Council approves legislation calling for More MARTA audit
The Atlanta City Council on Monday approved an immediate consideration item requesting that MARTA submits to a complete financial audit of the More MARTA program to be paid for and administered by the City’s Department of Finance.
The audit’s scope will include all revenues and expenditures associated with More MARTA and local revenues and expenditures that support operations and capital projects in Atlanta, as well as federal funds received and expended in the program’s lifetime to date, including federal COVID-19 relief funds. The legislation requests that MARTA responds to this request on or before its next scheduled report to the Council’s Transportation Committee on March 29, 2023.
The Council also gave the first of two required adoptions for legislation to amend the City’s Charter and Code of Ordinances to change the Office of the Inspector General by removing the ethics officer and Ethics Division in order to reestablish a separate Ethics Office (22-O-1823). Two adoptions are required as a charter amendment.
Other items approved Monday include:
• A resolution urging all stakeholders: news, media, communication outlets, parents, faith leaders, corporate, philanthropic, private sector, community leaders, and all elected officials within the city of Atlanta to unite in efforts to re-adopt the public service announcement, “It’s 9 o’clock, do you know where your children are?” This public service announcement is in response to ongoing violence among youth after curfew hours within the city. This item was an immediate consideration.
• An ordinance to amend the Fiscal Year 2023 General Government Capital Outlay Fund Budget to allocate funds from the impact fees reserve to fund transportation projects such as signals, sidewalks, communication corridors, complete streets, and intersection improvements to upgrade roadway system capacity in the amount of $3.8 million (23-O-1133).
• An ordinance to authorize the City to execute a third amended and restated intergovernmental agreement with Atlanta Housing Opportunity Inc. to expand the applicable number of housing units that would qualify for funding under the Small Multifamily Developer Loan program fund and to increase the funding threshold for the program (23-O-1135).
• An ordinance to amend the composition of the City of Atlanta’s Human Relations Commission to add two additional members, expanding the current membership from seven to nine and the manner of appointment (23-O-1136).
• An ordinance authorizing the mayor or his designee to apply for and accept grant funding from the Georgia Department of Transportation and if awarded, to accept such funding, to enter into any necessary grant agreement, and amend the Fiscal Year 2023 budget by adding to anticipations and appropriations up to $2 million to increase the budget amount authorized for resurfacing work on Trinity Avenue, Memorial Drive, and roads around the state capitol (23-O-1134).
• A resolution requesting the Georgia Department of Transportation include the Martin Luther King Jr. Bridge located over I-285 in the I-285/I-20 Interchange Project and to host additional public forums with southwest Atlanta communities (23-R-3278).
• An ordinance authorizing the chief financial officer to amend the Fiscal Year 2023 budget to accept $512,000 in proceeds from the Eastside Tax Allocation District (TAD) that will be used to reimburse the Department of Enterprise Asset Management (DEAM) for costs related to the implementation of real estate transaction strategy development services for 2 Peachtree Street (23-O-1130).
• An ordinance to authorize the mayor or his designee to execute agreements with performers, artists, venues, and vendors for the 2023 National League of Cities (NLC) City Summit, which will be held in Atlanta in November (23-O-1137). The legislation also authorizes the City to accept donations and contribute funds to meet its responsibilities as the summit’s host.
• A resolution requesting that the mayor takes into consideration and funds priorities that the Council recommends be included in the Fiscal Year 2024 budget (23-R-3285). This legislation helps set the policy framework for budgetary decisions as Council establishes priority areas for the coming budget year.
• A resolution to adopt the 2024 update to the City of Atlanta’s five-year financial plan for years 2024 to 2028 (23-R-3210).
Items were also introduced to be considered in committee, including:
• A resolution to adopt the goal of achieving and maintaining 50 percent average tree canopy cover within Atlanta and to request that City Planning use this goal to guide future updates to the tree protection ordinance and other land development related ordinances and to request that Planning conduct a study every 5 years to measure the tree canopy cover within the city.
• An ordinance to extend the due date by which City Council must adopt the preliminary plan for the “Moving Atlanta Forward” infrastructure initiative City Council discretionary accounts.
• A resolution requesting MARTA adopt disadvantage business enterprise practices for the More MARTA Atlanta Program.
• A resolution to allocate 25 percent of all amounts of monies generated from the Public Safety Training Center to workforce housing, sustainability, infrastructure, and youth development.
• A resolution urging the Georgia General Assembly to pass legislation creating a clean-slate law to provide certain non-violent individuals the opportunity to have their records expunged or sealed.
• A resolution requesting the administrator for the Municipal Court of Atlanta and staff from the Office of the City Solicitor make recommendations on establishing procedures to automatically expunge non-violent, Municipal Court, criminal records after a period of five years from the date of the violation(s).
• A resolution authorizing the City of Atlanta to donate $100,000 to the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change to support Nonviolence 365 training for up to 400 Atlanta youth.
