City of Atlanta Parks and Recreation commissioner George Dusenbury resigned Tuesday from Mayor Kasim Reed’s administration, the fourth top-ranking member to leave in recent months.
Reed spokesman Carlos Campos confirmed Dusenbury’s departure and said his last day will be May 16th. The administration has not yet announced who will replace Dusenbury as head of the department.
The former executive director of Park Pride joined Reed’s administration in 2010. Dusenbury said Wednesday he hopes to return to the nonprofit sector to work on quality of life issues. He has not yet accepted a new position elsewhere.
“I think working at the city was a tremendous opportunity to impact change,” he said, thanking his staff and Reed. “If you look at the things we’ve accomplished, I’ve had the support I needed.”
His resignation is the latest in a string of departures from Reed’s administration since the mayor was re-elected last November.
Hartsfield-Jackson airport manager Louis Miller and COO Duriya Farooqui left the administration in January. Invest Atlanta CEO Brian McGowan resigned last month to join the Metro Atlanta Chamber.
In a letter to his staff, Dusenbury listed a number of the department’s achievements in recent years, including reopening 16 recreation centers, forming a graffiti task force, creating enhanced youth development programming with Atlanta Public Schools, acquiring land for a dozen new parks — “above and beyond the Atlanta Beltline,” Dusenbury noted — and creating an online parks registration and reservation system.
“We’ve spent four years and really accomplished a lot and it’s at a point now where I’m looking to get back to the private sector,” he said. “…Sometimes you get that sense of when it’s time to move on, and I got that sense.”
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