What We're Fighting For
Jason is running for City Council to make our streets, safe streets. Jason is running to make our communities, safe communities. Jason is running for City Council to ensure that we preserve the institutions that made our neighborhoods so special in the first place. Jason is running to keep Atlanta, Atlanta, and to ensure that all Atlantans have access to our newfound prosperity and a seat at the table.
Transportation Equity and Safe Streets
Jason believes that slow streets are safe streets, and he will make sure the city invests in policies that will move Atlantans safely. Jason will fight for safe streets by: (click for details)
- Using District 4 discretionary funds to deliver long-promised and badly-needed street calming strategies including speed humps, speed cushions, speed tables, bulbouts, and chicanes.
- Prioritizing investment in diverse transportation options that link neighborhoods with jobs and connects communities to regional resources.
- Ensuring that the city treats sidewalks as shared resources and commit the city to invest in fixing the backlog of sidewalk repairs while investing in new pedestrian infrastructure.
- Expanding Atlanta’s pedestrian, wheelchair, and bicycle infrastructure to ensure that access and connectivity remain safe and equitable.
- Partnering with MARTA to identify opportunities to enhance existing bus stops with benches and shelters to make multi-modal transportation seamless and to make bus ridership a much more dignified experience.
- Ensuring that the city remains committed to building rail transit along the Beltline corridor.
- Reducing speed limits citywide to 25 miles per hour.
- Removing administrative hurdles and red tape that makes it hard for communities to have speed tables, crosswalks, signage, and light signals installed in our neighborhoods.
- Supporting and resourcing our city’s Department of Transportation so that it can better prioritize Atlanta’s transportation needs and streamline the planning and implementation of those priorities across the city.
- Updating zoning and land use ordinances to remove parking minimums which encourage automobile-centric development patterns.
Housing for All
Jason believes that everyone should be able to live in the community of their choosing, and that Atlanta needs to do more to protect both legacy residents and the next generation of young talent and leaders who can no longer afford to stay in the communities who raised them. Jason will fight to end displacement and preserve access to quality affordable housing in District 4 and beyond by: (click for details)
- Expanding funding for land banks or community land trusts, which would stabilize land costs and promote economic diversity in neighborhoods by ensuring community stewardship of land.
- Adopting mandatory inclusionary zoning practices for transactions involving the sale or transfer of publicly-owned property.
- Employing market-driven solutions, such as ending minimum parking requirements for new construction and removing traditional zoning requirements which would expand housing choices.
- Holding shadow investors who hold blighted properties and code enforcement violators accountable, which would increase the supply of available housing and open more opportunities to families across the city.
- Expanding Invest Atlanta’s home down payment assistance programs, strengthening the pipelines available for residents to become homeowners.
- Working with county-level partners to develop new property tax exemptions for cost-burdened property owners
Public Safety
Jason will fight for safer neighborhoods, supported through strategies that broaden our public safety tools and rethinks the role of police in our communities by: (click for details)
- Investing in wraparound services centered on social work, community organizing, and economic development, intervening in adverse behavior, and providing stability and opportunities for at-risk youth.
- Changing the culture of policing by emphasizing diversions as public safety outcomes rather than relying on arrest statistics.
- Advocating for the end of the 1033 exchange program which provides surplus military weapons and eqiupment into the hands of law enforcement agencies.
- Ensuring police and other public safety officials are held accountable to the citizenry and liable for misconduct by ending qualified immunity.
- Fully-funding Atlanta’s Policing Alternatives and Diversion (PAD) Initiative and ensuring that it’s operating at full capacity, 24/7.
- Creating a Department of Public Safety that recognizes that Atlanta’s myriad public safety needs and challenges require solutions beyond policing.
- Encouraging partnerships with existing community institutions and nonprofits to ensure that ongoing complementary programming and support services are enhanced rather than replaced.
- Reopening and properly resourcing our recreation centers, providing at-risk youth with vocational, recreational, and learning opportunities that focus on behavioral intervention and promotes personal growth and social development.
