With Georgia’s local primary elections just four days away, eight candidates vying for offices ranging from Fulton County commissioner to the Georgia General Assembly joined a community-centered candidate forum in Atlanta’s Westview neighborhood on Thursday evening.
The forum, which focused on a total of five races, was led by Capital B Atlanta in partnership with The Ke’Nekt Cooperative and the Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Inc., and moderated by Atlanta journalist King Williams. The goal was to give Westview residents the opportunity to ask the hard questions to their next potential representative.
Candidates for Fulton County commissioner in Districts 4 and 6, District 56 in the Georgia House of Representatives, Fulton County tax commissioner and Fulton County clerk of Superior and Magistrate Courts were on hand to address questions that were gathered through community engagement conducted by Capital B Atlanta.
Audience members could ask one question each to either a specific candidate or the entire group. Here’s what the candidates had to say.
Fulton County Jail issues
In response to a question about how county officials could deal with overcrowding, dilapidated conditions, and a spate of deaths inside the Fulton County Jail, District 4 County Commission candidate Mo Ivory said the commission needed to pull itself out of dysfunction to address issues at the jail. Ivory, who is running against incumbent commissioner Natalie Hall, currently works as a law professor at Georgia State University.
“That is what the huge issues are,” Ivory said. “The commission is highly dysfunctional. Right now, there’s $30 million being spent on renovations just to keep the jail operating until a new jail is built. It continues to be expensive to even keep it in operating order while they figure out what’s happening next.”
She says it is up to the community to elect people who are willing to move in an expeditious manner as a means of not only saving taxpayer dollars but providing a better quality of living for inmates inside the facility.
“There needs to be people that are elected to the commission that believe that this issue is an absolute priority,” she said. “All of the offices in Fulton County — district attorney, all of the judges, all of the commissioners — everybody has to sit at the table and work it out together because no one person can resolve that overcrowding.”
Affordable housing
Ciara L. Anderson, District 6 Fulton County Commission candidate, said that the lack of affordable housing especially hurts her community, which has many low income residents.
“We used to have affordable housing that some may refer to as ‘projects’ but they were affordable for those who lived in this community,” she said.
This was echoed by Duvwon Robinson, a candidate for Fulton County tax commissioner, who says the county and local municipalities must hold large corporations and developers accountable for building housing that is affordable to native Atlantans.
“When you have Google and Microsoft coming in and you give them all these multiyear tax breaks to build affordable housing, we need to make sure that’s actually affordable based on what people in Atlanta make,” Robinson said. “Let’s sit at the table and really define what affordable housing really means before we give these tax breaks to companies that would rather pay the penalty to not be affordable.”
Public school funding
When asked if he would support utilizing the state budget surplus to fully fund pre-kindergarten for all Georgia students, Georgia House District 56 candidate Bryce Berry says that not only would he fight to fully fund pre-K, he would also push to use that surplus to fund school infrastructure and technology to create an environment that encourages students to engage.
If elected, Berry would become the first active teacher to serve in the General Assembly.
“Why would we let that money just sit in our bank account and not work for our people?” Berry said. “We need to invest in building and funding school renovation projects and getting technology in our classrooms that make the kids want to be there and learn.”
His opponent Adalina ‘Ada’ Merello agreed with fighting to fully fund pre-K as well as funding mental health initiatives.
“I’m running my platform on mental health and that means funding mental health for kids,” Merello said. “I wouldn’t be opposed to making sure every kid can go to pre-K.”
Rebuilding community trust
Across all candidates and offices, one theme came up repeatedly: the need to reconnect with disaffected constituents. Ché Alexander, the incumbent Fulton clerk of Superior and Magistrate Courts, said many of the tasks her office performs, such as processing civil and criminal cases, are relatively mundane. But, she said, she understands how much those tasks can impact the lives of county residents.
Alexander, who is facing three challengers, including former Atlanta City Council member Keisha Sean Waites, said that without community involvement, she is unable to properly conduct her role as a servant of the people.
“Coming to events in a community like this is how I keep the community first,” Alexander said. “That means not only being present, but also being available to serve my people.”
Fulton County Commission District 6 candidate Ali Carter said his previous role as chief of staff for current Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens during Dickens’ time as an Atlanta City Council member led him to being forward facing with community members at all times — even if that means answering their calls at all hours of the day.
Carter is currently running against Anderson and incumbent Commissioner Khadijah Abdur- Rahman.
“I’m used to attending NPUs [Neighborhood Planning Units],” Carter said. “When I was serving as the director of constituent services, that was a 24/7 job. I had to be ready to serve at any time, whenever anyone called.”
