(dramatic orchestra music) - Good afternoon.

I'm Rahul Bali, political reporter for WABE Radio.

Welcome to the Atlanta Press Club Loudermilk-Young Debate Series.

This is the runoff debate between among the candidates for Atlanta City Council president.

Let's meet the candidates.

They are, in alphabetical order, Natalyn Archibong has served on the Atlanta City Council representing district five since 2001.

Doug Shipman is the former CEO of the Woodruff Arts Center, and was the founding CEO for the National Center for Civil and Human Rights.

Now let's meet our panelists.

Sean Keenan reports on housing affordability for the Atlanta Civic Circle.

And Dawn Montgomery is a reporter with the Atlanta Voice.

For complete rules on today's debate, please visit the Atlanta Press Club website, atlantapressclub.org.

To start the debate, each candidate will be asked a question by each of the panelists.

Candidates have 60 seconds to answer each question.

Sean Keenan, you get the first question for Doug Shipman.

All right, Mr. Shipman, thank you for being here.

Part of the responsibility of the city council president is to form committees that help fine tune legislation before it gets to a full-council vote or potentially fizzles out.

You're up against someone who has years of experience serving on such committees as a member and a chairperson.

What do you think equips you to architect council committees, and what would you look for in a committee chair?

- Well, I appreciate the opportunity to be here today.

You know, I've been a CEO three times of major organizations in Atlanta.

I've served on many boards and committees of boards as well, including the Carter Center.

And so I would bring that executive experience to selecting committee chairs.

I also believe that it's important at this moment that we have committee chairs that do two things well.

One, really dig into the details because we need to make sure that committee chairs know what the legislation is, how it's been formed, and also what the implications of it are.

And second, to play an oversight role, a transparency role.

I think that we need to make sure that even at the committee level, we have transparency into what's working at City Hall and what's not working at City Hall.

We've seen federal funds have to be sent back, we've seen programs not working, and I think those committee chairs are gonna be vital in making sure that we catch those kinds of problems very, very early, so they don't become much larger problems.

And then finally, I'd say we need committee chairs to involve the public.

We need them to be involving citizens in legislation.

- Thank you, sir.

Dawn Montgomery, please ask your question to Natalyn Archibong.

- Thank you.

Congratulations, Archibong, on making it to the runoff.

- [Natalyn] Thank you.

- My question is, is you cast one of the four no votes on the Atlanta Police Training Center in September.

If you are elected city council president, how would you seek to build an effective relationship with APD leadership?

- Well, immediately after that vote, and even before that vote, I met with the union representing our law enforcement professionals, and I explained to them that the challenges that I faced was that the community surrounding the proposed facility had not been engaged in a meaningful way.

There were environmental questions, and there were a lot of questions and anxiety around, is this the most appropriate space?

And my vote was largely a process vote.

The process was deeply flawed and did not engage enough community stakeholders.

In my meetings after that vote, I assured the leadership of the Atlanta Police Department that it has always been my practice that once the majority of the city council vote and they make a decision on the direction for the city, I am 100% invested in making what has been agreed to and what is now the policy direction of the city.

I will follow it to the fullest extent possible.

- Thanks again.

Thank you, Councilwoman.

Sean Keenan, your question for Natalyn Archibong.

- Councilwoman, thanks for being here.

- Thank you.

- You said in the past that you want the council to be a quote "co-equal branch of government with the mayor's office," and that you don't think the council should be a nod squad for the next mayor and their legislative agenda.

You've largely been supportive of the Bottoms and Reed administrations in the past, so I'm curious if you think the council is comprised of yes men and yes women.

And if so, how do you change that?

- Well, you know, when you look at the policy agenda of the city, probably 90% of the issues are not controversial.

So it is not uncommon for the council and the administration to be in alignment.

And so it is in those wedge issues where there are concerns around public engagement, whether or not the impact will be detrimental in one way that we have not anticipated, and I can go on and on with the examples, but it is in those wedge issues that we will need to have council members who understand that they have a duty to be responsive to the community that allow them to represent them.

And through my tenure on city council, I have taken hard, courageous votes because of concerns around the, leaving the communities behind has largely been one of the drivers for me.

