Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms touted Atlanta’s successes, including the unanimous approval of next year’s budget and its hosting of the 2019 Super Bowl, but discussion of city government ethics and transparency took center stage during her speech to the Atlanta Press Club on Tuesday.
Bottoms addressed the recent shakeup in the Task Force for the Promotion of Public Trust — a group that had its first meeting in May. She called for fair news coverage of City Hall and pointed to reports on the city's transparency issues as one reason people might not apply for a job with the city.
“What I ask is that we tread lightly and more objectively with those who’ve chosen to serve the city,” she said.
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Bottoms made her comments one day after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported a member of the task force, Joe Whitley — an attorney who does legal work for Atlanta — stepped down once it was discovered there could be a potential conflict of interest. Bottoms appointed Whitley to the task force, which was established to evaluate the city’s ethics and transparency policies amid an ongoing federal corruption investigation.
During the past three years, the city has paid Whitley’s employer, law firm Baker Donelson, millions of dollars to respond to federal investigators’ subpoenas and requests made by news media under the Georgia Open Records Act.
Bottoms told the audience that she called Whitley to convince him to reconsider his role on the task force but said “I couldn’t in good conscience ask him to put himself on the line to make our city better.”
The future of the task force is uncertain. Task Force Vice Chair Don Penovi called for Chair Leah Ward Sears — former Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice and mentor to Bottoms — to resign ahead of the task force’s second meeting Tuesday evening in City Hall.
But Bottoms’ concern with news coverage is with how the city is portrayed. She laid much of the fault with how media outlets cover the city and criticized a lack of “positive news” that could sway potential job candidates to work for the city.
“In a lot of ways serving the government is seen as a career ender,” she said. “If you make a mistake at your job (in the private sector), it’s discussed internally and not for public consumption.”
Bottoms said she isn’t asking for a spin or a slant on a story — but objectivity. She said she prefers criticism be directed toward her and not those who choose to volunteer their services to the city.
“We cannot turn the city into a spectacle,” she said. “What I ask is that you take your shots at me.”
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