When the Atlanta City Council last June passed a controversial multimillion-dollar funding package for Atlanta’s public safety training center, they made a special request of the Police Foundation — that two members of the Council be able to sit on the Foundation’s Board of Trustees.
That request, a resolution that was approved in a 13-1 vote, followed another, earlier measure also intended to improve public transparency about the project.
In May, the Council voted unanimously to request that the Foundation, the powerful nonprofit organization in charge of the project, provide in-person, quarterly updates on the project to City Council.
More than nine months later, neither transparency step has been satisfied and the only city update on the project came in January from the mayor’s office that revealed the project costs have increased by $19 million.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reached out to Atlanta City Council and the Atlanta Police Foundation, who both expressed support for the transparency measures.
With both on board, it is unclear why neither has taken place. The mayor’s office, which has taken the lead on public communication, said that it’s the responsibility of council to request any update.
Still, it seems there may soon be some movement on both measures.
Council member Andrea Boone is the recently appointed chair of the Public Safety and Legal Administration committee, which would receive briefings from the foundation under the measures. She told the AJC that she will soon be reaching out to her fellow members for buy-in.
“I think that is something that we’re going to have to do,” she said. “I’m going to speak with members and see in what form they want to do it — do they want it to just be a committee report? Or should we have it for the public?”
“I think there are more (council members) interested in it than just the six or seven on committee,” Boone said.
Foundation officials also told the AJC in a statement that the…
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