ATLANTA — The drive to stop the construction of a new Atlanta public safety training facility is fully underway as critics of the facility try to get it before voters in November.
The public face of the fight against the project, deemed as "Cop City" by protesters, is now more about word of mouth than it is about fiery public protests.
Josh Everett is trying to stop the new public safety training center one signature at a time. He was among the critics of the project trying to sweet-talk voters into signing a petition to get it on a November ballot.
They weren’t all receptive.
"'Where they gonna be trained at? In your backyard somewhere?'" shouted Atlanta resident Helen Woods as Everett tried to get a man to sign the petition.
Woods is not a fan of those trying to stop what they call "Cop City." "We have to realize, we need policemen," she said a moment later.
Woods said she’s also turned off by the damage left in the wake of some protests, and by incendiary devices set off to chase police off the training site.
Police have not connected to protesters a Saturday morning fire that torched several police motorcycles with what investigators called an incendiary device. The fire broke out early Saturday at the Southside Industrial Parkway-- the site of the future training center.
"I’ve seen it on TV. It wasn’t right. The way we was trained up is a little bit different than the way the world is today," Woods said.
"It’s rare to get somebody heckling you the whole time," Everett chuckled after the encounter with Woods.
Everett said voters have been receptive to the petition drive – despite the sometimes rough quality of the politics surrounding it.
"It’s been a really good reception I would say thus far," he said. "You’ve had people who have come out, I would say, on the full spectrum of the issue. But by and large, people support giving Atlantans a voice."
The petition drive is a long shot. Its deadline is just 43 days away. And to succeed, it’ll need more than 70,000 valid signatures of folks actually registered to vote in the City of Atlanta as of 2021.