- Changing the culture of policing to encourage more foot patrols in our communities, ensuring that officers are seen, accessible, and made accountable to our citizens.
- Ensuring information sharing, crosstalk, collaboration, and communication between Atlanta Police Department and sister jurisdictions (MARTA, Georgia State Patrol, GSU, Georgia Tech, etc.) to align public safety goals and outcomes.
- Addressing issues related to police retention and morale.
- Investing in programs encouraging residency in policed communities, breaking barriers between officers and those they are sworn to protect.
- Investing in tools and technologies to help reduce the administrative burden placed on public safety officials.
Youth Enrichment and Development
Jason will invest in youth programs and maintain a positive, collaborative relationship with Atlanta Public Schools by: (click for details)
- Reopening and properly resourcing our recreation centers, providing at-risk youth with vocational, recreational, and learning opportunities that focuses on behavioral intervention and promotes personal growth and social development.
- Exploring paid youth employment opportunities to encourage our next generation to protect and provide stewardship of our District 4 communities.
- Developing partnerships between trade unions, WorkSource Atlanta, Atlanta Public Schools that could help facilitate internships, apprenticeship opportunities, and work experience for students to aid in career exploration and development of soft skills.
- Encouraging better collaboration between the Office of Cultural Affairs and the Department of Parks and Recreation to ensure those develop robust programming that is anchored by both our recreation centers and nonprofit partners to expose our youth to opportunities and disciplines beyond athletics.
- Partnering with Atlanta Public Schools, Invest Atlanta, and trade unions to open up apprenticeships and other employment pathways in booming industries.
- Investing in wraparound services centered on social work, community organizing, and economic development, intervening in adverse behavior, and providing stability and opportunities for at-risk youth.
Environmental Justice
Jason currently leads the Intrenchment Creek Community Stewardship Council and believes that climate change is an intergenerational issue that requires the attention of leaders at every level of government and will ensure that Atlanta plays a bigger role in reversing the effects of climate change by: (click for details)
- Ensuring that we have equitable, green, sustainable, and livable development standards that emphasize the need for clean air and water and addresses flooding.
- Addressing the role that poor stormwater management plays in displacing vulnerable communities by strengthening our stormwater ordinance and require developers to shoulder a greater share of the burden, ensuring that projects better manage stormwater runoff and address flooding.
- Strengthening requirements for the implementation of green infrastructure best practices in projects financed with Invest Atlanta tax incentives.
- Championing initiatives and policies that reverse decades of flooding and environmental degradation caused by unchecked development and makes the City of Atlanta more resilient to the effects of climate change.
- Promoting sustainable land use and reduce food insecurity through the implementation and expansion of urban agriculture programs Ensure for the fair and equitable treatment and inclusion of communities in the planning and implementation of projects, and the enforcement of environmental policy, regulations, and laws.
- Discouraging car-culture use by enacting parking maximums in transit-rich communities and along the BeltLine and prioritizing investment in diverse transportation options that link neighborhoods with jobs and connects communities to regional resources.
- Championing the complete electrification of the City of Atlanta’s vehicle fleet
Public Arts
Jason will work to preserve our city’s cultural diversity by protecting and strengthening our city’s arts community by: (click for details)
- Through collaboration with the Office of Cultural Affairs and the Department of Parks and Recreation, working to develop programming anchored by our recreation centers and nonprofit organizations to encourage more of our youth to participate in multidisciplinary arts programming.
- Preserving our existing artist communities by working to identify and expand affordable housing solutions.
- Partnering with stakeholders to develop weighted funding scales to ensure that small, diverse, equity-focused arts organizations have greater access to public funds than larger, more established institutions.
- Opposing unnecessary regulations that curb artistic expression. Typically this has been effected through public mural ordinances. I believe that elected officials must nourish the creativity within our arts community and work to provide additional outlets for that expression.
