaker 2>million dollars a year.

0:43:58.760 --> 0:44:01.000
<v Speaker 1>Remember when we had to release all those people from

0:44:01.040 --> 0:44:03.680
<v Speaker 1>prison and jail in twenty twenty to to overcrowding and

0:44:03.719 --> 0:44:06.000
<v Speaker 1>then violent crime dropped. Isn't that crazy?

0:44:06.600 --> 0:44:10.240
<v Speaker 2>That is crazy. So the twelve point seven million dollars

0:44:10.239 --> 0:44:12.879
<v Speaker 2>sounds like a lot of money, But before the lease

0:44:12.920 --> 0:44:17.400
<v Speaker 2>went into effect, acdc's average population was under fifty individuals

0:44:17.400 --> 0:44:20.880
<v Speaker 2>per night. The city's Department of Corrections budget is sixteen

0:44:20.920 --> 0:44:23.120
<v Speaker 2>point one million dollars a year. So the city is

0:44:23.160 --> 0:44:26.279
<v Speaker 2>still going to lose money running this jail, even with

0:44:26.400 --> 0:44:29.640
<v Speaker 2>Fulden County paying for their.

0:44:29.719 --> 0:44:30.719
<v Speaker 1>Retaining for their share.

0:44:30.719 --> 0:44:31.320
<v Speaker 2>State answer.

0:44:31.400 --> 0:44:31.640
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

0:44:32.280 --> 0:44:35.000
<v Speaker 2>Then on April fourteenth of this year, the news came

0:44:35.040 --> 0:44:38.120
<v Speaker 2>out that Lashawan Thompson died in Rice Street Jail, having

0:44:38.160 --> 0:44:42.640
<v Speaker 2>been neglected and ignored by Fulden County deputies. When they

0:44:42.680 --> 0:44:46.480
<v Speaker 2>finally checked on Thompson, they found that he had been

0:44:46.480 --> 0:44:50.879
<v Speaker 2>eaten alive by bugs as he lay dying. And this

0:44:50.960 --> 0:44:53.880
<v Speaker 2>was in September of twenty twenty two, just after Atlanta

0:44:54.160 --> 0:44:57.400
<v Speaker 2>approved this lease. The cell Thompson was in was so

0:44:57.480 --> 0:45:00.560
<v Speaker 2>disgusting that a jail employee refused to enter without putting

0:45:00.600 --> 0:45:01.880
<v Speaker 2>on a hazmat suit first.

0:45:02.000 --> 0:45:03.759
<v Speaker 1>Oh, imagine what it was like to live in there.

0:45:03.800 --> 0:45:04.400
<v Speaker 1>That's crazy.

0:45:04.640 --> 0:45:08.080
<v Speaker 2>And this death isn't the result of overcrowding. Thompson was

0:45:08.160 --> 0:45:11.040
<v Speaker 2>in jail on simple battery charges and being held on

0:45:11.080 --> 0:45:15.160
<v Speaker 2>a twenty five hundred dollars bond. He was also unindicted.

0:45:15.239 --> 0:45:17.359
<v Speaker 2>There was no reason for Thompson to be in jail

0:45:17.400 --> 0:45:19.440
<v Speaker 2>at the time of his death. If he had the money,

0:45:19.560 --> 0:45:20.959
<v Speaker 2>he probably would have been it live today.

0:45:21.040 --> 0:45:22.840
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's just blocking up poor people.

0:45:23.280 --> 0:45:25.200
<v Speaker 2>And yeah, so this is the sort of thing that

0:45:25.239 --> 0:45:30.120
<v Speaker 2>Dickenson Council have enabled with this new jail lease. Before

0:45:30.160 --> 0:45:32.560
<v Speaker 2>we get into Dickenson copp City in twenty twenty three,

0:45:32.719 --> 0:45:35.720
<v Speaker 2>we need to talk briefly about some more American Rescue

0:45:35.719 --> 0:45:39.439
<v Speaker 2>Plan Act Sheck Henry Dickinson Council pulled off this year.

0:45:40.160 --> 0:45:42.520
<v Speaker 2>At the end of January, Atlanta announced that it was

0:45:42.560 --> 0:45:46.120
<v Speaker 2>returning ten million dollars in ARPA funds earmarked for rental

0:45:46.160 --> 0:45:49.439
<v Speaker 2>assistance that the city never used. What did just use

0:45:49.480 --> 0:45:53.839
<v Speaker 2>infromental assistance. So this naturally upset a lot of people.