And so knowing that you can, after you vote no, you can still serve, you can still be effective, and you set a standard that says, "Bring us legislation that is ripe and ready, and that has been fully vetted."

- Thank you, Councilwoman.

Let's wrap up this round with Dawn Montgomery and your question for Doug Shipman.

- Thank you.

Mr. Shipman, there's been a lot of speculation about where your campaign support comes from.

And I know that it's steered people more towards Archibong and supporting her.

Can you just talk about whether or not you are going to be more transparent about what you're gonna do in uniting the city of Atlanta and not trying to pick sides or say, you know, "Just because I have their support, I'm not gonna do what is put in front of me as city council president"?

- Sure.

So I actually checked the stats today.

And as of today, we have almost 1,300 contributions under $100, almost 1,400 contributions under $200, and almost 2,000 contributions overall.

This campaign has been an incredibly big tent of supporters from all over the city who really want fresh leadership and who really want to see things done.

You know, when I was leading the Center for Civil and Human Rights, there was a lot of speculation that because we had corporate money and foundation money and individual money that somehow the stories in the center would be somehow compromised.

And I think we can all agree that the Center for Civil and Human Rights tells hard stories, tells the truth about both past and present issues.

And I would leave the city the same way.

I would basically make sure that we are doing the people's work, and I've listed every single donor of mine on my report so everyone can see exactly the wide array of Atlanta that's supporting our campaign.

- Thank you, sir.

That concludes the first round of this debate.

The candidates will now ask a question to each other.

Candidates will have 30 seconds to ask the question, 60 seconds to respond, and then the candidate who asked a question will get 30 seconds for a rebuttal.

By random selection, Natalyn Archibong, you may ask the first question.

- Thank you.

At the recent League of Women Voters forum you described climate change as a crisis, and you describe the people who came from New Orleans to Atlanta as refugees.

I find that language offensive and insensitive, and I wonder why you use that language.

And then secondly, you have consistently used the images of deceased civil rights leaders on your campaign literature, indicating they endorse you when it is impossible for them to have done so.

Why are you using such deceptive tactics?

- Well, the term "climate refugees" is one that's used very broadly to describe exactly what folks are, fleeing climate issues in their home communities and trying to find a safe haven someplace else.

We have seen that when major storms have happened in New Orleans with both Katrina and more recently.

I spent 10 years working to tell the stories of folks like Reverend C.T.

Vivian, John Lewis, Joseph Lowery, Evelyn Lowry.

That work was work that I did for the entire city.

But my name isn't on the Center for civil and Human Rights, and rightly so.

Their names are.

And I simply, in running for this office, wanted to showcase the work that I had been a part of, that I had been so humbled to lead, and also to show that that's exactly the kind of leadership that I would bring to this role: The ability to bring together generations, to work across race, to work across religion, to make sure that we actually do the work of Atlanta.

And that's why I have showcased my experiences which I think are so relevant to what we need right now.

- Councilwoman Archibong, 30 seconds.

- The men and women who came to Atlanta after that crisis were, first and foremost, American citizens.

We should not be differentiating them from all of the American population.

Rendering mutual aid to our neighbors should be what we do organically.

It is disingenuous to use the images of people who cannot say yes, they do support you, or that they don't support you.

The voters deserve transparency, and they deserve clear communication.

Thank you.

- [Rahul] Thank you, Councilwoman.

Doug Shipman, now your chance to ask a question of your opponent.

- Thank you.

I think everybody in this political season can agree that the BeltLine is one of the most transformative initiatives in our city and probably in our lifetimes.

It links neighborhoods together, it sprang enormous economic development.

My opponent has talked a lot about her experience on council over decades, but that experience led her to vote against the BeltLine when it was first proposed, saying it was too big for Atlanta to do, and to recently vote against completing it.

Also we've seen promises around transit and housing affordability be broken and not fulfilled.

So my question is, Ms. Archibong, what value is all that experience when your judgment has been so poor on the future of Atlanta?

- That's your opinion.

I've been elected five times.

It is not the opinion of those we've elected me.

The BeltLine is large.

It was big, and the information that we had before us was not complete.

