Kasim Reed Not Running for Mayor Again
Former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed attends an NBC News console give-and-take at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta in May of 2012. Reed is trying to make a political comeback by proverb he's the mayoral candidate who tin can help lower Atlanta's rising offense rate. Moses Robinson/Getty Images hide explanation
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Onetime Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed attends an NBC News panel word at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta in May of 2012. Reed is trying to make a political comeback by saying he'southward the mayoral candidate who can assist lower Atlanta's ascension criminal offence charge per unit.
Moses Robinson/Getty Images
The increase in violent law-breaking that has hitting cities across the country has dominated the non-partisan November race to be Atlanta'southward metropolis'due south side by side mayor.
In early on 2018, sometime Mayor Kasim Reed left afterward two terms of massive economic and population growth in Atlanta, but an increase in violent criminal offence, he says, pushed him to try for a political comeback after electric current Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms decided non to run for reelection.
That's despite a broad-reaching and ongoing federal abuse investigation that has implicated 10 contractors and officials from Reed's tenure, including his one-time main fiscal officer, chief procurement officer and deputy chief of staff.
Reed himself has not been charged and maintains his innocence, but he has apologized for failing to catch the crimes of his staff.
The urban center'southward murder total is close to double what information technology was the summertime before Reed left office. And given that track record, his message is resonating with some voters and donors. When he appear this entrada, he raised a record amount of money.
"Information technology's because people remember what the urban center was like when I was mayor," Reed said in an interview with NPR member station WABE. "And they have come to the decision that things were better when I was mayor."
Indeed, the crime rate is what's front of heed for Cindy Wooten, an Atlanta senior who attended a contempo Reed campaign upshot.
"We didn't have all that criminal offence when he was in part," she said. "We've got also much crime."
To her, the corruption investigation isn't relevant. "They didn't notice naught on him or they wouldn't have let him run again," she said.
Margaret Wesley, some other Atlanta senior at the event, agreed. "I don't think it'southward an issue considering I think if it was, he would accept been convicted of doing something wrong," she said. "And since he wasn't, then that's my human being."
Mayoral candidate Kasim Reed posing for photos with seniors at a recent entrada upshot in southwest Atlanta. A old two-term mayor, Reed is hoping to make a political comeback this year despite a corruption investigation into his by administration. Emma Injure/WABE hibernate caption
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Emma Hurt/WABE
Mayoral candidate Kasim Reed posing for photos with seniors at a recent entrada outcome in southwest Atlanta. A former 2-term mayor, Reed is hoping to brand a political comeback this year despite a corruption investigation into his past administration.
Emma Hurt/WABE
'The number one thing'
Fear affects how people vote, says Tammy Greer, a political science professor at Clark Atlanta University.
"This has been true fifty-fifty with the former president," she says of former President Trump. "I am able to overlook certain things because I feel safer, economically, socially, politically and physically." She says some voters are willing to gamble on that.
"Public safety is paramount. It'southward the number one thing in our state constitution, the number one affair for whatever elected official in the United States," says Chris Riley, chief of staff for a former Republican governor of Georgia who worked closely with Reed when he was mayor. Riley is supporting Reed's candidacy this year.
"If yous're worried nearly stopping at a convenience store and filling your machine up with gas ... that's a problem."
But for Reed's opponents — who are also campaigning on the criminal offense rate — the corruption investigation is very relevant.
"We spent a lot of time over the last four years trying to prove to the citizens of Atlanta, prove to the state, show to employees of the city and others, that we are upstanding ... despite a cloud of corruption that was over the last administration," says City Councilman Andre Dickens, who is as well running for mayor.
"And then here we go, inviting that dorsum? It feels disrespectful," he says.
A recent city audit plant a "wild w" spending culture among Reed's top officials.
Atlanta Urban center Council passed new city credit card usage restrictions and created independent procurement review and inspector general positions because of some of the crimes that took place during Reed'due south administration.
Another mayoral candidate, Atlanta City Council President Felicia Moore, says it is "unfortunate" how much time and how many resources the investigation has, and continues, to have up in the race.
"We have so many bug in the city, law-breaking beingness at the acme," Moore says. "Merely ... how do we deal with our affordability? How do we deal with the unsheltered population? How do we deal with our infrastructure needs?"
"We spend a lot of time talking most what is it like for a onetime mayor to be in a race," Moore says. "It's unfortunate that we take time abroad from dealing with the issues."
Moore says the metropolis law department has spent about $30 million on legal bills to handle requests related to the corruption investigation in recent years.
'A dissimilar identify'
Reed's opponents are also taking outcome with the record on crime he has touted.
"We are just in a different place, nationally, and profoundly, in Atlanta, and the strategies are going to have to exist smarter," says Sharon Gay, an Atlanta attorney and mayoral candidate.
"I call up information technology is simplistic for him to say, and for our citizens to assume, that because he has been mayor earlier, he lone has the answers," Gay says. "We can't keep doing the same old things and await a unlike result."
Nevertheless Reed exudes confidence about his power to bring the crime charge per unit down, as happened during his last tenure.
"When I got elected in 2010, we were experiencing a crime surge and then. It was the worst economic system in lxxx years. So information technology wasn't a pandemic, only it was a financial crisis. Revenues for the urban center were falling. The metropolis was in the red more than $fifty million," Reed says. "Merely nosotros prioritized building the police force strength because my theory was that if nosotros created a condom environment, that because of Atlanta's other potent fundamentals, investment would come up. And that's exactly what happened."
Five candidates are declared in the Atlanta mayoral race. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, the peak two head to a runoff.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2021/07/26/1020612160/atlantas-scandal-plagued-ex-mayor-is-trying-to-make-a-comeback
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