Gulch deal

first time in the department’s recent history.

“If you look at the police pay miracle, that shows how well we can work together,” said Councilman Howard Shook.

Shook added that the police union endorsed Bottoms’ opponent, Mary Norwood, in last year’s election.

“It speaks a lot of the mayor,” Shook said. “Keisha did not have to do what she did.”

Conflicts of interest?

However, Bottoms’ handling of pivotal decisions involving the Gulch raised questions early.

In August, the AJC reported that the city had hired the stadium authority’s de facto leader to help negotiate the multi-billion dollar deal to develop the Gulch, raising questions about whether he could fairly look out for the best interests of both.

Alvin Kendall, a lawyer with close ties to Bottoms, had billed the city at the time more than $48,000 as the city’s “special counsel” on the Gulch deal.

Kendall, through two related companies, also had billed the recreation authority nearly $300,000 in consulting fees since late 2015.

Despite being dubbed a nominal consultant, Kendall’s actual role was to run the authority’s daily operations, giving rise to a possible conflict, local elected leaders and ethics watchdogs told the AJC.

The recreation authority owns land in the Gulch and State Farm Arena. Its interests in redevelopment or a land sale could conflict with those of the city and Gulch developer CIM Group, experts said. Kendall is also the registered agent for Bottoms’ campaign.

Kendall was disciplined by a state board in 1992 and his law license was suspended in 1998. That same year, Kendall was convicted and sentenced to five years in federal prison for conspiring to tip off a client, who was part of a drug ring, to a pending

DEA search, according to articles in the AJC. Kendall was later disbarred, but had his law license reinstated.

On the other side of the negotiating table sits Robert Highsmith, a partner at high-powered law firm Holland & Knight hired by CIM, who has also represented the city as a lawyer and lobbyist.

In separate statements, Bottoms said no conflict existed with either attorney and described Highsmith “as one of Georgia’s leading authorities on governmental ethics, open records and transparency, campaign finance and election law.”

But members of government accountability groups told the AJC that putting Kendall in charge of the negotiations was an example of the behavior Bottoms had promised to eliminate.

The Atlanta Fulton County Recreation Authority has since hired an executive director to run the agency.

Also in August, the AJC obtained an undated document showing that CIM was seeking authorization for $1.75 billion in public financing for a project that would cost a total of $5 billion.

Documents showed that it would be the largest single development downtown since John Portman’s Peachtree Center started in the 1960s and includes at least nine skyscrapers. CIM appeared to have plans to compete for Amazon’s second North American headquarters.

The proposal was also unprecedented in its demand for public tax dollars. It is more than double the projected $700 million in longterm financing for Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

‘The level of distrust’

Bottoms’ office initially intended to bring Gulch legislation before council for a vote Aug. 20. But some council members only learned the details of the plan after being contacted by the AJC. Over the next two months, Bottoms’ administration would try to bring the issue up for vote two more times, only to withdraw the request after it became clear the project lacked enough “yes” votes.

Adding to Bottoms’ woes, a coalition of residents dubbed “Red Light the Gulch” quickly formed. Members came to council meetings dressed in red to complain about the lack of public input during the process.

“I think she probably underestimated the level of distrust among the public and the council that had developed in recent years,” said Council Member Andre Dickens.

The threat of the deal falling apart was so great at one point that Bottoms, sick with a fever, made an unexpected appearance at the Sept. 11 meeting of the Community Development and Human Services Committee to confront council members. She warned the city might lose the relocation of Norfolk Southern because land the Fortune 500 company owned in the gulch was crucial to the company’s move.

She also addressed members individually, identifying issues she had worked on that were of importance to each of them.

“The fact that this conversation has taken the tone and the turn that it has taken today is quite frankly amazing to me,” Bottoms said. “From my seat as mayor, not once have I turned a deaf ear to any of your concerns or any of your projects.”

Despite the rare public plea, the committee rebuffed Bottoms’ request to move along the proposal. Members argued they hadn’t had time to properly vet more than 600 pages of documents received from the administration only days earlier.

Supporters of the project continued to blame the council.

“I hope we don’t have a City Council that is full of spoiled brats,” Young said, “because Keisha isn’t one of them. Keisha has come up the rough side of the mountain.”

Frustrated by City Hall politics, CIM’s development team and allies purchased radio ads and launched a social media blitz under the banner “Greenlight the Gulch.”

“I think there’s been some communication issues between the administration and the council,” A.J. Robinson, the CEO of Central Atlanta Progress said at an AJC editorial board meeting. “I don’t think anybody would disagree with that.”

Richard Ressler, CIM co-founder, told the editorial board that further concessions weren’t possible.

But three weeks later, the company agreed to eliminate a 10-year extension of the Westside TAD, which was supposed to help finance bonds for the project. Those dollars instead would fund schools and other public services. Bottoms blamed the Atlanta Public Schools for not agreeing to the extension.

CIM and Bottoms had maintained for weeks that the deal couldn’t get any better. Now the scent of blood had entered the water. Further delay, some suggested, would only benefit the public.

“CIM was bluffing to see how much all of us could be played,” Julian Bene, a former board member of Invest Atlanta, the city’s development agency told the council Oct. 15. “Maybe we should drag this on for another two months.”

Bottoms argued that the public reception for the development “is overwhelmingly supportive.”

“By and large,” she wrote in an email, “the general public does not understand the hesitancy in going forward with this project.”

Council members are bracing for another round of lobbying this weekend. Some worry that the project is a distraction from other pressing needs. But now the stage appears set for a dramatic conclusion.

“We need to get out of the Gulch,” said Council President Felicia Moore at a meeting last week. “We have come to the time to fish or cut bait.”