Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens is turning 52 on June 17, and he is taking stock of everything he’s experiencing leading up to his birthday.
After the quarterly meeting of the Atlanta Committee for Progress (ACP) at the headquarters building of Invesco on Friday, June 12, Mayor Dickens sat down for an exclusive interview with SaportaReport, taking a moment to reflect on his life amid multiple catalytic events swirling around him.
The mayor began ticking off all that’s been going on.
The night before, he had attended the “successful” kick-off of the FIFA Fan Festival at Centennial Olympic Park.
On Friday afternoon, he and a host of dignitaries would be cutting the ribbon on the opening of two miles of the Southside Beltline trail connecting the Westside trail with the Eastside trail, completing nearly 17 miles of a continuous corridor.
“We are celebrating the longest uninterrupted Beltline trail ever, delivering hometown pride,” the mayor said at the event how the Beltline now connects 36 Atlanta neighborhoods. “We have an Eastside, Westside connected by the Southside.”
Then, Friday evening, he was going to the first Showcase Atlanta event at Old Fourth Ward Park. And he was looking forward to a packed weekend of economic and cultural events complementing the first World Cup game in Atlanta on June 15 when Spain, a favorite, was playing Cape Verde. Surprisingly, it was a 0-0 game.
“We’re excited about Monday,” Dickens said. “Monday is a big day.”
The Atlanta City Council was scheduled to pass the city’s budget and expected to pass the extension of six Tax Allocation Districts (TADs) at its meeting and his prized Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiatives (NRI). After the match, the mayor was participating in an economic development forum with Cape Verde.
Dickens is “forcing” himself to take it all in. So, when he’s riding in the “executive protection vehicle, the mayor is looking out the window looking at the city instead of staring at his phone, making calls and returning texts.
“I’m seeing all that we had planned, that mural, this road, that sidewalk,” Dickens said. “I’m rolling down the window all day. I did that yesterday, looking at stuff. It feels like something is happening. This is a special moment for us.”
Dickens said it’s not just special for the city. It’s special for the region and the entire state. Remember that in addition to serving as mayor, Dickens also chairs the 11-county Atlanta Regional Commission.
“There’s nothing like this in the Southeast,” the mayor said. The World Cup is attracting people from Nashville, Birmingham, Greenville, Jacksonville and all over the South to “feel the vibe” in Atlanta, spending money, enjoying the city’s small businesses, its spruced-up streets as well as numerous cultural and entertainment venues.
“I’ve been talking to myself about what I’m going to say when I wake up on Wednesday, which is my birthday,” Dickens said. The run-off election is being held the day before, so we’ll know who the Republican candidates for governor and senator will be as well as who will be the next Fulton County Commission chair — Robb Pitts or Mo Ivory.
“We would have extended the TADs and adopted the NRI. We would have voted once again on our budget, which would be another balanced budget for the city that delivers on all the stuff we’ve been talking about and keeps us with the AAA credit rating.”
For the mayor, his birthday will be a “proof of concept” on how the city is working to overcome “the tale of two cities,” with the north and eastern sides of the city prospering and while the south and west sides lag behind.
“I’m feeling that on Wednesday when I wake up, I’m going to say, ‘This is what we envisioned,’” Dickens said. “I really believe this is going to be the moment that basically says, ‘hook yourself up to this.’ The world will say, ‘I can hook up to Atlanta. This is something attachable. I can be a part of it. It’s got momentum. It’s got character. It’s got good bones. And they’ve got a vision, and they’re going to execute.’”
Although the mayor was taking a moment to breathe in the moment, he also reflected on Atlanta’s past successes and future challenges.
The special guests at the ACP meeting were Clyde Higgs, CEO of Atlanta Beltline Inc.; Austin Stephens, chair of the PATH Foundation; and Scott Kitchens of Alston & Bird, who also serves on the PATH Foundation board.
It was an opportunity to travel back in time to 1992, when the PATH Foundation was launched by Ed McBrayer and a nucleus of civic leaders to begin developing multipurpose trails throughout the region.
“It was important to really show how all this came to be,” Dickens said. “It came at a time that we were preparing for the Olympics.”
The parallels today is how the city has its sights on completing the 22-mile Beltline trail, which the mayor said should be completed by 2029 (a year earlier than originally envisioned), when he’ll be completing his second term in office.
Once the 2026 World Cup holds its semi-final match in Atlanta on July 15, Dickens said he will be turning his full attention to transit issues in Atlanta, including the Beltline corridor.
“We’ll be having community-based conversations with various advocacy groups, and we’ll be going down the path of talking about what’s best, and what all the options there are, funding for it, and construction for it,” said Dickens, who shared that news with ACP members — top business and civic leaders in the region.
Part of the focus will be on MARTA and its search for a new CEO.
“It’s taking longer than I wanted it to, but it’s still going,” Dickens said, adding that he hopes the board will “present some candidates” in the next six weeks.
Dickens also will be working with officials at Fulton County and the Atlanta Board of Education with the hope they will follow the Atlanta City Council’s move to extend the six TADS — Eastside, Westside, Campbellton Road, Hollowell/Martin Luther King, Metropolitan Parkway and the Stadium Neighborhoods — until 2056. The city did remove the Beltline TAD from the list, allowing it to sunset in 2031.
The Atlanta Board of Education is particularly important because it collects 50 percent of all property taxes, with the city and the county splitting the other 50 percent.
“We’ve been talking to them and keeping them updated,” Dickens said of the Atlanta Public Schools. He was encouraged that the Atlanta school board recently set up a TAD Investment Review Committee with the stakeholders reviewing the TAD extension proposal.
Ideally, both Fulton County and the Atlanta Board of Education would decide on whether to approve the TAD extensions by the end of the year.
Much work is left on Mayor Dicken’s agenda. But, for this moment in time, Dickens is taking it all in. Once again, Atlanta is enjoying a moment in the global spotlight. And the mayor is making sure he savors this moment in Atlanta’s history.
Happy 52nd Birthday, Mayor!
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