Outside of Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens’ reelection launch party at Monday Night Brewing in the West End, a crowd of protesters blasted his own voice on repeat from a loudspeaker.
It was a recording of comments the mayor made during an 11 Alive interview in September 2023, when he said he would support a vote if organizers of a referendum over the city’s public safety training center submitted enough valid signatures.
More than a year and a half later, tens of thousands of signatures have been submitted but never counted as a legal battle over which names count is still held up in court. Meanwhile, the center has opened.
Opponents of the project outside Dickens’ campaign event were making good on promises to complicate the 2025 election for the mayor and Atlanta City Council candidates who voted in favor of the training facility funding plan.
But without a serious challenger, Dickens will likely face little consequence over the project, despite early concerns that the controversy would mar his first term in office. And Atlanta City Council members — who sat through 30-plus hours of public comment against the facility before voting to fund it — are skeptical of the movement’s impact.
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Still, training center opponents told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution they aren’t going to keep quiet during election season and promise to be a thorn in the side for Dickens as he campaigns.
“We will be everywhere that he is at, to let him know that the people are speaking, that the people have been speaking out, and that he has done everything in his power to delegitimize the movement,” said Daniel Pizarro, a lead organizer with the People’s Movement Assembly.
“This is us reengaging our bases — our declaration of saying that we won’t back down,” Pizarro added.
The city officially opened the sprawling facility in December that will serve as a home training base for Atlanta’s police, firefighters and 911 operators. With features such as the country’s most state-of-the-art burn simulation building, public safety leaders say the city’s first responders are finally getting the enhanced training that has been needed for decades.
During a lengthy conversation with the AJC editorial board in February, Dickens dismissed the idea that opponents could cause trouble for him during his reelection campaign.
“Every time someone has gone on a tour of it, they’ve really enjoyed it,” he said. “And they’ve gotten the bigger picture and the understanding that a lot of the noise that they heard was untrue.”
“I didn’t make the decision about this based on elections,” Dickens added when asked whether he thought the issue would impact his reelection bid. “What is good for my politics is I have eight or nine more months before the election — that site is real pretty; come on out and see it.”
Credit: Riley Bunch/riley.bunch@ajc.com
Credit: Riley Bunch/riley.bunch@ajc.com
Opponents have tried a multitude of paths to stop the facility from being built — from filing lawsuits to attacks on police and the construction site itself. City officials have said arson against construction equipment and police vehicles has caused more than $10 million in damage.
Attempts to sway City Council members to vote against moving the project forward also failed, but the unfinished referendum effort that’s still awaiting a court ruling is fueling the movement.
Atlanta City Council members bore the brunt of public outcry over the facility. Particularly when the legislative body passed the controversial funding package that more than doubled the originally stated public cost — despite city officials’ claims that the public cost didn’t increase at all.
Every seat on the council, including the three citywide seats and coveted council president position, are up for reelection in November.
City Council President Doug Shipman recently announced he isn’t seeking another term which created an open field to fill that role. Shipman told the AJC that while the mayor’s race is unlikely to be impacted because Dickens has no serious challenger, council president candidates could face pressure from training center opponents.
“It’s still unclear how many well-funded challengers there may be to council members,” he said. “All of that said, it’s probably a low turnout election — in the general and in the runoff. And in low-turnout elections, very passionate groups can have an impact.”
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Opponents vowed to enact their revenge at the ballot box and work to unseat incumbents who supported the project during hour upon hour of public comment against the facility. And outside Dickens’ first campaign party, organizers announced Atlanta’s People’s Movement Assembly, a grassroots effort aimed at keeping the training center referendum front and center during election season.
The ultimate impact of that is in question, however, with no training center-opposed mayoral candidate. Candidates officially file qualifying paperwork in August, so there is still time for a challenger to emerge.
Organizers with the referendum effort point to tens of thousands of signatures they collected as part of the petition drive that took place over the summer of 2023. They say that is a massive bank of voters they can rally around the upcoming city elections.
The referendum movement towed 16 cardboard boxes with what they said was 116,000 names on petitions to Atlanta City Hall in September 2023 — although an analysis of the signatures by the AJC and partner news organizations found organizers had actually turned in around 108,500.
That’s still nearly 30,000 more Atlanta residents than voted in the 2021 runoff between Dickens and former City Council President Felicia Moore. But it’s still unclear how many of those signatures are valid or will count pending a court decision on petitioner requirements.
Organizers say they plan on replicating a similar strategy as the petition drive to reengage voters who signed the referendum by canvassing across the city ahead of the November election.
“Those folks will be contacted and organized to work to make sure that there is a challenge to the politics as usual,” said Kamau Franklin, a longtime training center opponent with the Community Movement Builders.
“We’re going to take that same energy that was used to gather (referendum signatures) and put it into finding the replacement for the mayor, for the City Council, and make sure that it is the people who are making decisions.”
But City Council member Amir Farokhi, who is also not seeking reelection, said he thinks upset over the training center has run its course.
“I think they’ll will have little to no impact — other than potentially placing candidates in races,” he said. “I think opponents of the training center severely misjudged where Atlanta voters are and what issues are top-of-mind for them.”
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
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