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MEETINGS
The Atlanta City Council will meet
Sept. 6 at 1 p.m. at City Hall, 55 Trinity
Ave., due to the Labor Day holiday. The
second meeting is Sept. 19. Agendas and
information: citycouncil.atlantaga.gov.
Midtown Review Committee meets
Sept. 6 at 5:30 p.m. at 999 Peachtree,
5th floor conference room. Information:
midtownatl.com.
Atlanta Public
Schools Board of
Education meets
Sept. 6 at 130 Trinity
Ave. with a 2:30
p.m. session for
presentations and 6
p.m. for community meeting. Information:
atlanta.k12.ga.us.
The Decatur City Commission meets
in open session on the first and third
Mondays of each month at City Hall, 509
North McDonough Street, at 7:30 p.m.
NEWS
Emory University is pursuing annexation
into Atlanta by petition rather than
seeking legislative or voter approval.
The Atlanta Regional Commission said the
City of Atlanta added 7,900 new residents
between April 2015 and April 2016.
The Atlanta City Council has extended
the services of PARKAtlanta for up to
six months while it searches for a new
company to handle parking violations.
MARTA plans to replace all of its train cars
by 2026 with new, modern carriages.
The Centerfor Civil and Human Rights
is now officially a polling location.
Registered voters in District 4F are now
able to vote at CCHR in all elections. 03
Mayor, city respond to protester demands
By John Ruch
Mayor Kasim Reed’s administration has
responded in detail to a list of protester demands
in the wake of Black Lives Matter marches in
J uly '«
“APD [the Atlanta Police Department] has
adopted a philosophy of serving as protectors
and guardians, and is continually working to
build community trust and nurture relationships
with Atlanta’s residents,” the city said early in its
point-by-point answer, which is titled, “2016
Adanta Civic Activism Response.”
Avery Jackson, one of the ATLisReady
organizers who met with Reed and Police Chief
George Turner during the Buckhead protest, said
the coalition has made “no response” to the city’s
answers. He did not indicate if or when there
might be one.
Meanwhile, ATLisReady has carried out
smaller protests aimed at gentrification and
started a campaign named “Don’t Call the
Cops,” urging white people not to call the police
for minor incidents involving people of color.
The coalition also continues to meet, with more
than 45 organizations and 70 people joining a
recent gathering, Jackson said.
But ATLisReady has not held marches on
the scale of the five nights of protests in July that
followed the police killings of Alton Sterling in
Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota,
both of whom were black.
The Buckhead protest ended when
organizers successfully demanded an on-the-
spot meeting with Reed and Turner, which was
held inside a police truck outside the Governor’s
Mansion on West Paces Ferry Road. A follow-up
meeting at City Hall was held July 18, but fell
apart in a dispute over whether it should be open
to the public and questions about the legitimacy
of Sir Maejor, a Black Lives Matter activist who
had disagreed with many ATLisReady organizers
on personal issues and their inclusion of LGBT
rights activism in protests.
Despite the disputes, ATLisReady published
a list demanding more than two-dozen policing-
related reforms for the mayor’s consideration.
Reed’s administration responded was published,
apparently without notice, in August on the
city’s website, in the “Projects and Initiatives”
section of the Mayor’s Office page.
On many points, the city said it is already
doing many of the demanded reforms, such
as training police officers in de-escalation of
potentially violent situations and in being aware
of racial bias.
Among APD’s training principles, according
to the city’s response, is that “All people, even
well-intentioned people, have biases,” and that
“Officers can learn skills to reduce and manage
their own biases.”
On some points, such as a halt to
immigration-violation detentions, the city said
it has no power to change or disobey state or
federal laws. The city said some other points
are not applicable to it, such as reducing school
system policing, which is now carried out
exclusively by the district’s own police.
The city rejected several demands, including
an end to anti-terrorism training in Israel; the
halting of the “Operation Whiplash” gun-crime
crackdown; and a release of all evidence in the
controversial police killing of Alexia Christian,
who was shot in the back of a police car last year
after somehow escaping handcuffs and drawing a
gun, according to police.
Operation Whiplash was created partly due
to residents’ demands, the city said, adding that
such “collaborative efforts.. .have been shown to
be effective in making communities safer.”
Then there were some points where the
city was willing to accept some room for
improvement. They include more community
outreach hours for officers; reviewing the
“no-knock” search warrant policy; alternatives
to private, outsourced probation companies;
and improved mental health screenings and
programs for officers.
The city acknowledged that a reform
movement is underway for court fines and fees
in the wake of the Ferguson, Mo., protests.
A federal investigation found Ferguson relied
heavily on such court income and that its impact
on poor and black residents was part of the
context for the protests and riots in 2014.
“The Reed Administration is open to
exploring alternatives to the use of private
probation and private collection firms,” the city’s
response says. 03
JOHN RUCH
Protestors marched in Buckhead on July 11 in response to the police killings of black men in Louisiana
and Minnesota.
Two-Way Streets
Midtown converting one-way streets for better connectivity
By Collin Kelley
There’s one less one-way street to
navigate in Midtown with the conversion
of 7th Street between West Peachtree Street
and Piedmont Avenue to two-way traffic.
According to the Midtown Alliance, the
conversion brings new wheelchair accessible
ramps, striping, paving, installation of
signage and three eastbound traffic signals
at Peachtree Street, Juniper Street and
Piedmont Avenue. Funding for this project
was contributed via multiple partners:
City of Atlanta ($250,000 in impact fees),
Midtown Improvement District ($50,000)
and The Loudermilk Companies ($62,000).
With 7th Street complete, 13th Street
between Spring and Peachtree Walk will
soon return to two-way traffic. Part of
the conversion would be implemented
by developers to improve access to their
buildings —1163 West Peachtree Street,
14th Peachtree Apartments Holdings
LLC and 14th Peachtree Phase II LLC.
Implementation of the two-way street
between Peachtree Walk and West Peachtree
is expected to be complete in September.
The section between West Peachtree and
Spring Street will be completed in late 2017
or early 2018.
The Midtown Alliance is also looking
at extending 15th Street between West
Peachtree Street and Williams Street. The
Atlanta Regional Commission in
June awarded Midtown Alliance a
$188K grant to advance planning and
engineering designs for the extension.
Several entities came together to fund
construction, including commitments
from Georgia Department of
Transportation ($lm), City of Atlanta
($500K from impact fees), Midtown
Improvement District ($750K) and
private partners.
“This project is critical to
reconnecting the street grid and
relieving traffic pressure on 14th
Street,” said Midtown Alliance
CEO Kevin Green. “We appreciate
our partners coming through with
financial commitments that can move the
15th Street extension closer to reality.”
The two-way streets and expansion are
part of the new Midtown Transportation
Plan, which has more than 150
projects on the drawing board. Visit
midtowntransportationplan.com to find out
more. 03
8 September 2016 | fTTI
AtlantalNtownPaper.com