Councilwoman Adrean does not support Monday vote on new stadium; seeks more details, answers

Dist. 8 Atlanta City Councilwoman Yolanda Adrean said Thursday night there is support among council members to fast track approval of legislation for the new downtown stadium with a Monday vote, but she predicts an 8-7 vote and she does not plan to support such action.

Dist 8 Councilwoman Yolanda Adrean

Adrean told attendees as the Buckhead Council of Neighborhoods meeting that she wants the 200 pages of the proposal presented to council members last week fully vetted by council during a public work session that has been scheduled for Thursday, March 21, before any approval;.

Among the changes Adrean would like to see made in the current proposal would be requiring the Falcons organization to pay for all of the infrastructure costs associated with the new stadium and for City Council to have a seat at the table for the stadium design.

Adrean, who represents almost all of Buckhead west of Peachtree and Roswell roads, told the audience at the March 14 meeting that the Falcons organization has agreed to absorb 100 percent of the construction risks, but the city is responsible for all infrastructure costs over $50 million according to the proposal City Council is being asked to approve.

She also told those attending the BCN meeting that the Falcons organization has done the only analysis of the infrastructure costs associated with both sites and that has not yet been made available to City Council. Adrean said she requested on Thursday for that report to be made available to council members.

Adrean and Dist. 6 City Councilman Alex Wan, who also was attending the meeting about another matter, said they felt Mayor Kasim Reed already had in his pocket the number of votes needed to pass the resolution before council on Monday.

Dist. 6 Councilman Alex Wan

But, Adrean said she believes the vote, if taken on Monday, would be 8 in favor and 7 against. “I don’t think the mayor wants to have this pass with a split vote,” Adrean told BuckheadView. The impression at the meeting Thursday was that Wan also would not vote in favor of the resolution on Monday.

Adrean explained that the  council’s approval document is in the form of a resolution not an ordinance. A resolution can be read the first time at a council meeting voted on at the same meeting. An ordinance gets a first reading at a council meeting, then is sent to a committee for review and after vetting in committee is later returned to the full council for a vote.

Adrean feels there are still a lot of questions that need to be answered, issues to be addressed and decisions to be made before she can cast a positive vote for the new stadium. And, she feels those issues need vetting in public at the public work session Thursday, March 23.

For instance, Adrean told the audience at the BCN meeting Thursday night “the legislation does not commit to a site….it is not site specific. I am struggling with voting on something that is not site specific.”

She said that without knowing the specific site, it is not possible to really know the cost for infrastructure needs and the city is responsible for any of that over $50 million.

Another problem Adrean sees is “We won’t get a design until after the vote. City Council does not have a seat at the table on design.” She said that two experts that met with council members this past week were totally opposed to plopping the stadium in a sea of parking lots.

The plan is to tear down the present dome stadium, but the new stadium is not planned for the same location. Adrean wants to know what is going where the present stadium sits. Is it just going to be another surface parking lot?

Dist. 9 Councilwoman Felicia Moore

She apparently is not alone in having questions that need answers. City Council members have given mixed signals about a vote next week, according to an AJC story at the end of last week.

One member, Dist. 9 City Councilwoman Felicia Moore, who represents part of Buckhead and chairs the City Finance/Executive Committee, said Friday of a Monday council vote, “if the train leaves that soon, it will leave without me.” Others, though, said it’s been sufficiently vetted.

“What I don’t want to do is … vote for this (deal) and then six months later somebody comes with their hand out asking for millions of more dollars for infrastructure,” Moore said.

“Let’s get on with the business of the community,” council member Ivory Lee Young told the AJC. His district includes the stadium area. “Let’s get on with this and move on to bigger things,” Young said. “Because we can certainly use a better stadium than the one we have now, and we have figured out a way to pay for it. What is our delay?”

Meanwhile, the board of the Georgia World Congress Center Authority on Friday approved terms for the new stadium, leaving the upcoming vote by City Council as the stadium’s last major political hurdle. Approval also is needed from Invest Atlanta, the city’s economic development arm, which meets Tuesday and is likely to pass on anything the mayor wants.

Neither the City Council nor Invest Atlanta has committed to action on the stadium at their meetings this coming week, but the proposed deal seems to be suddenly on a fast track.

Atlanta COO Duriya Farooqui

“I don’t think it’s moving too fast. They’ve been in negotiations for 2 1/2 years now,” Duriya Farooqui, the city of Atlanta’s chief operating officer, was quoted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as saying.  “We’ve heard the public, and we’ve heard the council’s input. We think it’s a good deal for the city, the state and the Falcons.”

The proposed deal calls for $200 million in public money toward construction, plus interest on the 30-year bonds that would provide those funds, and possibly hundreds of millions of dollars more toward the stadium’s operation and maintenance over the years.

Bond payments and other money would come from the 39.3-percent portion of Atlanta’s 7-cents-per-dollar hotel-motel tax mandated by state law to go to the stadium. The state legislature in 2010 extended the tax specifically for a new stadium.

The Falcons, the NFL and personal seat license sales would pay the remaining $800 million or so toward construction of the estimated $1 billion facility. The Falcons would be responsible for all operating and maintenance costs not covered by hotel-motel tax proceeds, would retain all stadium revenue and would pay the GWCCA rent of $2.5 million a year, with 2 percent annual increases.

To review the proposal sent to City Council members on Wednesday, March 13, go here. To review other documents pertaining to the new Falcons stadium deal, go here. To see answers provided by the city to frequently asked questions, go here.