October 26, 2023
Will Atlanta’s “Stop Cop City” Referendum Make It Onto the Ballot?
By Peter Lucas
Organizers collected 116,000 signatures in support of a referendum to repeal the ordinance authorizing the police training facility, but it’s unclear if—and when—the initiative will be voted on.
(Spencer Platt / Getty)
This summer, Stop Cop City organizers pivoted to use the state’s legal processes to advance their goals. What started as a neighborhood environmental campaign two years ago has grown into an international climate and anti-policing outcry and—most recently—a potential voting matter for the city of Atlanta.
In 2021, Atlanta City Council announced plans to build a 85-acre, $90 million police training facility, nicknamed “Cop City” by activists, in the Weelaunee Forest south of the city. The project generated staggering backlash—protest encampments on the proposed construction site in the Weelaunee Forest, a summer of marches, mutual aid, and community-building, and 17 hours of public comment overwhelmingly opposing the facility.
Lisa Baker, a Dekalb County resident and Stop Cop City organizer, recalls that the idea for a ballot referendum, a process of allowing constituents to directly vote on an issue of interest, was tossed around as early as September 2021, but organizers decided against it until the movement grew significantly. Eventually, they revisited it with force, zeroing in on canceling the Atlanta Police Foundation’s contract to lease the land that the training center would be built on.
