The New Public-Private Partnership: Atlanta Committee for Progress and What Else?

Andre Dickens, Atlanta Mayor. Arthur Blank, Atlanta Falcons owner. Greg Fenves, Emory President. Three leaders of different aspects of Atlanta life, one in politics, one in education, and one in business and entertainment. What do these three leaders have in common? The Atlanta Committee for Progress.

On its face, the Atlanta Committee for Progress (ACP) is a public-private partnership (PPP), founded in 2003 under the administration of then-Mayor Shirley Franklin, with the laudable and lofty goal of “allow[ing] the Mayor to gather input and collaborate with C-suite level business, civic, philanthropic, and academic leaders, on issues of critical importance to the city.” Such partnerships are common for city governments, and Atlanta has put an emphasis on these groups under the leadership of Mayor Dickens, who leads a mayors’ task force on PPPs. However, the ACP has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years over its role in the development of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, better known as “Cop City.” 

For better or for worse, the discourse surrounding the ACP has been limited by the salience of Cop City. At Emory, President Fenves has resisted calls to step down from the group over their support for the project, while elsewhere in Atlanta, other public figures have faced similar calls. However, while Cop City and the role of the ACP in its development continue to remain at the forefront of public discourse in Atlanta (and Emory), it is vital to look deeper at the committee and its activities.

While headlined by the dozens of political, educational, and business leaders that are members, their decisions are carried out by the ACP’s staff, led by veteran C-suite executive Kathy Waller. Waller herself has ties to corporate America, including Coca-Cola and Delta Airlines, two companies that historically have been represented on the committee. She is supported in her role of executive director by just two staffers, according to the ACP’s website: program manager Brittany Edwards and business manager Sonya Kalara. No additional description of the roles of the ACP’s staff is provided beyond their titles on the website. 

Stranger still, the committee has not published a written statement on their website since April 2021, with their last announcing support for then-Mayor Keisha Lance Bottom’s public safety initiatives, which included the development of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. Indeed, save for one statement released following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, there has been essentially no discussion of projects other than the public safety initiatives that have taken place since the end of former Mayor Kasim Reed’s tenure in 2018. All 11 major initiatives discussed by the organization highlight work that took place in 2017 or earlier. Five of their seven published statements were issued between December 2016 and October 2017. 

As murky as the roles of their staff and the recent activities of the organization are, its funding is equally unclear. The ACP’s most recent available financial information covers the fiscal year 2021, before Waller took over the organization in 2022. Their reported revenue at the time was just over $1.5 million, with the vast majority drawn from membership dues and a small chunk of funding categorized as “other.” Notably, costs for the year were split into two main streams. The largest expense, by a narrow margin, came in the form of grants and assistance to organizations. Nowhere is it evident exactly where that assistance went. Their second largest cost was salaries, with nearly $549,000 being paid out to then-Executive Director Shan Cooper and around $152,000 being paid as “other” salary. 

While not exactly spelling out exactly what the committee has done recently, the financial information does suggest some aspects of their contributions to Atlanta. The small amount of money spent by the organization illustrates that they don’t directly fund many projects. This is supported by their own list of initiatives, which suggests that the ACP often either fundraises for specific projects or engages in initiatives that don’t require much funding, like helping recruit former Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Meria Carstarphen. While this information helps detail a bit more about the ACP’s role, much remains unclear.

What is clear, however, is that the activities of such a who’s who of Atlanta leaders are worthy of deeper exploration. Regardless of opinions on the Cop City project, the organization’s actions and goals are, at best, unclear. Perhaps their relevance in Atlanta has faded over time, which would explain the datedness of their major projects. Or perhaps the lack of projects suggests that the committee is being used as nothing more than a meeting space for Atlanta elites. The opacity of the ACP’s activities and behaviors could very well dissuade Atlantans from caring about the group and others like it. After all, how important could a group whose last major project was completed over five years ago really be?

But the importance of the ACP and public-private partnerships like it across the country is rapidly expanding, and Atlanta has become a key enabler of that expansion. Local PPPs are booming in popularity, with mayors around the country looking to such efforts to deliver on a number of priorities and goals that helped them get elected. One such example is in broadband internet access, where a number of PPPs have been formed by local governments to bring service to underserved rural communities. Instances like these illustrate that PPPs can be effective in helping local governments achieve their goals. Andre Dickens has prominently argued that these partnerships are necessary for cities to maximize their efficiency in solving problems. 

However, the unique style of the ACP represents a troublesome potential future for these partnerships. Typically, these PPPs represent narrowly tailored, short-term, contractual relationships between businesses and governments. The ACP is decidedly not that, with a vague mandate on a vast swathe of projects and an undefined timeline. As these PPPs continue to rise, it is important to be wary of groups like the ACP, with unclear and hidden funding and agendas. While these groups may be beneficial in particular cases, there are just far too many unknowns to be certain, and, as with the ACP, these groups will never really be truly accessible for the general population to know if their local government’s partnerships are effective in solving problems, or if they are merely being used as an echo chamber by local elites. Critically, as the ACP itself has shown, these partnerships can quickly transition to opaque groups of decision-makers, governing with limited public input. This fear is realized in the case of Cop City, where voter support for the ACP-approved project is muddled at best, while the upper-class citizens who serve on the committee have largely stood behind it. 

As the ACP ensures its continued relevance in Atlanta politics surrounding ongoing public safety initiatives, questions about the group need to be continually asked, as we face concerns not just about their influence in Atlanta politics and daily life, but also about the group’s role in shaping future public-private partnership across America.