Council President Newsletter: Vol 1 Q1 '22

The First 100 Days

2022 INAUGURATION

Click here to watch the 2022 City of Atlanta Inauguration

It’s been three months since that VERY cold day at Bobby Dodd stadium where my wife Bijal and our daughters joined me on stage to take the oath of office. It’s been exhilarating and humbling to spend the last few weeks engaging in so many issues across the entire city, attending meetings and events, listening to individuals and groups, meeting with the new Mayor and city leaders and most of all listening. I’m hearing the frustration and hopes, the priorities
and problems and most of all the desire to work together. Every day I wake up and ask myself if I’m focusing my time and efforts on the most impactful issues for that day.

Taking on the Business of the City

Immediately following our inauguration, my first item of business was to assign committee chair and membership appointments for City Council. I worked hard to balance a number of factors including Council members preferences, mixing expertise and backgrounds, balancing geographies as well as experiences in order to setup each committee to be effective and engaged. I’m excited with the array of Council Committee Chairs (three folks chairing for the first time) and the work thus far. The committees have been digging into significant policy agendas including a new approach to frontage fees, a long overdue overhaul of alcohol licensing, transportation investments, reforming the Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS (HOPWA), overall financial accountability and the once a decade requirement to redraw council districts.

Last year, citizens of Atlanta declared a desire for collaboration and effective governance—that the old ways of governance were no longer acceptable. As such, I have invested a good bit of time developing strong working relationships within the Council, the Mayor, the Mayor’s administration, and our colleagues at the state capital. In three short months, we are already seeing the fruits of those efforts.

Here are a few specifics:

Buckhead City was a threat—for now that has been avoided and the work improving the city continues on the key issues of public safety, infrastructure, growth and city services.

The state legislature approved funding for a sweeping mental health reform. This will help deliver better services and more options to constituents.

We have eight new city council members, and major issues to tackle. The spirit of cooperation and trust will be paramount to transforming the city as a single unit. As such, I convened a council dinner as a precursor to our council retreat. I am told it was the first of its kind. Most city council members and the mayor attended—furthering a genuine interest in working together to move the city forward.

City Hall is now open for business! Covid and the Omicron variant continue to impact our communities and we face the challenges of keeping ourselves, our families and one another healthy. It is important that we all continue to use pre-cautions and advise those around us to be vaccinated and boosted. Last month, the Mayor and I worked together to open Council and more functions to the public at City Hall. We worked with staff to make Council Meetings resume in-person meetings and more accessible to the general public.

Boards and commissions are great ways to engage the general public. The AJC highlighted this vehicle for public officials to consider innovative, non-bureaucratic ways of improving our city and/or its internal functions. These are important ways for residents to directly be involved in the policy making of the City. Some of these appointments my office makes, some are made by other members of City Council and some by the Mayor. If you’re interested in serving feel free to reach out directly to my office (dshipman@atlantaga.gov).

I will continue to prioritize strong public engagement through public and private meetings across the city—fulfilling the commitment to be accessible and directly engaging people. In addition, I will continue to do my part in fostering a collaborative approach to building a stronger city. I will lead the council through strategic planning sessions at the upcoming Council Retreat. We will discuss the budget and ways to look at cohesive planning for the whole city.

I will continue to highlight the issues I committed to focusing on during the campaign. Improving city services, long-term sustainability initiatives, focusing on how we can address the vast poverty and lack of economic mobility across the city and improving public safety.

You will soon get information about council district redistricting. I am organizing public engagement tools, to include town halls. Redistricting will re-define communities and school districts. I encourage you to engage and let your voices be heard. You can expect those meetings to begin in June.