YIR: Atlanta’s New Mayor Still To-Be-Determined

The surprise announcement in May by Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms that she would not seek a second term threw open the November mayoral election.

A second surprise came on Nov. 2, when former two-term Mayor Kasim Reed finished third among 14 candidates on the non-partisan ballot. City Council President Felicia Moore finished first, but her 40 percent of the vote was short of the majority needed to win outright. City Council member Andre Dickens won the second slot in a Nov. 30 runoff by edging out Reed, 23 percent to 22.4 percent.

Between the general election and the runoff, momentum swung in Dickens’s direction. If there was a third surprise, it was the 64 percent to 36 percent margin by which Dickens trounced Moore to become Atlanta’s 61st mayor.

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Dickens was elected in 2013 to represent At-Large Post 3 on the city council and was re-elected in 2017. He has been an executive with TechBridge, a nonprofit focused on issues related to poverty. Dickens received a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) and a master’s degree in public administration from Georgia State University in 2013.

When he takes office in January 2022, the 47-year-old Atlanta native will lead a city afflicted by a spike in crime, short of sufficient affordable housing, plagued by near legendary traffic congestion, with one of the nation’s highest rates of income inequality and facing the possible secession of its wealthiest enclave.

Dickens has said that keeping Buckhead as part of Atlanta will be a priority. Buckhead covers approximately 18 percent of Atlanta’s land area, makes up about 20 percent of its population, and secession could cost Atlanta upwards of $200 million in tax revenues.

During the campaign, Dickens said that he would hire 250 new police officers, improve training techniques to include racial sensitivity and de-escalation techniques, and engage in community policing.

On housing, Dickens told the Atlanta Civic Circle and Saporta Report: “We need to build or preserve 10,000 units of affordable housing in the next four years, and I will hire a Chief Housing Officer to oversee those efforts.”