0:45:53.960 --> 0:45:58.319
<v Speaker 2>Public comment was quite feisty that day. Atlanta is of

0:45:58.320 --> 0:46:00.840
<v Speaker 2>course increasingly pricing out. It's like see residents as we

0:46:00.960 --> 0:46:03.440
<v Speaker 2>just talked about, and ten million dollars would go a

0:46:03.600 --> 0:46:07.960
<v Speaker 2>long way to helping combat that. And then to add

0:46:08.160 --> 0:46:11.520
<v Speaker 2>insult to injury. A few weeks later, Council passed and

0:46:11.560 --> 0:46:15.040
<v Speaker 2>Dickens signed legislation that gave five hundred thousand dollars in

0:46:15.160 --> 0:46:19.000
<v Speaker 2>ARPA funds to the Atlanta Police Foundation to provide additional

0:46:19.000 --> 0:46:23.880
<v Speaker 2>police and first responder housing. So really reinforcing the city's

0:46:23.880 --> 0:46:25.640
<v Speaker 2>going to take care of police before everyone else.

0:46:25.840 --> 0:46:27.440
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, oh boy.

0:46:28.719 --> 0:46:32.239
<v Speaker 2>So let's move on to how Dickens handled cop city

0:46:32.480 --> 0:46:34.680
<v Speaker 2>since January eighteenth. I think it is probably a good

0:46:34.719 --> 0:46:38.000
<v Speaker 2>place to start, or the killing of Tortigito by Georgia

0:46:38.000 --> 0:46:41.840
<v Speaker 2>State Patrol officers the day that everything happened, Dickens wished

0:46:42.160 --> 0:46:44.920
<v Speaker 2>the trooper a speedy recovery. I can find nowhere in

0:46:44.920 --> 0:46:48.440
<v Speaker 2>which Dickens made any comment other than it's unfortunate that

0:46:48.560 --> 0:46:52.719
<v Speaker 2>Tortigito was killed. Not surprising. He never accepts any level

0:46:52.719 --> 0:46:56.879
<v Speaker 2>of responsibility for towards death, insisting instead that responsibility lies

0:46:56.920 --> 0:46:59.759
<v Speaker 2>with Georgia State Patrol or DECAP County. He refuses to

0:46:59.719 --> 0:47:02.279
<v Speaker 2>ignore coledge of the fact that the city's insistence on

0:47:02.360 --> 0:47:04.799
<v Speaker 2>trying to build Cop City both ensured TOT and the

0:47:04.800 --> 0:47:05.879
<v Speaker 2>officer's presence in the.

0:47:05.800 --> 0:47:08.240
<v Speaker 1>Woods and napd's involved in the raid.

0:47:08.480 --> 0:47:13.160
<v Speaker 2>Like, yeah, so this moment also kind of changed how

0:47:13.360 --> 0:47:17.520
<v Speaker 2>Dickens approaches cop City. Before he was relatively quiet, but

0:47:17.560 --> 0:47:21.640
<v Speaker 2>he begins this like full court media press after January eighteenth,

0:47:21.680 --> 0:47:24.040
<v Speaker 2>and we don't know the exact details, but it does

0:47:24.040 --> 0:47:27.080
<v Speaker 2>seem like to Cab County. Atlanta officials in APF came

0:47:27.120 --> 0:47:32.240
<v Speaker 2>to an agreement in January to pass this land disturbance permit.

0:47:34.520 --> 0:47:37.880
<v Speaker 2>In February, after a student protest at the Atlanta University

0:47:37.920 --> 0:47:42.160
<v Speaker 2>Center and letters from AUC faculty that opposed construction of

0:47:42.160 --> 0:47:45.239
<v Speaker 2>Cop City and expressed solidarity with protesters, Dickens announced that

0:47:45.239 --> 0:47:48.360
<v Speaker 2>he would hold a forum with the president of Morehouse College,

0:47:48.440 --> 0:47:51.560
<v Speaker 2>David A. Thomas, who is a vocal Cop City supporter.

0:47:52.120 --> 0:47:54.840
<v Speaker 2>This was a big problem for Dickens, as the colleges

0:47:54.880 --> 0:47:57.120
<v Speaker 2>that make up the AEC and we didn't talk about

0:47:57.160 --> 0:48:00.880
<v Speaker 2>which one those were earlier. It's more House, Spellman, Clarken University,

0:48:00.920 --> 0:48:03.920
<v Speaker 2>Morehouse College of Medicine. All of them carry with them

0:48:03.960 --> 0:48:06.719
<v Speaker 2>an incredible amount of historical and political power in the

0:48:06.719 --> 0:48:11.400
<v Speaker 2>city of Atlanta, so keeping AUC support is pretty vital

0:48:11.560 --> 0:48:14.239
<v Speaker 2>if you want to continue to run for elections. The

0:48:14.280 --> 0:48:17.120
<v Speaker 2>attendance at the forum was limited to only AUC students

0:48:17.120 --> 0:48:20.040
<v Speaker 2>and faculty, but a stream was duped and broadcast on

0:48:20.120 --> 0:48:23.560
<v Speaker 2>Instagram Live. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find

0:48:23.560 --> 0:48:25.680
<v Speaker 2>a complete copy, but there are definitely highlights that have

