It’s been one year since opponents of Atlanta’s public safety training center submitted tens of thousands of signatures to the city clerk, in an attempt to force a referendum on whether the massive facility should be built with the help of public money in the South River Forest. Here are five things to know about the petition drive.
1. How many signatures are necessary to force a referendum?
In this petition drive, opponents must collect 58,231 signatures — 15% of registered voters eligible for the last general municipal election. The signatures must be from people who are currently registered to vote in the city of Atlanta, and who were registered in 2021. A hand count of the petition papers by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Associated Press, Georgia Public Broadcasting and WABE found organizers actually turned in 108,500 signatures — short of the 116,000 they have claimed. An analysis of a sample of signatures on petitions the media companies found that nearly half could be ruled invalid — meaning if petition organizers have met their goal, it is likely by a narrow margin.
2. How will the city determine whether signatures are valid?
The city has said each petition paper scanned and reviewed line-by-line to see if the listed information matches with the 2021 voter file. The city has said verifiers will rely on signature-matching if the listed information doesn’t give a clear picture on the validity of a signer — a method that drew harsh criticism from Democrats like U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock.
The city has hired a team of election experts as well as former Atlanta municipal clerk Foris Webb III — who retired last year — to aid in a detailed signature validation process that includes verifying residency, name spelling and addresses against the signer’s voter registration.
“Where a signature has been deemed Likely Not Genuine by unanimous agreement of two reviewers,” city officials said in a statement, “those signatures will be flagged for notice to the purported signor and an opportunity to cure the signature deficiency.”
City officials have promised that there will be a curing process for questionable signers, meaning there will be an opportunity to prove eligibility.
3. Why hasn’t the city started counting the petition signatures?
City officials have said they will not start counting and verifying signatures until a ruling is made in a pending lawsuit, which has complicated the signature collection process. A group of DeKalb County residents sued the city, arguing they should be allowed to collect signatures in the petition drive even though they live outside the city. Each of the plaintiffs live within miles of the training center site. A district court judge ruled in their favor, and restarted the 60-day timeline in which organizers had to collected the signatures. The city appealed that decision, and oral arguments were made in the case before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeal about 10 months ago.
The appellate court ruling could have an impact on the validity of signatures collected by the DeKalb residents, and signatures collected outside of the original 60-day deadline.
4. How much has the city spent on the legal fight over the referendum?
As of August, the city has spent nearly $2.2 million on legal representation and consulting on the pending petition verification process.
Records obtained by the AJC show a high price tag in two court cases involving the facility — the lawsuit against the eligibility requirements of the ballot referendum and an environmental challenge against the project.
The city has paid Robert Ashe, a well-known lawyer with Bondurant Mixson & Elmore, $780,000 for representation so far in the referendum case. The environmental case has proven more costly, racking up just over $1 million in legal fees to the law firm Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders.
The city also hired former Atlanta municipal clerk Foris Webb III to aid with signature validation, which includes verifying residency, name spelling and addresses with the signer’s voter registration. According to contracts and invoices, the city has paid out 11 installments of $35,000 to Webb from September 2023 to July 2024, totaling $385,000.
5. Has construction of the facilities been stopped during the legal battle?
No.
The city has been moving forward rapidly with construction of the 85-acre facility that will sit on Constitution Road in unincorporated DeKalb County. The training center is expected to be open and in use by December, according to officials.
The AJC has repeatedly been denied access to the site, but videos posted on Atlanta’s public safety social media pages show a nearly 59,000-square-foot academic building, a new fire station and stables for the city’s mounted patrols already built. A four-acre slab of concrete is poured and ready for police, fire and some of the city’s utility workers to practice driving vehicles.
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