During the January 7th meeting, Atlanta City Council passed legislation to regulate the influx of electric scooters that appeared in 2018/ Some of the key takeaways from the legislation are:

• No scooters on sidewalks
• Scooters are to be on streets, bike lanes, or shared use paths
• One rider per scooter
• No cellphone use while operating  scooter
• Scooters are capped at 15 mph

These provisions are a step forward in regulating a technology that has increased the accessibility in Atlanta. The legislation went through a lengthy process including public comment and work sessions to arrive at these terms. Additionally, scooter companies like Bird and Lime will have to pay a permit fee of $12,000 and have a plan to educate users on safety and helmet usage. 

Many of you may have missed the first round of Prioritization & Rebaselining Public Engagement Meetings for the Renew Atlanta/TSPLOST program, held January 22-30, 2019. As you may have heard, the funds expected to be raised from TSPLOST are not as large as originally anticipated, and the cost of projects is higher than in original models. Given the remaining dollars available, an effort is underway to prioritize which projects will proceed to completion, which will be designed but not funded for implementation at this time and which will be dropped for now.

At the session at Grady High School last week, we learned that the North Highland Avenue complete street project has been dropped from the list. We also were asked to identify our top three projects from a list of complete streets, resurfacing and other improvements.

If you have not had a chance to weight in, please do so online. Everything presented from the round 1 meetings can be found in the Prioritization & Rebaselining Round 1 Recap. Please complete the survey, Prioritization & Rebaselining Public Engagement Round 1 survey and share with as many friends and neighbors as you can.  The directions on navigating additional resources as you complete the survey can be found on the How-to Guide. 

The deadline for the survey has been extended to February 7, 2019.

Last October, Atlanta City Council unanimously approved a substantial pay raise for the Atlanta Police Department. The 30% increase over the next three years will help bring Atlanta's wages to competitive levels for similar sized departments. The first implementation of that raise went into effect for those at the police officer rank on December 21st. Other ranks will see their pay raise in July of this year. The pay raise ought to help stymie the attrition rate the force has been facing for some time as well as help address the slight spike in both homicides and auto theft last year.

The Fulton County Sheriff's Office is beginning preparations for the 2019 Fulton County Sheriff’s Office Citizen’s academy class. The six week academy will begin on Wednesday, April 24th ending Wednesday, May 29^th  from 6:00pm-8:00pm. Please find more information and an application. 
 
Please feel free to forward the attached application as well as our contact information to all interested person(s). We look forward to working with everyone this year and we will continue to keep everyone updated on all agency events for 2019.

Atlanta Police Department has recently introduced a system for reporting crimes online. This system will be helpful for reporting non-emergency incidents when a report is required but a visit from an officer is not necessary.  If needed a representative from APD will follow up with you. Find more information or fill out a report here.