0:48:25.719 --> 0:48:30.239
<v Speaker 2>made it out. Overall, Dickens was pretty patronizing and sarcastic

0:48:30.280 --> 0:48:33.000
<v Speaker 2>to students. Several times students called the mayor out for

0:48:33.080 --> 0:48:36.400
<v Speaker 2>his behavior, but he continued to show distain the rest

0:48:36.440 --> 0:48:38.880
<v Speaker 2>of the night. One student called him out for his

0:48:39.000 --> 0:48:42.200
<v Speaker 2>lack of prior acknowledgment of towards death and Dickens's usual

0:48:42.280 --> 0:48:46.120
<v Speaker 2>sidestep responsibility, again saying that it was unfortunate toward died,

0:48:46.160 --> 0:48:48.640
<v Speaker 2>but insisting he was the wrong person to blame because

0:48:48.680 --> 0:48:51.319
<v Speaker 2>it didn't happen in the city of Atlanta and the

0:48:51.320 --> 0:48:55.120
<v Speaker 2>officer was not from APD. At one point, Dickens went

0:48:55.200 --> 0:48:57.960
<v Speaker 2>on a TI raid after a student called him a sellout.

0:48:58.000 --> 0:48:59.400
<v Speaker 2>This we do have audio four.

0:49:00.160 --> 0:49:02.919
<v Speaker 3>Let me just chany this witch. I ain't never been out.

0:49:03.640 --> 0:49:06.680
<v Speaker 3>You can't you can't you Yeah, you got the wrong

0:49:06.760 --> 0:49:07.960
<v Speaker 3>resume that you're looking at.

0:49:08.440 --> 0:49:09.239
<v Speaker 1>I know, I know.

0:49:09.320 --> 0:49:12.279
<v Speaker 3>We like to yell and shout out things just to

0:49:12.360 --> 0:49:15.799
<v Speaker 3>be heard. You've been heard, You've been heard. I guess what.

0:49:16.200 --> 0:49:17.960
<v Speaker 3>You picked the wrong resume to pull him on a

0:49:18.040 --> 0:49:18.440
<v Speaker 3>race car.

0:49:19.520 --> 0:49:22.400
<v Speaker 2>Whatever Dickens was hoping to accomplish that night, he failed.

0:49:22.600 --> 0:49:26.240
<v Speaker 2>Several Memes and audio remixes of Dickens's performance went viral

0:49:26.280 --> 0:49:28.920
<v Speaker 2>in the Atlanta Twitter sphere and continue to crop up

0:49:28.960 --> 0:49:31.239
<v Speaker 2>this day, like the I Am not a sellout one.

0:49:31.280 --> 0:49:32.320
<v Speaker 2>I don't know if you've seen.

0:49:32.160 --> 0:49:37.960
<v Speaker 1>It, is that the I'm still ruined by the by

0:49:38.000 --> 0:49:42.360
<v Speaker 1>the by the doctor, Han good good doctor memes. That

0:49:42.480 --> 0:49:46.040
<v Speaker 1>just reminded me of the I Am a surgeon memes.

0:49:46.040 --> 0:49:48.759
<v Speaker 1>A great job, great job, Yeah, great work.

0:49:50.000 --> 0:49:52.759
<v Speaker 2>So Dickens does, of course, continued to try or to

0:49:52.880 --> 0:49:56.320
<v Speaker 2>build or manufacture support for Copsody over the next two months.

0:49:56.880 --> 0:49:59.440
<v Speaker 2>In March, she was visiting the neighborhoods around Copsody to

0:49:59.480 --> 0:50:02.960
<v Speaker 2>hear feedback from residents, and he, of course started in

0:50:03.000 --> 0:50:05.839
<v Speaker 2>the wealthier neighborhoods and he only went to the less

0:50:05.880 --> 0:50:10.440
<v Speaker 2>affluent neighborhood, which, like cop City, is actually in after

0:50:10.520 --> 0:50:13.279
<v Speaker 2>a member of the Community Stakeholder Advisory Committee called him

0:50:13.280 --> 0:50:17.080
<v Speaker 2>out for only favoring the wealthy communities. Local residents have

0:50:17.160 --> 0:50:20.040
<v Speaker 2>told ACPC that Dickens skips over the houses with DTF

0:50:20.080 --> 0:50:20.799
<v Speaker 2>signs out front.

0:50:21.040 --> 0:50:22.399
<v Speaker 1>That makes sense, yeah, checks outy.

0:50:22.920 --> 0:50:25.520
<v Speaker 2>He's done several interviews now on cop City with both

0:50:25.560 --> 0:50:29.600
<v Speaker 2>the AJAC and wab a local public radio station. The

0:50:29.680 --> 0:50:33.799
<v Speaker 2>AGAC interview was particularly interesting because one of the interviewers

0:50:33.840 --> 0:50:36.239
<v Speaker 2>asked Dickens what would happen if cop City ended in

0:50:36.280 --> 0:50:40.640
<v Speaker 2>a cost overrun. Dickens told her that any large overruns

0:50:40.640 --> 0:50:43.760
<v Speaker 2>would be paid for by philanthropic dollars from the foundation.

