The newly elected chairman of the Atlanta Regional Commission is also top executive at a commercial real estate company that stands to make millions of dollars from the Braves stadium deal.
Kerry Armstrong is a senior vice president for Pope & Land Enterprises, part of a two-company team that is a finalist to build the $400 million entertainment district surrounding the new baseball stadium in Cobb County.
Critics say that Armstrong's role at the ARC presents a potential conflict of interest and raises questions about the role people with business or other special interests should be allowed to have on its 39-member board. Armstrong said Tuesday that he will recuse himself from voting on stadium-related matters.
“I really don’t think it’s a conflict of interest,” Armstrong said. “But certainly, if any matter came to the board of the ARC that represented one, I would recuse myself.”
The Pope & Land team is one of two finalists, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported last week.
The Atlanta Braves said in a statement Tuesday “we are in the process of evaluating project partners at every level and we cannot comment on any potential partners until they are selected.”
The stadium is expected to come before the ARC for consideration in coming months because it is a development of regional impact. The ARC is the official planning agency for the 10-county Atlanta region.
Typically, ARC staffers evaluate if the project is in the best interest of the region. The board only votes if the staff and the Environment and Land Use Committee decide the project is detrimental, ARC community development director Dan Reuter said.
The ARC can vote down a major development like the stadium and recommend changes, as happened with the Mall of Georgia and Atlantic Station because of traffic and access issues, Reuter said.
However, the board can’t kill the deal. State law gives counties and cities almost complete authority over zoning in their jurisdiction, said Reuter.
As the pass-through agency for federal transportation dollars, the ARC can put the brakes on proposed transportation projects that could improve access to the future ballpark if the projects require federal funding — and most do.
Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia, said the conservative thing for Armstrong to do would be to recuse himself from voting on such projects. But, he added, “Even a decision-maker who recuses him or herself, they have established relationships with members who aren’t recused. Even if you resigned, there is still a lingering effect. The kind of relationships that existed, you can’t erase those.”
Relationships are critical to getting things done in the ARC, said board member and Fayette County Chairman Steve Brown. Brown said most of what is accomplished happens behind the scenes before meetings, where votes are usually unanimous.
While he describes Armstrong, 58, as “an angel of a man,” Brown said he has long held concerns about citizen members like Armstrong and former ARC chairman Tad Leithead — both of whom, he noted, are involved in the Braves deal — because they aren’t accountable to voters.
Armstrong has been an ARC citizen board member representing a portion of Gwinnett County since 2008. He replaced Leithead on Jan. 1, after Leithead announced he would not run for reelection.
The ARC is made up of 15 citizen members, 23 elected officials from counties or cities and one representative from the state Department of Community Affairs.
The ARC has citizen members because they are mandated by state law to ensure citizens have a voice, ARC spokesman Jim Jaquish said. Georgia is one of the few states in the country that has them on its metropolitan planning organizations, he said. Elected officials on the board vote for the citizen members, who serve two-year terms.
This is the second time this week a question of conflict of interest has arisen around the Braves deal. On Tuesday, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Mason Zimmerman, a Cumberland Community Improvement District member who voted in favor of contributing millions of dollars toward the new stadium in November, is a senior vice president at Pope & Land.
Zimmerman denied any conflict, noting his vote came before the Braves had begun seeking a developer.
William Perry, executive director of Common Cause Georgia and a critic of the way the deal has gone forward, said he’ll give Armstrong and the ARC the benefit of the doubt if Armstrong promises to abstain from stadium-related votes. However, Perry added, “I think even they have to understand the public is a little skeptical, especially the way this deal was handled.”
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