In September 2011, the Atlanta City Council signed an agreement with the Atlanta Police Foundation. The agreement permits the foundation to construct a 34-hectare police and firefighter training facility.
County officials marked out a proposed site for the $90 million project at DeKalb County, right outside Atlanta city limits. However, residents are not pleased with the arrangement. According to the agreement, the Atlanta Police Foundation will pay the Council an annual lease of $10.
The concern of Atlanta residents is that the new facility will spell a militarization of the area. Atlanta has a predominantly Black population, and residents are predicting an increase in police brutality. Another point upon which “Stop Cop City” canvassers are basing their agitation is environmental damage.
Environmentalists are comparing the proposed campus site to Central Park in New York. This site, approved by the Atlanta City Council, is an urban forest with environmental significance for Atlanta and Georgia as a whole. Interestingly, the agitation to stop this project has been ongoing for the past two years.
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During the two-year agitation, residents have petitioned the City Council to halt the project. For such a petition to receive any attention from the City Council, it needs to carry the signature of a minimum of 15% of registered voters from the immediate past city election. The activists championing the movement have gathered well over 116,000 signatures so far.
In what turned out to be a record number of signatures for any petition in Georgia’s history, activists took several boxes of the signed petition to the City clerk’s office. However, city officials are not receiving the signed documents. The officials kept citing an Aug. 21 deadline, ending the 60-day grace period for submitting the petition.
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The petition itself has since become a subject of litigation. The petition effort is similar to last year’s referendum campaign in Camden County. Camden City Officials were working on a proposal to build a commercial launchpad for rockets. However, Camden residents found out early and kicked against it through a successful referendum.
So far, the Atlanta Council has been in staunch opposition to the anti-Cop City referendum. The Council went as far as to file a lawsuit with a federal appeals court to prevent nonresidents of Atlanta from collecting signatures for the referendum. Unfortunately, the Stop Cop City has become a national phenomenon.
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By implication, the fate of the over 116,000 signatures and the petition’s validity depends on the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruling. Several factors may lead to Atlanta residents losing this case against the City Council. One, the court may rule for discarding all signatures submitted after Aug. 21. Two, the court may disqualify the signature of individuals who are not residents of, and registered voters in, Atlanta.
Pending the final judgment, protests against Cop City are ongoing. Sometimes, vandalism of police properties creeps into the protests. Also, police are trying to contain the situation. However, the Atlanta City Clerk has refused to acknowledge or count the petition signatures until the court ruling.
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