0:50:44.520 --> 0:50:48.600
<v Speaker 2>He said this out. He said this, but a member

0:50:48.600 --> 0:50:52.440
<v Speaker 2>of his cabinet had already confirmed that two APF City

0:50:52.520 --> 0:50:54.680
<v Speaker 2>was willing to pay thirty two million dollars at that point,

0:50:54.680 --> 0:50:57.080
<v Speaker 2>and of course we've now learned that that number is

0:50:57.200 --> 0:51:02.479
<v Speaker 2>sixty seven million dollars. Uh. Did you follow the City

0:51:02.480 --> 0:51:04.000
<v Speaker 2>of the Lanta's Twitter account?

0:51:04.600 --> 0:51:07.040
<v Speaker 1>No, I don't want to see that ship, but I

0:51:07.440 --> 0:51:09.600
<v Speaker 1>know they have turned it into just a cop city

0:51:09.640 --> 0:51:10.440
<v Speaker 1>of propaganda chan.

0:51:10.719 --> 0:51:13.960
<v Speaker 2>It's a NonStop propaganda channel, which is like really fun

0:51:14.000 --> 0:51:17.239
<v Speaker 2>to watch because every cop City post is like bombarded

0:51:17.239 --> 0:51:18.920
<v Speaker 2>with negative replies and quot tweets.

0:51:18.920 --> 0:51:21.719
<v Speaker 1>I've seen these posts, I know, I know. I've talked

0:51:21.760 --> 0:51:24.800
<v Speaker 1>about how they launched their own website trying to combat

0:51:24.800 --> 0:51:27.239
<v Speaker 1>all of those top cop City websites, and yeah, they've

0:51:27.239 --> 0:51:30.239
<v Speaker 1>really accelerated their propaganda the past few months. And yeah,

0:51:30.320 --> 0:51:33.239
<v Speaker 1>just turned the actual City of Atlantic account into a

0:51:33.640 --> 0:51:38.759
<v Speaker 1>cop City propaganda UH like platform, which is funny because

0:51:38.760 --> 0:51:41.040
<v Speaker 1>they oft They also will often advocate and say like,

0:51:41.239 --> 0:51:42.960
<v Speaker 1>this isn't the City of Atlanta's project, this is the

0:51:43.000 --> 0:51:46.440
<v Speaker 1>APS project, which they'll often like use that use that refrain,

0:51:46.880 --> 0:51:49.120
<v Speaker 1>and yet we have the City of Atlanto account being

0:51:49.120 --> 0:51:52.760
<v Speaker 1>turned into a into a megaphone to promote to this project.

0:51:52.800 --> 0:51:55.279
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, the Atlanta Police Foundation doesn't actually give interviews to

0:51:55.920 --> 0:51:59.360
<v Speaker 2>UH like news anymore. Yeah, they filter everything through the

0:51:59.360 --> 0:52:00.799
<v Speaker 2>City of Atlanta, which.

0:52:02.160 --> 0:52:03.640
<v Speaker 1>Normal charity organization.

0:52:04.400 --> 0:52:06.600
<v Speaker 2>It's completely normal for them never to show up at

0:52:06.640 --> 0:52:09.919
<v Speaker 2>city Council to talk about anything and to hide from

0:52:09.920 --> 0:52:15.360
<v Speaker 2>the public. It's fine. So meanwhile, Dickens is of course

0:52:15.520 --> 0:52:18.680
<v Speaker 2>like dogged by opposition to cop City at every turn.

0:52:19.160 --> 0:52:22.200
<v Speaker 2>On April thirteenth, three, Georgia State University students, with the

0:52:22.200 --> 0:52:25.960
<v Speaker 2>support of this keynote speaker, interrupted a global symposium Studies

0:52:26.239 --> 0:52:31.160
<v Speaker 2>that Dickens was giving opening remarks. Dickens grows increasingly frustrated

0:52:31.160 --> 0:52:33.719
<v Speaker 2>as the disruptors will not leave, and eventually Dickens and

0:52:33.800 --> 0:52:38.440
<v Speaker 2>his retinue like just walk out. On April eleventh, Dickens

0:52:38.440 --> 0:52:41.280
<v Speaker 2>had hired a new senior policy advisor named Karen Rodgers.

0:52:42.040 --> 0:52:45.359
<v Speaker 2>Dickens brought Rogers over from the Atlanta Police Foundation, where

0:52:45.360 --> 0:52:49.160
<v Speaker 2>she'd spent seven years working in community engagement, and he

0:52:49.239 --> 0:52:51.359
<v Speaker 2>brought her on, of course, to advise about cop City.

