Efforts to deploy retired Atlanta police officers in city parks could be revisited soon when the City Council meets on Monday.
The Police Recapture Program lets the city rehire retired officers at their regular salaries without taxpayers funding their benefits. Last month, the council passed a resolution to expand the program’s reach for patrol duty in the city’s parks and park properties.
City officials recently stressed that the crime wave is affecting parks. Councilman Michael Julian Bond, who sponsored the patrol resolution, created a separate ordinance that would direct the Atlanta Police Department to work with the Department of Parks and Recreation to study how many officers are needed for park duty.
Bond’s ordinance was nearly tabled after an hourlong discussion about the administration’s concerns with it. But the council’s Public Safety & Legal Administration Committee voted 5-2 in favor of advancing the ordinance to the full council.
City attorney Amber Robinson told the committee the mayor’s office wanted the study proposal to be submitted as a resolution “to avoid offending the constitutional separation of powers doctrine.”
Charletta Wilson Jacks — the mayor’s senior intergovernmental affairs advisor and assistant director in the Office of Planning — also said the city needs more than 30 days to complete the study because it would be “very challenging” to finish the study within that “very stringent timeframe” amid the administration’s daily duties.
“The mayor is certainly aware of what is happening in terms of the incidents of crime in these parks,” Jacks said. “There is a commitment on the part of the administration to address these issues.”
Bond disagreed with the mayor’s office and laughed at one point as he called the administration’s arguments “ludicrous” and “weak as water.” Bond said he’s open to a study deadline extension, but he defended the council’s powers.
“We have the power to direct the administration in any way that we see fit by a majority vote,” he said. “The mayor acts at the behest of the policymaking body...There needs to be an ordinance because there needs to be compliance.”
Councilmembers Carla Smith, Joyce Sheperd and Amir Farokhi tried to table the ordinance, but councilmembers Bond, Cleta Winslow, Andrea Boone, and Dustin Hillis voted against that effort.
Salaries for the retired officers could come from the general funds of Atlanta’s fiscal year 2022 budget. which begins in July.
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