Chaos reigned over the Atlanta City Council chambers on Monday as council members and staff debated the intricacies of selling the Atlanta City Detention Center to Fulton County for $68 million, finally authorizing the transaction in an 8-7 vote.
An hours-long discussion led to a confusing vote when veteran Council member Michael Julian Bond tried to delay the measure – then re-litigate it – after it passed. Bond claimed his questions, and others’, were unanswered.
“I’m asking you, as the longest-serving member of this body, let the debate continue,” Julian Bond said.
Even City Attorney Amber A. Robinson needed several minutes to decipher Julian Bond’s “motion to spread” the matter to the next council meeting. In the meantime, Council member Wayne Martin tried to advance the resolution to the office of Mayor Andre Dickens.
More questions about procedure followed, and Council Parliamentarian Dennis Conway stepped in. Finally, council members appeased Julian Bond and returned to the discussion on the jail sale.
Terms of the deal
The deal between the City and Fulton County has included a series of negotiations by letter between Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and the Fulton County Commission members and a contentious work session that ended in a shouting match.
Council members appeared unprepared to take the final vote, asking many questions about the mechanism of the sale.
“If the intergovernmental agreement is required to come back to council for approval, what triggers the actual sale, and what are we being asked to do today?” asked Council member Byron Amos.
The legal team clarified that the agreement is separate from the sale. The council will approve how ACDC will be operated, not just by Fulton County but also by the City of Atlanta, Robinson said.
“The final authority, as far as the administration is concerned, rests with this body,” Chief of Staff Courtney English said.
But English warned: If the council voted not to sell the jail, “Atlanta taxpayers would be on the hook for another $1.4 billion, 60 percent of which would come from the city.” He was referring to Fulton County’s need to either build a brand-new jail or purchase ACDC for more inmate space.
The target closing date is Dec. 2. If negotiations go beyond that date, the City will pay $150 per detainee daily.
Topics ran the gamut from Council member Eshe Collins’ questions about the city’s financial responsibility to Council member Kelsea Bond’s data on diversion.
City Chief Operating Officer LaChandra Burks said the City has two contracts for pre-arrest diversion services: Grady Hospital manages and operates Atlanta’s 24/7 Center for Diversion and Services, which provides an alternative to jail or emergency room admission for minor and non-violent offenses, and Policing Alternatives and Diversion (PAD) is dispatched to the scene when 311 is called.
“Everybody cannot be diverted. If there’s a warrant out for an arrest for someone, that’s not an option,” Burks said.
According to a 2021 press release discovered by Bond, Atlanta, Fulton County and Grady Hospital jointly estimated that as many as 41 people per day could be eligible for diversion services from local jails, detention centers, and Grady’s emergency room to the diversion center.
“I would argue that all of those are not facts,” Burks said. “I know you’re getting information texted to you during this meeting … I’ve been on the Justice Policy Board since it was actually founded, so I have been a part of all the conversations and all the meetings around how we got to the numbers that we have at the diversion center, and how it is actually operating.”
Bond responded: “For the record, I spent all weekend researching this data, and the numbers that I just pulled are from the Fulton County website and my own experience sitting in on city council meetings.”
A push for ‘something bigger’
“We need to do something bigger and better than this,” Julian Bond said. “This is a rare opportunity in our city’s history.”
Julian Bond said he’s watched “administration after administration” try to sell the detention center and fail. In 2019, a “reimagining” of the ACDC was floated to turn it into a diversion center, with health and wellness and housing components, but the plan never came to fruition.
“Do something big. Do something that’s going to resonate around the region, around the country, about how Atlanta changed this criminal justice system and improved it, made it more merciful, made it more open, made it greater. Pause and reconsider,” Julian Bond said.