0:52:52.080 --> 0:52:56.960
<v Speaker 2>On April eighteenth, Dicab County Medical Examiner released the autopsy

0:52:56.960 --> 0:52:59.600
<v Speaker 2>on Towards death, and that same day, just before the

0:52:59.680 --> 0:53:03.160
<v Speaker 2>article came out that the autopsity was released, Dickens held

0:53:03.160 --> 0:53:06.160
<v Speaker 2>a press conference on the steps of City Hall. He

0:53:06.239 --> 0:53:09.160
<v Speaker 2>was surrounded by a group of nearly one hundred all

0:53:09.239 --> 0:53:13.560
<v Speaker 2>older black leaders, including former Mayor Bill Campbell and Andrew Young.

0:53:14.800 --> 0:53:17.360
<v Speaker 2>This appears to have been a hastily thrown together event

0:53:17.440 --> 0:53:19.799
<v Speaker 2>and only a few media outlets were even aware that

0:53:19.800 --> 0:53:22.080
<v Speaker 2>it was happening. Like, we didn't get an update that it.

0:53:22.040 --> 0:53:23.640
<v Speaker 1>Was going on. I didn't know that was happening.

0:53:23.760 --> 0:53:26.160
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it just it kind of cropped up and seemed

0:53:26.200 --> 0:53:28.720
<v Speaker 2>to take everyone by surprise. And of course it looks

0:53:28.760 --> 0:53:31.759
<v Speaker 2>like the press conference was held to counteract the autopsy

0:53:31.800 --> 0:53:34.719
<v Speaker 2>report coming out that day. Yeah, but that failed, and

0:53:34.880 --> 0:53:39.000
<v Speaker 2>the autopsy report was the bigger story. Notably, the AJAC

0:53:39.320 --> 0:53:42.319
<v Speaker 2>did not print the autopsy report on the first day,

0:53:42.360 --> 0:53:45.160
<v Speaker 2>but it was pretty well covered elsewhere on the landscape.

0:53:46.400 --> 0:53:49.080
<v Speaker 2>And the autopsy caused a second city councilor to speak

0:53:49.080 --> 0:53:52.600
<v Speaker 2>out against cop city, and a growing number of state

0:53:52.640 --> 0:53:56.240
<v Speaker 2>representatives have started to speak out, you know, as that happened,

0:53:56.320 --> 0:53:59.480
<v Speaker 2>and as the rest of the solidarity fund. But Dickens

0:53:59.600 --> 0:54:02.520
<v Speaker 2>is of course unmoved and preparing for this fight to

0:54:02.560 --> 0:54:06.040
<v Speaker 2>last a while. Then, of course, there was the city

0:54:06.120 --> 0:54:09.839
<v Speaker 2>council vote on June fifth, and there had been some

0:54:09.880 --> 0:54:13.319
<v Speaker 2>work done behind the scenes to try to get this

0:54:13.400 --> 0:54:16.600
<v Speaker 2>set back to committee. Apparently Dickinson like peeled off city.

0:54:16.719 --> 0:54:20.080
<v Speaker 2>He called the maybe votes into his office early that

0:54:20.160 --> 0:54:23.759
<v Speaker 2>morning and peeled off the votes and to ensure that

0:54:23.760 --> 0:54:28.719
<v Speaker 2>that copsidy continued on. We should I wrote this, of course,

0:54:29.400 --> 0:54:33.160
<v Speaker 2>I think two months ago point. So, yeah, a couple

0:54:33.280 --> 0:54:38.800
<v Speaker 2>quick highlights again, the affordable housing. So with our affordable housing,

0:54:38.840 --> 0:54:41.080
<v Speaker 2>it is supposed to get a certain percentage of our

0:54:41.120 --> 0:54:43.920
<v Speaker 2>general operating budget, and it started out at one and

0:54:43.920 --> 0:54:45.279
<v Speaker 2>a half percent, and then it was supposed to go

0:54:45.360 --> 0:54:46.760
<v Speaker 2>up to two percent, and two and a half percent

0:54:46.800 --> 0:54:48.279
<v Speaker 2>is where it's going to cap out. So this year

0:54:48.360 --> 0:54:50.239
<v Speaker 2>was supposed to go to two percent. He kept it

0:54:50.320 --> 0:54:53.200
<v Speaker 2>one and a half percent, but he did announce a

0:54:53.200 --> 0:54:57.560
<v Speaker 2>public private partnership to offer one hundred million dollars in

0:54:57.560 --> 0:55:02.560
<v Speaker 2>in affordable housing bonds. Real, So we love our public

0:55:02.560 --> 0:55:05.640
<v Speaker 2>private partnership at lant away things to get things done.

