A petition filed by activists opposed to Atlanta’s planned public safety training center has been approved, paving the way for organizers to begin collecting signatures to put the project on the November ballot.
The Atlanta Municipal Clerk’s office approved the petition Wednesday, June 21, two weeks after it was initially filed by organizers behind the “Vote to Stop Cop City” campaign.
The approval also came two days after organizers took legal action in Fulton Superior Court against Interim Municipal Clerk A. Vanessa Waldon, saying she twice refused to approve the petition for “frivolous” reasons. They also said in the suit Waldon required information from them that she as the clerk is supposed to provide.
Waldon did not return a request for comment.
Kurt Kastorf, an attorney for the referendum organizers who filed the lawsuit against Waldon, said he doesn’t “want to attribute [Waldon’s] conduct to malice.”
“But it feels like an unnecessary delay that’s really infringing on the rights of the people to have their voice heard,” he said.
The infringement Kastorf refers to is time. Once the petition is approved, organizers have just 60 days to collect the approximately 75,000 signatures needed to get the referendum on the ballot. But the two-week delay has eaten up about five to seven days of that 60-day period.
Once the signatures are collected, the City Council has another 50 days to review them to ensure they are valid and the referendum can be put on the ballot. Then there has to be time to print the ballots.
“If you work backwards from Nov. 7, we already have fewer than 60 days to submit to ensure the city cannot attempt to stall until it is too late to place the referendum in the ballot,” Karstof said.
The referendum would ask Atlanta voters to decide “yes” or “no” on the question, “Shall the City Council repeal the ordinance authorizing the ground lease of 381 acres of land (the former Prison Farm property) to the Atlanta Police Foundation for the construction of a $90 million training facility.”
If more than 50% of voters choose to answer “yes,” the lease is terminated and the training center project is terminated. If this scenario plays, it is likely the city would legally challenge the results.
Getting the petition forms from Waldon as soon as possible is critical to ensuring deadlines can be met, Karstof said. She has promised to provide them by 2 p.m. today, but what to do about the existing lawsuit can’t be decided until after organizers and attorneys review the forms.
“Regarding the lawsuit, we are optimistic no further judicial relief will be needed,” Kastorf said in an email. “However, until she both sends us back the form and we are able to review that form, we cannot say for sure whether our request for relief is moot.
“We are concerned, for example, that the form may request more information from voters than the law requires us to collect,” he said. “If it does so, the [Vote to Stop City] coalition will need to make a decision about whether we still require court intervention.”