Updated as of 12/14/2023 at 1:00 p.m. ET with exclusive interview with Councilwoman Liliana Bakhtiari
Last week, sources told The Guardian and Mother Jones that Councilwoman Liliana Bakhtiari was in a closed-door meeting discussing an ordinance regarding the so-called “Cop City” in Atlanta.
However, since those stories published, Bakhtiari said she’s been receiving straight hell from Vote to Stop Cop City supporters who accused her of moving behind their back. Now, she’s ready to set the record straight.
What’s The Drama?
The Atlanta Public Safety Training Center — an 85-acre facility running with a price tag around $90 million — is being built to house all training services for police officers and firefighters. However, critics of the project are reportedly arguing that the center will only promote more aggressive, militarized policing tactics, per NBC.
Additionally, Black residents have voiced concern over the facility’s proximity to their communities, and environmentalists have voiced concern about the massive impact construction will have on the forest.
The Guardian wrote that with the help of voting rights groups and democratic law firms, Bakhtiari drafted an ordinance proposing that the people should have a say and a vote in the construction of the training site.
However, following a meeting last week to go over what Bakhtiari called a “very rough draft of the ordinance,” the councilwoman said people involved in the discussion took to the media as if she planned the legislation without the public’s input.
Read more from The Guardian:
But in a meeting behind closed doors during the city council meeting last week, where the city councilwoman Liliana Bakhtiari was planning to introduce the ordinance, a deputy chief of staff to the Democratic mayor, Andre Dickens, objected to wording that would have made the process for handling petitions effective immediately, thus covering the Cop City referendum effort, according to a person who was in the room and spoke to the Guardian on condition of anonymity.
Lack of Trust Leads to Suspicion
Bakhtiari tells The Root to call the meeting “closed-door” was disingenuous considering there was a representative from the Vote to Stop Cop City coalition present during the conversation at hand.
“We were back there having that conversation together and I was fighting alongside them, pushing back, talking about what’s at risk not just at a local level with the training facility, but in general with the attacks on democracy” she said.
The ordinance, according to its details from Mother Jones, didn’t appear to have any red flags but instead simply aimed to codify the petition process by preventing oppressive verification tactics that jeopardize voting rights. However, Bakhtiari stressed the bill was in its most premature state and no definitive decisions could have been made at this point.
“It wasn’t even legislation. There were edits being made to the draft as recent as that Monday. There were pieces that were missing out of it, there’s things that hadn’t been properly embedded ... It was just extremely disorganized. It wasn’t actually a finished product. We were trying to fix that,” she said.
When asked why she thinks things got so intense following the ordinance leak, she said it really boils down to wavering trust and frustration given the lack of transparency (and accountability) other government officials have demonstrated throughout the Cop City ordeal.
The pressure is on her because she’s received little to no support from her colleagues.
“Maybe this is born out of the frustration and the disappointment in me, of just this general body. I understand. That is totally valid. But I would also hope that everything I have done by myself for the last year and a half would have also earned some level of faith,” she said.
What Happens Next?
Over 100,000 signatures were collected in a mass petition to stop Cop City’s construction. However, a sample analysis from several Atlanta publications and The Associated Press found only 1,000 signatures were valid signatures from Atlanta residents, suggesting there may not be enough signatures to trigger a referendum.
If about 58,000 of the signatures can be verified as Atlanta residents (who were registered in the last municipal election by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, Bakhtiari says she can move forward to present the petition as a question for the ballot on January 8.
“The part of it with codifying petition processes can go forward no matter what. If there is a ruling before January 8th, I’ll be looking at ways to put this on the ballot. If they throw it out, I’ll be looking for ways to put this on the ballot because council does have the power to put a referendum on the ballot,” she said.
This revelation comes almost a month after another clash between Cop City protesters and police officers which resulted in a war-zone scene of tear gas and flash bang grenades, per an AP report. We’re going on the second year of consistent pushback against the training facility since the fatal shooting of environmental activist Tortuguita, who was killed while camping out near the facility, authorities say.
The people certainly have a lot to say about Cop City and how they feel it will affect their community, and Bakhtiari said they are figuring out how to fight it.
“This is an unprecedented time, and we will figure out a path forward. I’m not done. I’m going to keep my promise,” said Bakhtiari.