0:55:05.880 --> 0:55:08.120
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that seems like the way. That's I mean, that's

0:55:08.120 --> 0:55:11.160
<v Speaker 1>what I'm excited about. For for the the extra thirty

0:55:11.160 --> 0:55:14.520
<v Speaker 1>million dollars bond to APF, that'll certainly get paid back

0:55:14.560 --> 0:55:16.000
<v Speaker 1>in a reasonable time period.

0:55:15.800 --> 0:55:19.520
<v Speaker 2>Any completely reasonable time period. And you know that'll get

0:55:19.520 --> 0:55:22.400
<v Speaker 2>paid back, I'm sure, And we're not going to continue

0:55:22.440 --> 0:55:24.759
<v Speaker 2>to pay anything and APF is not going to make

0:55:24.760 --> 0:55:28.240
<v Speaker 2>any money off. No, this is surely.

0:55:28.080 --> 0:55:30.480
<v Speaker 1>This project's not a massive taxpayer sinkhole.

0:55:32.320 --> 0:55:33.640
<v Speaker 2>So that's it.

0:55:34.960 --> 0:55:35.640
<v Speaker 1>That's the mayor.

0:55:35.719 --> 0:55:37.040
<v Speaker 2>That's the mayor. That's where we are.

0:55:37.160 --> 0:55:39.560
<v Speaker 1>And then when's the next mayoral election.

0:55:39.760 --> 0:55:42.360
<v Speaker 2>So twenty twenty five, and of course Dickens has to

0:55:42.400 --> 0:55:45.480
<v Speaker 2>move the needle. There was there were like some calls

0:55:45.520 --> 0:55:49.840
<v Speaker 2>for a recall campaign around Chickens, especially amongst the movement,

0:55:50.520 --> 0:55:52.919
<v Speaker 2>Like I personally don't think that it would have any

0:55:53.000 --> 0:55:57.560
<v Speaker 2>chance of succeeding. There's kind of there's a perception that

0:55:57.800 --> 0:56:01.080
<v Speaker 2>he's doing okay. And you know, when you have somebody

0:56:01.080 --> 0:56:04.960
<v Speaker 2>that was probed by the FBI for corruption just a

0:56:05.000 --> 0:56:08.640
<v Speaker 2>few years ago, your standards of what the area kind

0:56:08.640 --> 0:56:09.160
<v Speaker 2>of changes.

0:56:09.560 --> 0:56:12.440
<v Speaker 1>People seem to be putting lots of there. They're dedicated

0:56:13.200 --> 0:56:15.680
<v Speaker 1>some of their dedicated efforts in terms of like electoral

0:56:15.719 --> 0:56:19.080
<v Speaker 1>sign up stuff as being put towards the referendum which

0:56:19.120 --> 0:56:21.719
<v Speaker 1>got approved a few days ago. To continue, they need

0:56:21.719 --> 0:56:23.680
<v Speaker 1>to clutch like what seventy five thousand signatures from people

0:56:23.680 --> 0:56:26.600
<v Speaker 1>who were residents of Atlanta and registered to vote in

0:56:26.600 --> 0:56:29.560
<v Speaker 1>twenty twenty one, which seems like a pretty high bar.

0:56:30.320 --> 0:56:31.480
<v Speaker 1>That's a lot of signatures.

0:56:31.560 --> 0:56:34.560
<v Speaker 2>So it's a lot of signatures. And because the organizers

0:56:34.560 --> 0:56:37.840
<v Speaker 2>say this municipal clerk was like playing games and withholding

0:56:38.280 --> 0:56:42.680
<v Speaker 2>approving the signatures, so they don't have approving the referendum,

0:56:42.680 --> 0:56:44.919
<v Speaker 2>and so they don't have the full like sixty days,

0:56:44.920 --> 0:56:47.879
<v Speaker 2>it's like two weeks fifty No, it's fifty seven days.

0:56:47.880 --> 0:56:50.759
<v Speaker 2>So I think it's like it's they have to have

0:56:50.880 --> 0:56:52.920
<v Speaker 2>them by August fifteenth.

0:56:52.640 --> 0:56:55.760
<v Speaker 1>Which is a lot of signatures, and augustifting is around

0:56:55.840 --> 0:57:00.480
<v Speaker 1>when construction was supposed to start for cup City. So yeah,

0:57:00.480 --> 0:57:04.840
<v Speaker 1>and then for other mayor role candidates, I've heard rumor

0:57:05.360 --> 0:57:08.560
<v Speaker 1>that friend of the show ontologically evil Mary Nor would

0:57:08.680 --> 0:57:10.240
<v Speaker 1>may be interested in trying to run again.

