Tag: Atlanta Mayor

Andre Dickens is still acquainting himself with his job as mayor of Atlanta. But his mission is clear: Fight crime, produce affordable housing—which, experts say, would help prevent crime—and create good-paying jobs (another noted crime deterrent). Simply put, he must make Atlanta safer and more equitable.

In what would be his final sit-down, career-spanning interview with Atlanta magazine, Massell discussed his many accomplishments, including his battles with his more conservative mayoral predecessor Ivan Allen, the anti-Semitism he faced, getting the city’s transformational MARTA mass transit train and bus system started in the 1970s, Georgia 400’s life-changing expansion into Buckhead in the 1990s, and what he hopes his legacy will be in Atlanta.

Atlanta City Council President Felicia Moore trounced the competition, claiming more than 40 percent of the 96,122 votes tallied. Councilmember Andre Dickens defied pollsters and leapfrogged one-time frontrunner Kasim Reed, likely earning a runoff spot.

Kasim Reed filed paperwork on Monday to launch his bid for a third term as Atlanta mayor, and intends to officially announce his decision during his 52nd birthday party on June 10, according to two sources with direct knowledge of his campaign plans.

During his term as Atlanta mayor from 1970 to 1974, the city’s first Jewish mayor, Sam Massell, oversaw the campaign to create MARTA; began construction of the Omni, the city’s first enclosed sports coliseum; increased contracting opportunities for minority- and women-owned businesses; and appointed the first woman member of the Atlanta City Council. Since defeating a three-term incumbent to join the Atlanta City Council in 2013, Andre Dickens has become one of the legislative body’s most vocal champions of affordable housing, transit improvement, and equity.

Her critics worried she would be an extension of Kasim Reed. But after more than a year in office, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms wants you to know she’s leading the city on her own terms.

Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms unintentionally launched a media firestorm when she asked more than 25 of her cabinet members to submit their resignations. But regardless of tactics, her message was clear: This won't be a third term of Kasim Reed.

It’s now been 15 years since Maynard Jackson’s death, but the issues explored in the new documentary film about his life—the city’s fraught racial history, the expectations placed on a black mayor, the scrutiny on minority contracts for city business—feel very relevant today.

Just few weeks into her term, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms speaks out about the election, her efforts to raise $1 billion for affordable housing, whether she’ll endorse in the governor’s race, and the sexism she encounters as a woman who, besides being a mother of four, is the mayor of Georgia’s largest city.

He may have been born in Dallas, but Maynard Jackson was an Atlantan through and through.