A federal judge overseeing the case involving Atlanta activists’ referendum effort against a police and firefighter training facility accused city officials on Wednesday of moving the goalposts on the signature-gathering campaign, saying they have “directly contributed” to a widespread sense of confusion over the matter.
U.S. District Judge Mark Cohen ruled that he does not have the authority to force the city of Atlanta to begin processing the tens of thousands of signatures that were handed in Monday by “Stop Cop City” activists, explaining that he cannot intervene while a larger dispute over the effort is awaiting input from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
But Cohen also said he was “compelled to comment upon the vacillating positions of the City of Atlanta throughout this litigation.”
“On June 21, 2023, instead of approving a referendum petition it had no intention to honor regardless of the number of signatures obtained from City residents, the City could have taken the position it later espoused in this lawsuit and disapproved the petition as unauthorized under Georgia law,” Cohen wrote.
The judge continued: “The City instead opted to approve a petition for a referendum it believed and later contended was illegal. A proverb dating back over four centuries ago once again applies here: Honesty is the Best Policy.”
Over the past three months, hundreds of activists spread out across the city to gather what they said were more than 116,000 signatures of registered Atlanta voters, far more than necessary to force a vote on the proposed training facility that has outraged environmentalists and anti-police protesters across the country.
But activists who arrived at City Hall on Monday carrying boxes full of signed petitions were shocked when Atlanta officials told them the clerk was legally barred from beginning the process of verifying the forms, saying organizers had missed an Aug. 21 deadline. The deadline had been…
Read the full article here