0:57:10.320 --> 0:57:13.200
<v Speaker 2>So this is like her her kind of move is

0:57:13.239 --> 0:57:16.080
<v Speaker 2>she does she runs from mayor. All right, Well, first

0:57:16.080 --> 0:57:17.920
<v Speaker 2>she does a term of city council and then she

0:57:18.000 --> 0:57:20.160
<v Speaker 2>runs from mayor, and then she doesn't get the mayor

0:57:20.160 --> 0:57:22.360
<v Speaker 2>all spots, so she takes a you know, four years off,

0:57:22.400 --> 0:57:24.800
<v Speaker 2>she comes back, runs for city council, runs from mayor,

0:57:24.880 --> 0:57:27.520
<v Speaker 2>takes four years off. So we were now in her

0:57:28.000 --> 0:57:31.080
<v Speaker 2>you know, mayor, her city council term, and if she's

0:57:31.120 --> 0:57:32.720
<v Speaker 2>going to do this for a third time, then she

0:57:32.760 --> 0:57:36.800
<v Speaker 2>will run for mayor in twenty twenty five, which would suck.

0:57:38.640 --> 0:57:40.320
<v Speaker 2>I mean, she came close last time she.

0:57:40.280 --> 0:57:44.040
<v Speaker 1>Did, and I think how depending on if depending on

0:57:44.080 --> 0:57:47.160
<v Speaker 1>how progress in the cop City construction goes, she has

0:57:47.200 --> 0:57:50.080
<v Speaker 1>a way to frame this being like like I was

0:57:50.160 --> 0:57:53.080
<v Speaker 1>the one who was actually in support of this popular

0:57:53.160 --> 0:57:56.800
<v Speaker 1>proposal the whole time. And look we succeeded only because

0:57:56.840 --> 0:57:57.160
<v Speaker 1>of me.

0:57:57.760 --> 0:58:00.680
<v Speaker 2>Yes, she can do that, and there's so then as

0:58:00.720 --> 0:58:03.680
<v Speaker 2>demographics are changing, we're no longer a majority block city.

0:58:04.200 --> 0:58:08.240
<v Speaker 2>The population is down to like forty eight percent black people.

0:58:08.440 --> 0:58:12.520
<v Speaker 2>So there Dickens is being called possibly the last black

0:58:12.560 --> 0:58:17.160
<v Speaker 2>mayor of Atlanta, and you know that will be a

0:58:17.160 --> 0:58:20.920
<v Speaker 2>shock to our systems. And Mary Norwood would be like

0:58:21.200 --> 0:58:23.320
<v Speaker 2>just a way to quickly kill that.

0:58:23.680 --> 0:58:26.040
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And like I said, the only way to accurately

0:58:26.080 --> 0:58:30.600
<v Speaker 1>describer is just ontologically evil. Like she is. She she

0:58:30.760 --> 0:58:36.280
<v Speaker 1>is just that bad. She's like she's yeah, it's not great,

0:58:36.560 --> 0:58:40.120
<v Speaker 1>would not be fun. But she's not the mayor. It is.

0:58:40.160 --> 0:58:41.960
<v Speaker 1>It is Mayor Dickens who is the shitty mayor of

0:58:41.960 --> 0:58:45.200
<v Speaker 1>this episode, and based on how much power he has

0:58:45.240 --> 0:58:47.560
<v Speaker 1>to change things and how much what he's decided to

0:58:47.560 --> 0:58:50.280
<v Speaker 1>do with that power, when instead of actually supporting all

0:58:50.320 --> 0:58:53.360
<v Speaker 1>the affordable housing things, he's funneled millions of dollars to

0:58:53.480 --> 0:58:56.760
<v Speaker 1>cop City, to the Atlanta Police Foundation, has refused any

0:58:56.800 --> 0:59:02.440
<v Speaker 1>measure to revoke the land lease ordinance, and even even

0:59:02.560 --> 0:59:04.480
<v Speaker 1>even if not not to cancel the project, even just

0:59:04.520 --> 0:59:06.560
<v Speaker 1>to move it somewhere else. He's refused every step of

0:59:06.560 --> 0:59:10.400
<v Speaker 1>the way. And yeah, well we'll see how that does

0:59:10.440 --> 0:59:11.840
<v Speaker 1>him in the next election cycle.

0:59:11.920 --> 0:59:14.560
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I'm really interested to see, uh, how he plays

0:59:14.600 --> 0:59:15.320
<v Speaker 2>the referendum.

0:59:16.840 --> 0:59:18.680
<v Speaker 1>I'm I'm I'm I'm interested to see if the referend

0:59:18.720 --> 0:59:20.200
<v Speaker 1>then will even be a threat at all, because if

0:59:20.200 --> 0:59:23.080
<v Speaker 1>it if it's if it's if it fails to get

0:59:23.520 --> 0:59:26.080
<v Speaker 1>a significantbortion of signatures, then he may just ignore it

0:59:26.160 --> 0:59:28.000
<v Speaker 1>because why would he bother to talk about it.

