For about 14 hours, residents again and again took to the podium at City Hall to slam the project, saying it would be a gross misuse of public funds to build the huge facility dedicated to police and firefighter training in a poor, majority-Black area.
ATLANTA — The Atlanta City Council early Tuesday approved funding for the construction of a proposed police and firefighter training center, rejectingwho packed City Hall and spoke for hours in fierce opposition to the project they decry as “Cop City.”
“Atlanta will be a national model for police reform with the most progressive training and curriculum in the country,” he said. “We’re here pleading our case to a government that has been unresponsive, if not hostile, to an unprecedented movement in our City Council’s history,” said Matthew Johnson, the executive director of Beloved Community Ministries, a local social justice nonprofit. “We’re here to stop environmental racism and the militarization of the police. ... We need to go back to meeting the basic needs rather than using police as the sole solution to all of our social problems.
Council members agreed to approve $31 million in public funds for the site’s construction, as well as a provision that requires the city to pay $36 million — $1.2 million a year over 30 years — for using the facility. The rest of the $90 million project would come from private donations to the Atlanta Police Foundation, though city officials had, until recently, repeatedly said the public obligation would only be $31 million.
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Atlanta project decried as 'Cop City’ gets funding approval from City CouncilAtlanta City Council has approved funding for the construction of a proposed police and firefighter training center, rejecting the pleas of hundreds of activists who packed City Hall and spoke for hours in fierce opposition to the project they decry as “Cop City.” The vote is a significant victory for Mayor Andre Dickens, who has made the $90 million project a large part of his first term in office, despite significant pushback to the effort. For about 14 hours, residents again and again took to the podium to slam the project, saying it would be a gross misuse of public funds to build the huge facility in a large urban forest in a poor, majority-Black area.
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