Atlanta City Councilwoman Jennifer Ide, who has represented a portion of northeast Atlanta for the last four years, will not run for a second term this fall, she announced Monday.
Ide, whose district includes Virginia-Highland, Morningside, Ansley Park and Emory University, wrote in an email to supporters that not seeking reelection is “one of the most difficult decisions I have had to make.” She pointed to increasing responsibilities at her job as a reason for her decision.
“This next election cycle will be important. We need a mayor and council that will take us in a forward-looking direction to meet the challenges that Atlanta is facing. I plan to stay engaged and hope you will too,” Ide wrote in the email, a copy of which was shared with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
She announced her decision a day before candidates for mayor and City Council are set to begin filing paperwork to formally run for office. No challenger had launched a bid against Ide, who had been fundraising to run for reelection. She pledged to refund the donations she had received this election cycle — she had $6,400 on hand by the end of June.
Ide is the third council incumbent to announce they are not seeking reelection this year, after J.P Matzigkeit and Carla Smith. All 15 City Council seats are up for election this year.
Prospective candidates have until 4:30 p.m. Friday to go to City Hall and qualify to get their names on the ballot.
Ide, who works as a lawyer and currently chairs the council’s finance committee, said she is stepping into the role of chief administrative officer at Rimidi, a digital health start-up she and her sister co-founded in 2012.
“While I have tried to ‘do it all’ over the past few months, I have come to the realization that at the end of the day, doing two full-time jobs, as well as raising four children and supporting my husband in growing his therapy practice, has simply become unsustainable,” she wrote in the email.
She said she is proud of the work she has done since taking office in 2018, including sponsoring legislation to create the city’s Office of Inspector General and bolster government transparency.
“We are hopefully in a better place for having a transparent and ethical City government than we were in 2017,” she wrote.
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