0:59:28.080 --> 0:59:30.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they're definitely not going to devote any resources to

0:59:30.360 --> 0:59:33.560
<v Speaker 2>it until they're sure that it is a threat. But once,

0:59:33.840 --> 0:59:36.680
<v Speaker 2>once it, you know, potentially becomes a threat, they will

0:59:37.240 --> 0:59:38.440
<v Speaker 2>They've got to start doing something.

0:59:38.600 --> 0:59:41.280
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, well we are. We are like what two or

0:59:41.280 --> 0:59:43.040
<v Speaker 1>three days into the week of action at this point.

0:59:44.320 --> 0:59:47.560
<v Speaker 1>I definitely I don't know what what things are like,

0:59:47.600 --> 0:59:50.800
<v Speaker 1>but there's still is some days left. So yeah, if

0:59:50.800 --> 0:59:53.600
<v Speaker 1>you if, if you're if you're in Atlanta, try to

0:59:53.640 --> 0:59:56.800
<v Speaker 1>stay safe and stay as dangerous as you feel comfortable.

0:59:56.880 --> 1:00:00.560
<v Speaker 2>Say hey to us when you see us, Sure, do.

1:00:00.520 --> 1:00:02.160
<v Speaker 1>You have any do you have any things you would

1:00:02.200 --> 1:00:05.920
<v Speaker 1>like to plug Matt from the Atlanta Community Press Collective.

1:00:06.120 --> 1:00:08.680
<v Speaker 2>Yes, so I am Matt and I work for the

1:00:08.720 --> 1:00:10.800
<v Speaker 2>Atlantic Community Press Collective. If you want to check out

1:00:10.800 --> 1:00:15.000
<v Speaker 2>our work, our website is Atlpresscollective dot com. We also

1:00:15.040 --> 1:00:19.080
<v Speaker 2>do a lot on Twitter. Our handle is at Atlanta

1:00:19.880 --> 1:00:23.520
<v Speaker 2>Underscore Press and our Instagram, where we post a lot

1:00:23.520 --> 1:00:26.040
<v Speaker 2>of our videos is atl Press Collective.

1:00:26.680 --> 1:00:29.040
<v Speaker 1>And then you can also donate to a solidarity fund,

1:00:29.400 --> 1:00:31.960
<v Speaker 1>not at the regular solidary fund website. Still, I believe

1:00:31.960 --> 1:00:34.680
<v Speaker 1>it's I believe it's still the National Bail Fund one, right.

1:00:34.760 --> 1:00:36.800
<v Speaker 2>I believe it is still the National Bail Fund until

1:00:36.840 --> 1:00:39.200
<v Speaker 2>probably until that court case is settled.

1:00:39.240 --> 1:00:42.200
<v Speaker 1>Got it all right? So yeah, make sure you go

1:00:42.320 --> 1:00:44.680
<v Speaker 1>to the right site for the for the Act Blue

1:00:44.760 --> 1:00:47.920
<v Speaker 1>National bil Bail Fund towards the Atlanta Solidarity Fund. Anyway,

1:00:48.680 --> 1:00:51.560
<v Speaker 1>So that was the shitty mayor of today, Mayor Andre Dickens.

1:00:51.600 --> 1:00:53.200
<v Speaker 1>I'll make the joke again. I think it's funny that

1:00:53.200 --> 1:00:56.440
<v Speaker 1>the previous mayor was named Bottoms. The current mayor is

1:00:56.480 --> 1:01:00.720
<v Speaker 1>named Dickens. It's Dickens, Dickens Bottoms anyway. Comment, that's the

1:01:00.800 --> 1:01:02.840
<v Speaker 1>joke that I've made before. I'm gonna keep making it

1:01:02.880 --> 1:01:06.200
<v Speaker 1>until he's until he's no longer mayor unless someone else

1:01:06.280 --> 1:01:10.360
<v Speaker 1>runs for we could do, nor would dickens Bottom. No never,

1:01:11.080 --> 1:01:13.400
<v Speaker 1>I'm not even gonna bother joking with that because that

1:01:13.400 --> 1:01:20.760
<v Speaker 1>would be so don't exactly exactly that doesn't need that anyway. Yeah,

1:01:20.800 --> 1:01:23.240
<v Speaker 1>see you on the other side, Stay safe, stayed interesting

1:01:23.280 --> 1:01:30.800
<v Speaker 1>the Week of Action TATA. It Could Happen Here as

1:01:30.800 --> 1:01:33.520
<v Speaker 1>a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from

1:01:33.560 --> 1:01:36.520
<v Speaker 1>cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zonemedia dot com,

1:01:36.640 --> 1:01:39.280
<v Speaker 1>or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1:01:39.360 --> 1:01:42.360
<v Speaker 1>or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources

1:01:42.360 --> 1:01:45.200
<v Speaker 1>for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zonemedia

1:01:45.280 --> 1:01:47.760
<v Speaker 1>dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.