In national politics, bipartisan support has become as rare as a pollen-free spring day. While across-the-aisle efforts happen more often in Georgia at the state and local levels, my eye was drawn to the news conference last week announcing the opening of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center.
Atlanta Democratic Mayor Andre Dickens and Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp shared both the stage and support for the effort. It was a rare but powerful moment of shared understanding of the core desires for our city. The bumper stickers and social media posts among my friends might differ wildly, but I’d imagine that many of the things they expect as they navigate their day to day are more alike than they would admit. We might have some different ideas about how to get there, but safety is important to us all.
Whatever your view of the role of government — and the last few years have highlighted there are very different perspectives — there is a near universal understanding that there are some things you rely on the government to do. You don’t have to know the philosophical writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau to understand that we, as citizens, give up certain freedoms and rights — we agree to be taxed or to follow the government’s laws — in order to have the protections that we might not be able to provide ourselves or the provisions for the collective good that we might not be able to afford independently.
Roads and highways are clear examples of this. There is an expectation that when we leave to go somewhere, there will be a road and that road will be relatively safe to drive down (though I might need to keep some savings set aside for tire repairs from the many Atlanta potholes). Likewise, I have some degree of trust that when an emergency happens I might call my friends and family or even my private insurance to help with the aftermath, but in the thick of it, I would call 911 and rely, at least in some part, on a speedy resolution by the police, EMS or fire department.
Sometimes, our faith in this social contract is shaken. This winter I was with friends who live in the city of Atlanta, and they spoke of a recent occasion where a man came to their house in the middle of the night pounding on their door. They called 911 a number of times. Eventually the man hopped their fence and used a stone lawn ornament to break the glass on their patio doors. The homeowner stood on the other side of the door, baseball bat in hand, his wife and children waiting anxiously upstairs. It took 40 minutes for the police to arrive in their neighborhood.
You can have compassion for a man who is likely dealing with mental health challenges and at the same time want the police to support you at that moment. This is not a binary choice. We might differ on the strategies to pursue mental health support, but I think we would probably all agree that when someone is in that position, you and your family should not be left to manage it on your own in the middle of the night. And this brings me back to that news conference last week.
When the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center is mentioned, it is often in the same breath as the controversy that surrounded it. No doubt there was local opposition. But this appears to be a situation where the national narrative seemed to be fuel for the fire, as almost all of those arrested in protests were from outside the state of Georgia.
I had an opportunity to tour the training center and was struck by the asset this will be for our city and the region — a place to have high quality training for our public safety officers and an environment where they can work collaboratively. I was also impressed by the scope of the philanthropic effort, with roughly two-thirds of the funding coming from the Atlanta Police Foundation in a public-private partnership. The hope is that this investment will help in public safety recruitment, which our city needs right now with a high vacancy rate in the Atlanta Police Department.
Perhaps this can be a cautionary tale, or depending on how you look at it, a hopeful resolution. There are meaningful divides in this country that should not be ignored and cannot be minimized. But there are also efforts for the common good, essentials in that social contract, that we can agree local officials should not be distracted from pursuing. Being able to recruit the best and brightest in public safety, in the numbers the city needs to be safe, is in everyone’s interest.
Every neighborhood in Atlanta deserves to be safe. Every person in Atlanta deserves to feel safe. We should not lose sight of what we can agree on.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
Hannah Heck, a lawyer, founded a public policy, advocacy and consulting practice. She lives in Atlanta and spends most of her time in board service, supporting her four children and writing about life raising a son with Down syndrome.
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