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COMMUNITY
Mayor leaves office with pride and plans
BY JOHN RUCH
johnruch@reporternewspapers.net
As Mayor Rebecca Chase Williams
prepares to step down as one of Brookhav-
en’s founding officials, she’s looking back
with pride on the city’s whirlwind first
three years. And she’s planning new ways
to contribute as a private citizen, from
starting a historical society to fundraising
for more parks.
“I’m really proud of all the accomplish
ments we’ve made,” Williams said in a re
cent interview in the mayor’s office she
will vacate when mayor-elect John Ernst
is sworn in Jan. 4. “We’ve tried to balance
between building the city, taking care of
basics and dreaming—dreaming big.”
“Most of it has been fun. Not all of it
has been fun,” she said. She recalled the
“dark cloud” of the city’s battle against
the Pink Pony strip club, and controversy
over an employee complaint about former
mayor J. Max Davis that Williams called
an overblown reaction to “schoolboy” be
havior.
“I worked hard to stand on principle...
Did we have stumbles? Of course,” said
Williams, adding that she is proud of how
the city handled its controversies as well.
A retired national reporter for ABC
News, Williams was a longtime neighbor
hood activist when she got involved in the
cityhood movement that led to Brookhav-
en’s 2012 founding. She was elected to
the first City Council and was appoint
ed mayor this year when Davis resigned
to run for a state representative seat. Wil
liams dropped out of this year’s mayoral
race, citing family health concerns.
“Nobody gives you a user’s guide. You
don’t know what you don’t know,” Wil
liams said of the steep learning curve in
running a new city. She recalled the or
ganizing frenzy that had the new govern
ment wandering “like Bedouins” to a tem
porary City Hall in Dunwoody for a time.
“I think our proudest accomplishment
is a police department,” she said, recalling
pre-cityhood times when the county had
only four or five officers patrolling. On the
other hand, she said, “Now I’m kind of
surprised at how much crime we do have”
as better policing reveals it.
“I think we kept our promise that
we’d run the city like a business. I’m real
ly proud of the fact that the anti-city peo
ple all said it was going to be ‘Broke-hav
en,’” yet they have a sizable reserve while
continuously rolling back the property
tax millage rate, she said. “Our roads are
paved. Our potholes are filled.”
City parks are another point of pride,
both in long-term planning and quick fix
ups. “My only regret is...I won’t be the
one making decisions” on moving the
park master plans ahead, Williams said.
But she cited successes like plant
ing 150 cherry trees and establishing the
Cherry Blossom Festival, and fixing up ne
glected facilities like the Lynwood Com
munity Center, where “people thought
you needed a typhus shot to go in there. It
was where the vampires lived.”
The downside of holding office, Wil
liams said, was receiving “angry” and
“coarse” criticism, especially online. “I
guess it comes with the territory,” she said.
“It’s hurtful. It doesn’t encourage other
people to step up and take that kind of
smearing.”
If the harshness of criticism took Wil
liams by surprise, so did some of the con
troversies that triggered it.
“Some things came along, like the Pink
Pony, that I didn’t expect to be such a big
issue. I look at that as kind of a dark cloud,”
Williams said. She found it “shocking”
that, unlike in other metro Atlanta city-
versus-strip-club battles, many Brookhav-
en residents supported the Pink Pony.
“If we were to do nothing and five
more strip clubs came in, would people
be happy?” Williams asked. “So we fought
the battle all the way to the state Supreme
Court, and we won, and I thought it was
great cause for celebration.”
She was disappointed the City Council
chose to let the club remain for seven years
in exchange for an annual payment.
Another controversy came this year
when the city withheld an email describ
ing as “sexual harassment” an incident
where Davis sprayed an aerosol can near
an employee. The incident became an is
sue in Davis’s unsuccessful state represen
tative campaign and led the state Attorney
General to condemn the city for secrecy.
“I take pride [that] when I became
mayor I tried to clean up” transparency is
sues, Williams said. “I faulted our city at
torney for giving us bad advice” and then
“rounded up the votes” to force him out.
“J. Max did not deserve to be treated
like he was in that election,” Williams add
ed. “Those accusations.. .blew out of pro
portion a minor incident that was in no
way sexual harassment. He acted like a
schoolboy on a couple of days. That’s no
reason to crucify him.”