- Identifying alternative and sustainable financing measures to ensure consistent investment in arts programming across the city.
- Partnering with developers to organize artist-in-residence programs which would offer free- or reduced-cost housing for artists to live and work in some of our most historic and culturally-vibrant corridors.
Fighting Blight
Vacant and abandoned properties hurt our neighborhoods, depress our tax base, and bring crime into our communities. Jason will work to tirelessly to fight blight by: (click for details)
- Hiring the code enforcement officers and researchers necessary to improve the effectiveness of that department. The immense research necessary to correct or clarify county property documents (which could be months out of date) makes tracking down absentee owners difficult, and even impossible.
- Significantly increasing the fines for unoccupied properties with code violations, potentially resulting in criminal prosecution if violators don’t show up to court or if violations aren’t remedied.
- Partnering with our state legislators to ensure that they sponsor legislation to provide greater flexibility for the city to use eminent domain as a remediation tool.
- Working to ensure that the city to ensure that vacant property condemnations expand land bank programs, which I believe are key to keeping housing in Atlanta affordable.
Community Engagement
Jason will empower citizens to be informed, engaged, and to hold their elected officials accountable by fighting to: (click for details)
- Improve awareness of citizen-led meetings and community gatherings by communicating directly with constituents and investing in improved signage and wayfinding.
- Lower the barriers to participation in government by streaming videos of community meetings online and exploring child-care and transportation options for citizens.
- Reform the Neighborhood Planning Unit system, investing in additional staff and resources to standardize and streamline the system across the city.
- Incorporate participatory budgeting processes to ensure that the allocation of monies from the annual District 4 discretionary fund are community-driven.
Transparency and Accountability
Jason commits to open, honest, and responsive government that values citizen input and community engagement by fighting to: (click for details)
- Champion an open, honest, and responsive government that values citizen input and community engagement.
- Maintain an independent ethics board which defends values like integrity and accountability through an active and robust oversight process.
- Post checkbook-level spending for my District office online so that constituents can see how their needs have been prioritized, and fight to ensure that Atlanta adopts these same transparent practices citywide.
- Commit to routine, predictable, and well-advertised town hall meetings with neighborhoods across District 4.
- Support implementing new regulations to stop ethics abuses by commissioning an independent, external body to audit procurement procedures.
- Update public comment rules and build a framework which allows for the submission of questions and remarks outside of the public commentary period.
- Invest in our city employees by working to provide additional training, resources, and professional development opportunities tied to a uniform code of ethics which would make it less likely that city workers would break the public trust in the first place.
Diversity and Inclusion
Jason believes that District 4 should be welcoming to everyone, regardless of race, class, gender identity, gender expression, or sexual identity. Atlanta should strive to foster a community that both uplifts legacy residents while also creating an environment that is inclusive of our students, our immigrants, and our unsheltered. We are one community. Jason will cultivate a culture of inclusion in District 4 by:
(click for details)
- Supporting making permanent the City of Atlanta’s Office of LGBTQ affairs.
- Ensuring the City of Atlanta remains committed to improving the health and wellness of Atlanta’s LGBTQ communities by supporting greater collaboration with the Fulton County Board of Health to increase the scope of services aiming to help battle HIV and AIDS.
- Addressing the shortage of emergency beds for LGBTQ youth facing homelessness after coming out to their families.
- Increasing funding for safe housing and supportive services to trans and gender nonconforming individuals experiencing homelessness.
- Reinvigorating Atlanta’s commitment to HOPWA programs by providing the necessary oversight to ensure that all authorized funding streams fully support unsheltered Atlantans living with HIV and AIDS.
- Promoting activities and events that celebrate District 4’s racial, ethnic, and religious diversity.
- Establishing lines of communication and trust with Latine/Latinx and AAPI communities by investing in community care services and protecting the civil rights of our immigrant communities.
- Advocating for policy initiatives that make Atlanta safe and welcoming for immigrants, including ensuring cultural competence among city staff and language access across government services.