Look at the housing affordability issue.

I am proud that I voted for the amendment that at least required 5,600 units.

Woefully inadequate.

What I proposed was that we do the BeltLine in increments.

The recent proposal that I did not support, which would have put a 2% mill increase on every small business and multifamily property around the BeltLine in a pandemic, I thought was tone-deaf and insensitive to the time that we are in.

The BeltLine is an amazing amenity in our city.

And as I previously said, it is always my posture that once a policy decision is made by a majority of the council, I'm all in.

I served on the Atlanta BeltLine board for three years.

The BeltLine is a treasure, and we need to wrap our arms around it.

And I'm proud of the incremental decisions that I made around parts of our policy direction.

Thank you.

- Thank you, Councilwoman.

- [Rahul] Mr. Shipman, 30 seconds.

- You know, as I've been across Atlanta in the last eight months across neighborhoods knocking on doors and meeting people in their backyards, they have expressed their frustration and the fact that they're tired of waiting.

Waiting for our city to be affordable, waiting for transit, to be built, waiting for things to happen.

I think that the record that we see for my opponent is one of not making things happen, and it is time for fresh leadership so that we actually get things done for our city.

- Thank you, Mr. Shipman.

That concludes our second round.

For those of you just joining us, this is the runoff debate between the candidates for Atlanta city council president.

Now we'll go back to the our panelists asking questions of the candidates of their choice until we run out of time.

Now, in this round, I may also ask questions of the candidates.

Also, I will determine when a rebuttal is appropriate.

Sean Keenan, you get the first question of this final round.

- All right.

This is for you, Mr. Shipman.

You said in a recent interview with Saba Long that you'd be willing to hold up the city budget process if there was a dispute over legislation or quote, "if the city is not currently working."

You said, quote, "you may put city employees at risk, but ultimately the council has to be the one that arbitrates whether the city is effectively spending its money."

Can you expound on that?

Because I think some people might see that as legislative or political hostage-taking.

When might that be necessary?

- So ultimately the city council has to be the one to make policy and to make budget decisions.

And too often, we have seen in the past unanimous approvals of budgets when we know that funds aren't being spent appropriately, when we know services aren't being delivered.

One example has been the HOPWA program, the Housing Opportunities for People With AIDS.

For years, multiple budget cycles, thousands of people living with HIV have been unable to get housing subsidies that the federal government has given to Atlanta to help them.

I think that in those kinds of situations, of course we want to negotiate, and of course we want to make things happen, but the council ultimately has the power of the purse and has to be willing to use that in order to make sure that the administration not only talks about getting things done, but actually makes commitments and changes and operationally actually undertakes the ability to make sure that things are done correctly.

And so I think that ultimately the city council has got to use its power of the purse to make the city work well.

- [Rahul] Sean, you have a quick follow-up on that.

- Yeah, so I just wanna really, I guess, get a clear picture on what you were talking about when you talked about the risk to city employees.

Can you kind of walk us through the risk-reward calculus of, you know, the sacrifices that might happen.

- [Rahul] I'm gonna give you 30 seconds on this.

- Thank you.

So I think that we have to be very, very clear that holding up a city budget would have implications.

My comment was simply saying that this is not something that I would take lightly, and is not something that I think that we should do in, you know, very trivial circumstances.

We would have to be very, very clear that holding up a budget or holding up parts of the budget would have implications on our city.

But ultimately, the responsibility of city council is to hold the administration accountable.

And too many times in the past, we have seen city council not hold mayors and administration officials accountable.

- Councilwoman Archibong, would you like to chime in on this for 30 seconds?

- I would.

HOPWA dollars, Housing Opportunities for People With AIDS, is not in the city budget.

That is a grant fund that is administered by a separate entity.

We do have a grants management office that only provides accountability, financial support, and the agency that is responsible for that is not in the city government's budget.

So to say you would hold up the budget because of HOPWA funding doesn't make any sense.

Thank you.

- Dawn Montgomery.

Your choice to ask a question of the candidate of your choice.

- Yes, this is to Councilwoman Archibong.

- Mm-hmm.

- The city council announced it is closer to establishing an affordable housing trust fund.

