Candidate Profile: Alex Wan For Atlanta City Council

ATLANTA — Fifty-six City Council candidates are running for 16 seats in Atlanta's Nov. 2 municipal election.

Patch asked candidates to answer questions about their campaigns and will be publishing candidate profiles as Election Day draws near.

Alex Wan is running for Atlanta City Council Post District 6.

Age (as of Election Day)

54

Party Affiliation

Family

Joe Bechely, partner

Does anyone in your family work in politics or government?

No

Education

Bachelor of Industrial Engineering (Georgia Tech), Master of Business Administration (Wharton Business School)

Occupation

Executive Director, Horizons Atlanta, 2018 - present

Previous or Current Elected or Appointed Office

Atlanta City Council District 6 (elected) - 2010 - 2018

Campaign website

https://www.alexwanforatlanta.com/

Why are you seeking elective office?

As a Morningside homeowner for over 27 years, I have worked closely with community leaders tackling shared challenges. I had the privilege of serving eight years as an Atlanta City Council member (this very seat), providing a voice for our neighborhoods on the issues we care about deeply. Even afterward, my commitment to this work continued through service on the Atlanta Regional Commission Board, the Piedmont Park Conservancy Board, and the Mayor’s LGBTQ Advisory Board.

Atlanta faces real challenges. As we emerge from COVID, crime numbers are moving in the wrong direction as public confidence in our police officers is shaken due to local and national events. Delivery of basic city services has become unreliable, with delays in some critical functions hampering forward progress, and economic inequity and housing affordability are worsening. This comes at a time of significant change in government leadership with over one-third of the city council, the city council president, and the mayor positions being open seats this cycle.

Facing these challenges, our community is seeking leadership we know and trust and committed representation that we have experienced first-hand. I am running because I know my deep relationships through the district, coupled with my demonstrated experience as an effective leader, make me the ideal person to champion those issues again at City Hall. Most importantly, I can take my previous City Council experience and hit the ground running day one, getting to work right away on critical issues that can’t wait for its representatives to get up the learning curve.
The single most pressing issue facing our (board, district, etc.) is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.

The single most pressing issue facing City Council District 6 is public safety. Rising crime rates, particularly violent crimes, have people not feeling safe in our community.

If elected, not only will I continue the work I did during my eight years on Council championing legislation to increase public safety compensation to address recruitment and retention, but I will also continue securing funds to invest in cutting-edge technology like security cameras in parks and neighborhoods to fight crime.

Additionally, I will advocate for enhanced training of our officers - both as they join our force and as they continue serving - as well as improving 911 response times and responsiveness of 311 Policing Alternatives and Diversion operators. Finally, I will push for strengthening enforcement of our public safety laws, including alcohol license violations.

What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

I am the only candidate with actual City Council experience. The eight years I served as the District 6 representative gives me not only an understanding of how City Hall operates but also the relationships through the city to forge real solutions to the district’s challenges.

I am also the only candidate who has worked professionally in the private, public, nonprofit, and higher education sectors, which gives me a comprehensive perspective on the opportunities to bring all of these stakeholders together to solve our city’s complex challenges.

This breadth of experience gives me a unique blend of skills to this position: demonstrated business experience and leadership; an ongoing track record of community service; a studied, collaborative approach to problem-solving; and proven, engaged representation of Atlanta communities as an elected official.

If you are a challenger, in what way has the current board or officeholder failed the community (or district or constituency)

N/A. This is an open seat.

How do you think local officials performed in responding to the coronavirus? What if anything would you have done differently?

I commend Mayor Bottoms for taking aggressive but reasoned actions to continue keeping Atlantans safe through the pandemic. I appreciate her reliance on science and recommendations from advisors in the health and medical fields as the basis for her decisions.

One thing I would have done differently would have been to accelerate as much as possible the provision and distribution of relief funding to residents, businesses and nonprofits. The economic impact of the pandemic hit hard and quickly, and that support was critical to those most affected.

hat do you identify as the root causes of the recent and ongoing increase in violent crime, and how would you address the issue?

One of the most fundamental factors of the increase in violent crime is the continuing divide in economic opportunity for so many in our community. The effects of systemic causes of inequity are worsening rather than improving, and the resulting frustration has led some to feel they have fewer and fewer options. Second, the pandemic and subsequent shutdown limited the ability for many of our social institutions - schools, churches, youth centers, other organizations - to provide opportunities that support communities and individuals. The growing sense of isolation many have experienced has also contributed to increased aggression in interactions with others. Finally, availability of guns, particularly those that have been stolen from cars or homes, contributes to how frequently weapons are now being used in crimes.

