Cynthia Hildreth is tired of waiting for southwest Atlanta’s Greenbriar Mall to add additional stores. She wants her next city council member to make sure it happens sooner rather than later.
“There was supposed to be some stores and activity at Greenbriar Mall, which hasn’t happened,” the 73-year-old grandmother told Capital B Atlanta. “The same stores that were there a year ago are the ones there now.”
Hildreth is one of the estimated 50 Black “seasoned” citizens living at Briar Park Apartments — a housing complex for local seniors — who showed up Tuesday night for an Atlanta City Council District 11 candidate forum.
A total of eight candidates are vying to fill the city council seat currently occupied by Marci Collier Overstreet, who is running for City Council President. Her aspiring successors include real estate attorney Nate Jester, community advocate Harold Hardnett, and local AME church leader Toni Belin-Ingram who attended the Briar Park candidate forum. Also present was educator Curt Collier, music executive Steven Dingle, and insurance professional Reginald Rushin.
Additional candidates Andre Burgin and Wayne Martin didn’t attend the meeting. Candidates Keith Lewis Jr. and Sherry Williams were disqualified earlier this week for failing to prove they’ve lived in the district for at least a year prior to the general election in November, according to Fox 5 Atlanta.
Residents who showed up for the Q&A session expressed concerns about affordability and gentrification in their southwest Atlanta neighborhood, but also the lack of places to shop and the controversial construction of a nearby gas station that folks in the community say city leaders illegally approved without their consent.
Briar Park renters association leader Shunize Alvin, who moderated the forum, said her group began organizing the event about a month ago to ensure residents at the complex are informed about who’s running to represent their interests at City Hall.
“They need to hear the representatives’ voices,” Alvin told Capital B Atlanta. “They need to see what and how they’re voting for as opposed to being told by [others].”
Hardnett is the founder of the Greenbriar Community Improvement District who wants to provide more incentives for small business startups and homeownership opportunities to increase neighborhood stability. He also wants to improve access to better education and job training programs.
Candidates took turns telling residents why they feel they’re the best person to represent district 11 on the city council.
He told the crowd at Briar Park that he’s one of the community leaders who helped convince city leaders to expedite road construction in Cascade Heights, where several Black-owned businesses were losing customers up until recently due to a yearslong street closure.
“I’m all results driven, and when I hear my people cry, I answer that cry,” Hardnett said.
Rushin is the veteran NPU officer and current chairperson of NPU-P, which includes Greenbriar. He wants to improve transparency and community engagement to ensure constituents aren’t blindsided by new developments in their neighborhoods, like the developing gas station on nearby Greenbriar Parkway.
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He and other candidates said they would maximize means of communication, including texts, emails, the local media, and door-to-door outreach, to ensure community members have input on decisions affecting their neighborhoods.
“[I’ll have] transparency, emails, send out letters and knock on doors and have my team out in the community to make sure everybody knows about what’s going on,” Rushin said.
Jester is the Marine Corps veteran and Harvard Law School graduate endorsed by the Working Families Party who wants to increase affordable housing and expand paths to homeownership and create additional tax protections for legacy residents.
“As a board member of an affordable housing nonprofit, I am ready to deliver the results that this community needs to be able to afford to live here and to grow here and to thrive here,” he said.
Belin-Ingram wants to increase transparency and community engagement to ensure district 11 is a priority at City Hall.
“[I want to] empower the people, to expand access to resources, making sure everybody knows their voice counts and how to share their voice,” she said. “I operate in integrity. I’m a trusted voice. I’ve always operated in transparency and accountability. Anything I say you can trust that it’s true and anything I promise, you can trust I’m going to do.”
Collier is a veteran educator who wants to focus on road improvements and battling gentrification with tax freezes.
“With every new home that is built at $300-$500,000, taxes are rising,” he said. “Those same taxes affect us right in our pockets now. Whether you’re a renter or you have a home, the pressure is right here on our [community] to kind of push us out.”
Briar Park residents expressed gratitude to all the candidates for showing up to speak with them directly.
One resident said she and her husband haven’t voted for 12 years, but she plans to change that in November after hearing from the candidates.
“We will be voting this year,” she said.
Early voting in Atlanta City Council races begins on Oct. 14 and ends on Oct. 31. The general election is set to take place on Nov. 4.
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