In fact, Williams said, she might have
continued serving on the council if Davis
had remained mayor. As it is, she said, “I
wish John Ernst all the best.. .Sometimes I
feel like George Washington [in] his fare
well speech. I need to step down so you
i
JOE EARLE
Mayor Rebecca Chase Williams,
left, says farewell at her
last City Council meeting as
Councilmembers Joe Gebbia
and Linley Jones listen,
can move on.”
Looking ahead, Williams is consider
ing forming a Brookhaven historical so
ciety, an extension of a local history proj
ect she funded with mayoral discretionary
funds. A local history book in the “Imag
es of America” series is likely to come out
of that effort.
She’s also planning to coordinate pri
vate fundraising to sustain the Cher
ry Blossom Festival and such green space
efforts as a plan to beautify the long wall
running along the MARTA tracks on
Peachtree Road. Ernst’s mother, a mas
ter gardener, may assist her with the wall
work. “My other little pet project is Flow-
erland,” said Williams, referring to an am
bitious proposal to resurrect a historic,
giant flower garden off Chamblee-Dun-
woody Road.
In her Dec. 15 farewell to the City
Council, “I compared starting the city
to birthing a baby,” and how it has gone
through its “terrible twos” to become a
toddler, Williams said.
“Don’t be surprised if I stick around to
watch our child grow.”
City approves bonds for Sky land building, then sets re-vote
BI JOE EARLE
joeearle@reporternewspapers.net
City Council voted Dec. 18 to un
derwrite a $3.3 million bond to fi
nance the city’s purchase of the Sky-
land Center building.
The city’s Development Authori
ty had planned to issue the bonds and
buy the building in January. The coun
cil voted 3-0 to underwrite the bond
issue. The authority met Dec. 18 and
voted to issue the bonds, which ex
perts expected to sell at an interest rate
of 2.875 percent or lower, city officials
said.
But the city called a special meeting
on Dec. 23 to vote again on the bonds.
The agenda said the council would dis
cuss and vote to rescind the original
bond issue and then reconsider the
bonds. The Development Authori
ty was to vote again, too, city spokes
woman Ann Marie Quill said.
Quill said Councilman Joe Geb
bia on Dec. 22 resigned his seat on
the Brookhaven Innovation Academy
board to avoid an appearance of con
flict of interest on the bond vote.
Council members said they may
use the building in the future to house
City Hall, the city’s police department,
the Brookhaven Innovation Academy
or for some other public use.
“There are risks with any deal... but
I think this is a sweetheart deal,” said
Gebbia before the Dec. 18 vote.
The building, located at 2600 Sky-
land Drive, now houses state offices.
Brookhaven City Manager Marie Gar
rett said state officials plan to vacate
the building next July and want to sell
it. State officials have agreed to sell the
building to the city for $2.7 million.
“They need to move on. They are
asking for a final decision on wheth
er council is ready [to buy the build
ing],” Garrett told council mem
bers during their Dec. 15 meeting.
“If not, they will put the building on
the market. They have located a new
building.”
The remainder of the bond funds
will cover the costs of the bond issue
and renovations to the building, in
cluding addition of a sprinkler system
and removal of a small area of asbes
tos, city officials said. Gebbia, Council
members Linley Jones and John Park
voted to approve the bonds.
City officials originally thought the
state offices would remain in the Sky-
land building for up to two years, with
state rent payments covering the nec
essary bond payments for a time.
At the Dec. 15 meeting, officials
said the city’s current rent on its City
Hall and police department facili
ties totals $561,000 a year, so moving
city offices into the Skyland building
would save money on rent. But Gar
rett said other potential users have
aksed about renting the building.
Leaders of the BIA, a state char
ter school now planning to open next
year, have shown interest in renting
the Skyland building in the past. BIA
officials recently have said they are
considering other locations as well. To
avoid the appearance of a conflict of
interest, City Councilman Bates Mat-
tison, who is employed as the BIA’s ex
ecutive director, left the council cham
bers before the discussion and vote on
purchasing the building.
Garrett told the council members
that a school other than the BIA has
inquired about the Skyland building
as have business incubators.
Park said that because of the re
duction in the amount of time the
state was expected to rent the Sky
land building from the city, the pur
chase of the building “gives me a lit
tle heartburn.” He said he wanted the
city to sell the building if no tenant
would cover its costs and the city did
not use it for city offices. “We could
be left holding the bag for several hun
dred thousand dollars,” Park said. “It’s
a risk.”
12 | DEC. 25,2015 —JAN. 7, 2016 | www.ReporterNewspapers.net
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