ATLANTA (AP) — The Atlanta City Council may have overridden Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’s veto of a plan to give part of a street to the state government, but Bottoms is refusing to accept the action, setting up a legal standoff.
Council Member Michael Bond said he had worked out a deal to let the state close the block of Mitchell Street to enhance security between the state Capitol and a legislative office building in exchange for sidewalk and safety improvements along a state-owned road on the west side of Atlanta.
But Bottoms rejected the move, saying it was illegal for Bond to negotiate on behalf of the city instead of her and that in reality no city-state deal exists.
The council overrode that veto on a 10-4 vote, the first time an Atlanta mayor had seen a veto set aside in more than a decade.
Then Bottoms last week signed an order calling the council’s ordinance “void and unenforceable” under the state Constitution, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.