The Atlanta city council adopted new rules on Monday that would allow the referendum process for the public to vote on the “Cop City” project to move forward. The vote came amid protests against the methodology the council adopted for signature matching on referendum petitions, which critics say gives the city a way to block a public vote on the controversial project.
Three people calling for the signature matching element of the ordinance to be removed were escorted from the council chambers ahead of the 10-5 vote adopting the ordinance.
“It just comes down to democracy or chaos. Which one do you support?” Tim Franzen asked city councilmembers at a hearing, before being hustled from behind the dais in a brief protest. “Today this isn’t even about a public safety center. It’s about whether democracy works.”
Construction of the now-$110m Atlanta Public Safety Training Center began last spring after contentious hearings at which activists criticized its expense, its location in woodlands outside the city and the city’s circumvention of public input. Protests began to escalate in 2022 and began drawing national interest after police killed activist Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán near the center’s construction site in January 2023, shortly after a state trooper was wounded by gunfire.
Activists have subsequently sabotaged construction equipment and disrupted development at the site. The city attributed a $20m increase in construction costs to the protests, though requests made to the Atlanta police foundation for additional details about these costs have gone unanswered. The foundation is building the training center under a lease agreement that has been a focal point for public criticism.
The fight over Cop City has become a political football in Georgia politics. State and local police have arrested and charged 61 activists under Georgia’s racketeering act, accusing them of crimes ranging from criminal trespassing to domestic terrorism. The district attorneys of Fulton and DeKalb county – both progressive Democrats – have ceded prosecution on these charges to Georgia’s attorney general, Chris Carr, a Republican with political aspirations.
Amid these arrests, activists last summer began gathering signatures on a petition for a referendum intended to block the city from opening the training facility. In December, organizers turned in petitions with more than 116,000 signatures, which would represent twice as many voters as any elected official in Atlanta has earned in as generation.
However, an analysis by media organizations in Atlanta suggests that only about half of the signatures meet the legal standard under Georgia law required to call a referendum – a registered voter in the city proper, at the time of the last city council election, with a signature that clearly identifies the voter.
The method the city uses to validate a signature may make the difference between its acceptance and rejection, and whether the petition effort succeeds or fails. Councilman Michael Julian Bond noted that the ordinance explicitly bars the use optical character recognition, a key criticism of opponents. The adopted ordinance also provides for a mechanism for voters to cure a signature that is ruled invalid.
But critics fear, given the procedural hurdles they have faced to date, that signature matching will be applied arbitrarily to block a public vote.
“While this is not exact match … the verification as it is listed for me can create issues for people experiencing disability and the elderly,” said Councilwoman Liliana Bakhtiari, an opponent of the proposed facility. “I have done all I can.”
The petition has been in a state of limbo while legal challenges by the city over signature validation and the legality of the petition itself are resolved. The impasse kept a Cop City referendum off the ballot last year. Even if the council waived the petition and approved a referendum today – a prospect not under consideration – there isn’t enough time to hold a vote before state primaries on 21 May. City leaders claim construction is 70% complete and expect to open the training center by the end of the year.
Organizers say they want a vote as soon as possible.
“The next fight is that the mayor needs to drop the appeal, because they need the process to move forward. They need to let the count start,” said Marisa Pyle, an organizer with the Cop City Vote Coalition and former senior aide to Stacey Abrams at Fair Fight Action. “They now have a process. … The mayor said he wants the signatures to be counted. Let them be counted.”
