Atlanta's mayoral vote certified

By Cameron McWhirter

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Even before Kasim Reed was declared Atlanta’s official mayor-elect Saturday, he had already begun assembling a government and moving forward on campaign priorities. Within days of last Tuesday’s election, he had picked a second-in-command, begun the search for a new police chief and started drafting plans to slash the city’s high pension costs.

Mary Norwood, his opponent in the close Dec. 1 runoff, plans to ask for a recount. But Reed said he must act as though he will be Atlanta’s next mayor. Only a few weeks remain before his new job starts, he said, and he has to begin the complex task of transition.

Reed told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he has picked Peter T. Aman, an Atlanta partner in the international business consulting firm Bain & Company, to be his chief operating officer, his second-in-command to run Georgia’s largest municipal government. Aman will be Reed’s key adviser in setting policy and managing department budgets.

In an exclusive interview with the AJC, Aman said Reed — who ran Franklin’s two campaigns for mayor and declared her his mentor in his victory speech last Tuesday — will not be asking for blanket resignations from Franklin’s current senior department heads. But Aman said that at least 10 — including Police Chief Richard Pennington, COO Greg Giornelli and Chief Financial Officer Jim Glass — have announced their intention to leave. Reed has a list of candidates for these positions, Aman said, but Aman declined to mention names. Reed spent at least part of last week reading resumes.

On public safety, Reed is putting together a police transition team to look at the department’s needs and how to increase staffing. He is also creating a special committee to search for a new police chief. The committee will include members of the city’s citizen review board and the police union.

Reed has set up a conference call with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for this coming week to get advice on running a national search for a new commissioner and on tackling Atlanta’s gang problem. Los Angeles has just finished a national search for a police chief and chose someone from LAPD ranks, Charlie Beck. Los Angeles has seen a decline in crime and gang activity and an improvement of relations between the police and minority communities. In Atlanta, crime dominated the recent mayoral campaign, with high-profile murders and robberies fueling public concern. Aman said Reed plans to hire more police and to overhaul the city’s troubled 911 system. He said a Reed administration would be prepared to take money from other city departments to increase funding for public safety.

“If that means a patch of grass doesn’t get mowed for awhile, we are willing to accept that,” Aman said.

He also said Reed has drawn up plans to ask Washington for federal money to bolster public safety and other city services.

“We have very active and aggressive plans to seek federal aid,” said Aman, who likely would play a major role in choosing a new police chief — he has been a board member of the city’s Police Foundation for years.

On pensions, Reed told the AJC he is establishing a pension reform group to advise him on how to dramatically cut pension costs. In recent years, the amount the city has paid annually to employee pension plans has ballooned. In the 2002 fiscal year, when Mayor Shirley Franklin took office, the city paid $43 million to its police, fire and general employees pensions. As of June 30, that cost had more than tripled, to $136 million, according to City Council pension reports.

Reed told the AJC last week that the pension expense “the biggest threat to the city.”

Reed’s moves on pensions could quickly lead to his first political showdown as mayor. Though the police union and general employee unions endorsed Reed in the runoff, they are expected to battle him if he proposes major cuts to city pension benefits. (The firefighter’s union backed Norwood).

Reed, a former state senator, said he will ask the state Legislature in the 2010 session to pass legislation to make it easier for the city to alter its pension payments and benefits. He declined to provide specifics on the legislation. Aman said they do not have a target for how much they want to reduce the pension costs yet.

“It’s a very complex issue but we have to deal with it,” Aman said. “There will be changes.”

Though Aman, 43, has made his career in restructuring private industries (his specialty is revamping media companies, and the AJC was a client in the past), he is no stranger to the inner workings of city government. In 2001, he called to offer the pro bono services to then newly elected mayor Shirley Franklin. Reed, then heading Franklin’s transition, picked up the telephone when Aman called. Beginning in 2002, Bain, under Aman’s direction, produced reports at no cost to the city that outlined major reforms in city operations and finances during the Franklin years. The company estimated its free services to the city at $7 million.

Aman said he would become COO for a year while on leave from Bain. His salary has not been determined, but Aman said whatever he is paid, it is less than what he would make at Bain. “I’m not in it for the financial reward,” he said.

Within days of Reed being officially declared mayor, Aman said Reed would announce chairs of transition committees on public safety, finance, personnel, communications and private sector relations. He said Reed also plans to establish permanent advisory councils from the city’s neighborhoods, religious community and business leaders to regularly speak with the mayor.

Aman said two major focuses of his job would be getting a handle on city finances and improving customer service from city departments.

Asked to describe his management style, Aman said, “you can’t just insult people and you can’t just compliment people. ... Meritocracy is a word I really like.”

Aman is a strong supporter of the ATLstat program, a management program that sets numerical goals for departments and then checks regularly to see if those goals are being met. Such programs have become popular at other city governments, but ATLstat has had limited success here so far. Expect Aman to expand the program.

Aman said Franklin accomplished a great deal in her two terms in office, but “our task now is to move it forward even further. If she had not done what she had done, we would have gone into receivership.”

Franklin leaves office with the city budget in the black, but only after several years of widespread layoffs, salary freezes, furloughs and service cuts that have dispirited the workforce. Atlanta’s boomtown economy has been especially hard hit by the national recession, with property taxes — a main source of city income — taking a hit.

Aman said a Reed administration would start with limited resources, but he said the city has many assets other cities don’t have, and as the economy improves the city stands to gain.

Alton Hornsby, a history professor at Morehouse College, said Reed’s ambitions will be constrained by the recession.

“It’s going be a difficult row to hoe until the national economy improves,” Hornsby said. “The best that he can hope for is to hold the line.”

Reed, Aman and others close to Reed held their first transition team meeting Wednesday, 12 hours after he had declared victory Tuesday midnight.

The team has established preliminary goals to be accomplished within the next 35 days and goals to be accomplished with the first 100 days of a Reed administration.

“Obviously the time is short,” Aman said. “While we don’t want to be presumptive, we do want to be prepared.”