Can you please explain how this fund will provide more housing around the city, and will it be affordable for all?

- We are looking at releasing a bond that will establish as little as 50 million and as much as $100 million.

The challenge will be how to allocate those dollars in a way that it will, in fact, increase affordability for all.

Some of the buckets that we're looking at is owner-occupied rehab.

We're also looking at down payment assistance for first-time home buyers.

We're also looking at a way to incentivize developers to include affordability within their models of their price points for their properties.

We're also looking at acquisition of property so that we can have land that will be affordable and not just subject to price increases.

We want the affordability in the land to stay with the land and to keep affordability in the houses or rental units that are built there.

So we are going to deploy that dollar, those dollars as efficiently and effectively as possible.

- Thank you, Councilwoman.

Sean Keenan, a question to the candidate of your choice.

- Councilwoman, this one's also for you.

You're a veteran at City Hall, having served in your district five seat for some 20 years.

Did the federal corruption scandal come as a surprise to you, or were there red flags along the way?

And as council president, how would you help shed the stigma associated with the scandal?

- The first inkling of a scandal was when our chief procurement officer was escorted out of the building by the FBI.

We had heard rumors, unsubstantiated complaints from vendors, but unsubstantiated.

And so that first indication was that day when that happened.

We were vigilant.

We were concerned about what next could happen, but the reality is, when you have professionals who are commissioners and who do not do their jobs in a way that is accountable and that is legal, we would not have any way of knowing that as a city council.

But what I can tell you is that, in response to that, I am proud to have supported the establishment of Office of Inspector General.

We also have required for every procurement that comes into the city council that we have an independent review of that procurement to make sure that it is in compliance fully with the law.

To the extent that we can, we have tried to correct and make sure that we have safeguards in place to prevent anything like this happening again.

- Thank you, Councilwoman.

Sean, I believe you have a follow-up on that.

- Yeah.

Just briefly.

And maybe this is for both of you.

I understand the Office of Inspector General.

Outside of that, if you smell something wrong, what is your role?

- [Natalyn] Right.

- [Rahul] Okay, we'll start with, for 30 seconds, Councilwoman Archibong.

- Well, the first thing that you do, we have to have facts.

And so you go to the department of purview and you ask probative questions based upon, usually it's a staff member who has some concerns, or it is a contractor or a vendor who has concerns.

So you start there, and then you go to the law department, and then you go to the inspector general's office to have them investigate.

We also have in our toolbox the use of an independent auditor.

And we have constantly used that when we've heard questions about process or procedure or financial impropriety.

We bring in the independent auditor to investigate.

- Thank you, Councilwoman.

Mr. Shipman, the discussion of corruption issues, legal issues within the city of Atlanta, that's a long-running issue.

For 30 seconds, can you address what your role is as city council president on that issue?

- So I've been a chief executive of a $100 million organization employing 1,000 people.

When we were building the Center for Civil and Human Rights, we had 40 million city dollars and 5 million federal dollars of tax credits.

The role of city council president can be just like an executive.

You ask for random pieces of paper and invoices, and you look at them.

You ask questions of the folks who are actually both doing the payments and doing the receipts.

You make sure that all the processes are in place for double signatures, for checking, for balancing.

I think the role of city council president is one to actually personally be involved in transparency, and also working to make sure that committee chairs who have oversight are also involved in making sure that this doesn't happen again.

- Thank you, sir.

Dawn Montgomery of the Atlanta Voice, a question to the candidate of your choice.

- To Mr. Shipman, what are the top three things you hope to accomplish if elected as city council president?

- So I've knocked on 4,000 doors, and the same three things have come up all across this city.

Number one, public safety.

Folks want to feel safe in their neighborhoods.

We have to make sure that we have our incentives right, we have to make sure we have mental health and we have substance abuse specialties on our police force.

We've got to make sure our lighting works.

Number two, they want city services to work.

Folks are tired of their yard trimmings not being picked up, and the potholes they report being never fixed.

And even 311 not being able to even report such potholes.

We've got to make sure that those processes and those budgets are in place, and that we actually have the metrics and the oversight and the data to know when things are failing so we can correct them.