I believe the city needs to continue implementing programs that create economic and social opportunities, be it through business development, workforce training, educational support, or youth programs. We must continue to follow the science and make decisions that protect the health of our citizens so that we can fully emerge from the pandemic as quickly as possible, which would enable those social institutions to resume their support activities. Finally, we need to aggressively activate gun safety awareness campaigns to encourage owners to secure their weapons and prevent them from getting into the hands of those intending to use them in violent crimes.

Do you support or oppose the creation of Buckhead City? Why or why not?

I am very much opposed to the Buckhead cityhood movement. The economic impact of the secession would not only be devastating to the City of Atlanta’s finances and operations that could lead to a decline in city service delivery, but it would also further exacerbate racial inequities that we already currently face.

While I certainly understand the frustration of residents and business owners that has created this movement, the better solution lies in improving the responsiveness and quality of city service delivery, a strategy that would benefit all Atlantans.

How would your administration react to the creation of Buckhead City and the resulting loss of a major residential, commercial and cultural center and significant source of tax revenue? How would you respond to residents and businesses in that community if cityhood were rejected?

When I first took office in 2010, Atlanta was just emerging from the Great Recession, and the City’s tax revenues were still dropping steeply ahead of the economic recovery. I served on the City Council’s Finance Executive Committee seven of my eight years on council, and through the application of strong fiscal restraint and close operational oversight, we passed eight balanced budgets without cutting city services and built our cash reserves from $7 million to over $150 million by the end of my second term. If Buckhead City is created, we will need to apply that same discipline immediately to our finances and operations in response to the sudden budget gap created from the resulting loss of tax revenue. My previous experience will be helpful in guiding the City Council through that process.

If cityhood were rejected, I would utilize my role in the council committees to improve the city service delivery complaints that are the source of the frustration that has led to the de-annexation effort. This includes providing oversight to department operations, offering suggestions and best practices from other municipalities for improvement, and focusing our annual budget process to applying adequate resources to achievable solutions.

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform.

City Services/Infrastructure - We must improve the delivery of our city services. While COVID had a direct impact on city operations last year, the return of quality and responsive basic city has lagged our emergence from the pandemic. Public works, permitting, licenses, to name a few, are all critical functions to keeping our city moving. Additionally, the failure to repair and maintain our city’s infrastructure not only negatively impacts everyone’s quality of life, but will also ultimately result in more expensive investments required to make up for prolonged neglect. If elected, I would push for a quick analysis of where we stand with outstanding projects, remaining funds, and projected budgets-to-completion to inform prioritizing and sequencing the remaining work,

Transportation - The metro Atlanta area is projected to add almost 3 million more residents over the next three decades. Our current transportation infrastructure capacity cannot accommodate the new arrivals, and we can already sense building congestion and decreasing mobility. Worse, we are not investing adequately to maintain what limited capacity we do have, and continued neglect and deferred maintenance will only be more costly down the road. Our inability to address this challenge will ultimately choke the progress of our City and region. We must now collectively seek out funding sources at all levels of government - local, state, and federal - in conjunction with private dollars to implement projects delineated in the Atlanta Regional Commission’s transportation blueprint to address this capacity need. Additionally, we must seek ways to aggressively expand alternative means of mobility besides the automobile (bicycle, pedestrian, transit, etc.) and as well as utilize gas sales tax collected by the state to support transportation infrastructure investments.

Housing Affordability - Housing affordability is another issue that left unaddressed will hamper our City’s ability to thrive. As property values have increased with Atlanta’s economic expansion, so have property taxes and rents, and our affordable housing inventory continues to decline. We must maintain a broad range of housing options to accommodate the workforce for our economy. The primary barrier is funding, as the scale of the challenge and the resources needed to tackle it are significant. We must continue to find a reliable and sustainable source to fund these initiatives. We should also leverage public assets – land or buildings – owned by the City or other municipal partners, to help mitigate project costs.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

Having served two terms as the City Council District 6 representative from 2010-2018, I know what the job entails and have demonstrated that I can handle the responsibilities successfully.

The best advice ever shared with me was:

If you lose an election and disappear, folks will conclude you cared about the issues you championed as a candidate only for the sake of the campaign.

What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions?

During my two terms on City Council, I built a reputation of working hard, coming to meetings prepared, and always being open to listening and learning about the issues. I also approached everything with a collaborative spirit - with my colleagues, with the administration, with stakeholders, and with my constituents.

I will take those same tenets back to City Hall to craft and implement solutions to the challenges our District is facing. They are complicated issues that will require multiple partners to solve. But I am confident that my methodical, reasoned, and analytical approach will go far in addressing these opportunities.