ATLANTA, Georgia — Now, as Atlanta’s 60th mayor, she runs one of the country’s most influential cities, a multiracial hub for business, education and technology – and one she thinks is well on its way to becoming a leader in social justice, as she tackles affordable housing and works for criminal justice improvements, key elements of her One Atlanta agenda.
Her family’s journey, she says, “speaks to what is possible.”
She emerges from her second year in office – having navigated more than a few rough patches – with some hard-won accomplishments, some ambitious plans for the future and the confidence that the people around her will help make those plans a reality. Not many elected officials in the state are in a better position to get things done.
That’s why Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is Georgia Trend’s 2020 Georgian of the Year.
It’s hard to recall a mayor in recent times who had a tougher beginning than Bottoms. She had to defeat Mary Norwood, a popular and experienced Northside politician, in a hard-fought general election and run-off and had barely a month to transition into the office before her January 2018 inauguration.
Her predecessor, Kasim Reed, who supported her mayoral bid, nonetheless left a few political land mines behind, including an unfolding City Hall corruption investigation by the federal government. Just a few weeks into her term, a crippling Ransomware attack hit the city’s computer network.
Bottoms’ experience as a city council member had not fully prepared her for the mayor’s role. “You get a lot of cover on the city council,” she says, “and you get to do a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking. The scrutiny and responsibility in no way compares to being mayor.”
NOTE: Written by Susan Percy, this article appears in the January 2020 issue of Georgia Trend. See full article at https://www.georgiatrend.com/2019/12/31/2020-georgian-of-the-year-keisha-lance-bottoms/?fbclid=IwAR35MF3F-Dqlyw242tITX4YCQwpbNIqt75kP6ql2wZoBGjB7ezRzDkHAsKw