And then finally, how we're growing and our infrastructure.

There's no question we're gonna grow in Atlanta.

We can feel it.

We see the companies moving here, we see the college students wanting to stay here, but we also know we have a very weak foundation.

And so I think that long-term view, how do we make sure in five years and in 10 years we have the infrastructure and the foundations in place to make sure that everyone can thrive, those are the three things that consistently come up as I've moved across this campaign.

- So before we go to closing statements, I'd actually like to give you that question before we wrap up with closing statements.

The question being, if I'm right, Dawn, kind of your three big things if you were elected city council president.

- Thank you.

One of the first things that I want to do is, this will be in December, we will all know who is in office at the end of this month, and in December, I want to pull together every elected official from all 12 council districts and the three at large, and I want us to talk about the path forward.

We have all been on the campaign trail, and we have all heard the initiatives and the concerns of the constituency.

Now we need to figure out a path to getting it done.

So I want us to coalesce around objectives and priorities.

Next, I want to convene a meeting that will allow for every council member to meet the departments.

The work of the city is done by the employees.

I'm honored to have been endorsed by AFSCME, the largest union of city employees for our city.

And I've also been endorsed by the firefighters.

It is important to help our new council members understand how to navigate in City Hall.

And then thirdly, we've got to build that relationship with the mayor, and make sure that our priorities are in alignment so that you, the people, get the services, the benefits, and the priorities as set in accordance with your concerns and your desires.

- Thank you, Councilwoman.

And that finishes up questions from our wonderful panelists.

Thank you so much to our panelists.

Each candidate will now give a closing statement.

They'll have 60 seconds.

Doug Shipman, you get the first of the final closing statements.

- Well, thank you to everyone for tuning in tonight and taking time.

You care about the city because you've spent time with us.

You know, when I started this campaign, I haven't ever been on a ballot.

I'm a lifelong Democrat, but I wanted to bring a sense of working with everyone.

Because right now, as I've knocked on 4,000 of your doors and met over 3,000 of you at our events, I've heard how tired we are.

We're tired of waiting for trash and trimmings to be picked up, we're tired of streets not being fixed, we're tired of feeling unsafe in our own neighborhoods, we're tired of waiting for the corruption at City Hall to end, we're tired of waiting for our politicians to actually meet our needs, and we're tired of all the division.

We know that words and faith are not all there is to leadership, but works and deeds.

There's a reason I had the most votes in the general election.

People are hungry for fresh leadership.

They want an Atlanta and an Atlanta City Council that gets something done.

I'm Doug Shipman.

I'm asking you to vote for me starting tomorrow so that we can get to work together in building the Atlanta we want for our children.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Shipman.

Our final closing statement from Natalyn Archibong.

- Thank you for hosting this event.

You know, our city has been through 20 plus months of a pandemic.

I am proud of the men and women who have worked for the city to do the best that they could under very dire circumstances.

You know, we hear about our sanitation services going off track.

Well, we had a number of our employees who've suffered with COVID because they were very forward-facing, they were in the public in harms way.

I am proud of them.

I am proud of this city.

You have hung with us through these difficult times, and together, we will do better.

And I've been on the council, as they say, for 20 years, and I've learned a lot during that time.

And I've learned that Atlanta is a resilient city.

I've learned that those who offer themselves to serve because they want to believe that the city of Atlanta is a remarkable city in this nation.

I am an independent leader, I know City Hall, I know you, and I'm ready to serve.

They say we have a strong mayor, weak council form of government.

I disagree.

As a co-equal branch of government, we deserve a strong council.

For an Atlanta that is safe and a city council that is strong, vote Natalyn Archibong.

- Thank you.

- Thank you so much.

That concludes our debate.

We'd like to remind voters that the runoff election is Tuesday, November the 30th.

Please check your voting precinct to determine where your early voting hours are and what your days are and locations.

Thanks to our candidates.

Thanks to our panelist of journalists.

We'd also like to thank the Atlanta Press Club for arranging today's debate.

For more information about the debates and what we'll host this season, go to the atlantapressclub.org.

I'm Rahul Bali.

Thanks for joining us.

(dramatic orchestra music)