Word with me here.
You know, BT know how it goes, shout out oct no real color what we see whole game?
Wait the baller blot something.
Oh you can't stand on their own sole see I already know you can't bold with me because up with the squad of me, they get a little They called me.
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With that, you have the mayor, mister Andre Thickens of the building.
What's up, sir, Hey, what's up?
Man?
I'm glad to be here.
This is a complete honor man.
Yeah, honors are all mine to be here on baller Alert. This is this is what's up.
And we're missing BT because he's the one who actually put this all together.
Yeah that's it. Yeah god.
Yeah, So you know, welcome to the All Alert Show.
And just for everybody who doesn't know we're unfamiliar, can you tell us a little bit about yourself.
I know you're from Atlanta, but what part of.
Atlanta, Atlanta.
Yeah, I'm born and raised in Atlanta in Adamsville. That's the West Adamsville, right, that's right, is a couple of years younger than me. And me and him, you know, grew up in the same general area, man, like west side of Atlanta. And I still live in coll Your Heights, which is not far from like really where he lived, like really close.
You still live there?
Yeah, I lived about two neighborhoods from the neighborhood I was born in.
Wow.
So I've been all over the city and I come back to my roots on the west side. So yeah, man, I'm from Atlanta. I went to May's High School, Benjamin and Elijah May. I went to Atlanta Public schools the whole way. My mama went to Atlanta Public schools. My all my aunts and family. I'm like a fourth or fifth generation Atlanta and so we like deep in this thing.
And you know, I went to Georgia Tech for college as an engineer, a chemical engineering major, graduated and you know, did engineering things, ran businesses, and then went to Georgia State to get a master's in public administration later in life, and then ran for office.
Is that what it was?
The public administration part that took you to.
Well, really, when I was sixteen years old, I said I wanted to be mayor of Atlanta. So since I was sixteen, I've been talking about this job.
Why did you say that at sixteen?
So a little bit before that, I met Ambassador Andrew Young when he was mayor, and I was like, wow, this is the dude that you see in the school. So and when you walk in the school building, you would see the president, the governor, and the mayor. Those were the pictures that were on the wall, and there was two white dudes and one black dude. All of them had on suits, and I was like, that black dude is important. He don't own a suit. And then after school programs I see him. And then at the
Parks and Recreation you walk in the building. It's the same three people, the mayor, the governor, and the president and they were two white dudes and one black dude. And I was like, I resonated with him.
What is he?
He's always on TV talking about things he's doing. And so I said, man, Atlanta's great. I want to be the mayor of Atlanta. I want to be him. That was literally how it started. I didn't know what a city council was. I didn't know what a commisson was. I didn't know what none of these things were. I just knew that the individual that was big enough to be up there on pictures with the governor and the president and that was always talking positive, like I'm about
to do this in the city. He was always, you know, in my line of sight that somebody I might want to be. And I knew that Atlanta was special, even though back then it was not like what it is now. But I knew Atlanta was special. And I you know, I mean, I was born and raised here, so I knew Doctor King, I knew of Benjamin Benjamin Elijah Mains Correta Scott, et cetera, et cetera.
Et cetera.
And I was like, this ain't no place like this. So way back then I said I want to be married. So I kept moving my life towards that, even though I had to make money because I didn't know nobody in my life that was a mayor or in politics and stuff. So I was the first in my family to go to college. And when I went to college, I was like, let me do something that's going to
you know, work out for me financially. So I went down this path of engineering and business, but I never lost sight of, you know, what I wanted ultimately be. So I was doing neighborhood you know, president vice president stuff, and community leader and nonprofits and church stuff, always serving, and then eventually I just ran for city counciling one.
Was there a particular person in your life that was guiding you to you know, through all that. You know, like you said, you never lost sight of that. You went to college the first out of your family. You know, who was inspiring you this whole time?
I would say my mom, even though she didn't go to college, she would have wanted to. She would have wanted to go to Spelman. She always sees Spelman as you know, being from here. Why she well, she had my sister, my sister in high school or just as she was graduating high school, and so that disrupted certain plans that she had. But she was like, Andre, no matter what, You're going to succeed. I had a cheerleader from the day hours born. My mom and my older sister.
These two I could move mountains. I mean, nothing was ever impossible for them through you know, for me through them. I always felt supported, and she put me in so many after school programs. Now, back in the day, stuff was five dollars, thirty five dollars for a whole summer or whatever.
It was cheap.
Now, you know, I thank god my daughter's nineteen now because them five hundred dollars summer bills and three hundred dollars programs. You know, back then, my mama she scrounged up thirty five dollars. Put me in baseball, put me in karate, put me in whatever. So she would hand me off to qualify people after school, and then they would instruct me even further, be like, hey, are you interested in business? I was in a youth business program at eight years old, and.
That probably was rare at that particular timeframe too.
Yeah, it was rare. It was rare to have all that knowledge.
Like I was young enough knowing what a profit and loss was, what a revenue and sales and all those things. Had a bank account at eight years old, even though you know, I lived in Adamsville. But my mom put me in programs that were like, you are going to succeed. And I remember when I went to Maids because May's had fancy kids, right, Mais was preachers kids, pat you know, all kinds of political kids and you know, business owners. This has been amazing. Way back to Maize was brand
new when I started going. I was maybe like the ninth or tenth class out of Maze because Maize was the elite, brand new school for all the fancy Cascade kids. Well, I tested into Mays. My mom was like that new school needs some more kids. So I was able to get enough grades to go from middle school.
And was there mixed race kids there or No?
It was all black, elite.
This is Atlanta, so it was Atlanta. This was probably the whole time at May's. Out of four years, I might have been around one or two non black kids in any class I was in at most, but they were elite. They were kids that are, you know, very prosperous parents and so they had I remember my first friday of being in school, my class made through a pool party.
I was like, what rec center we going to?
He was like, nah, in my backyard, man, And we went to a pool at this dude's backyard. I had not seen that. Now it sounds like crazy, but that's back then. And well, my mom when I went to that pool party. My mom said, you know, just because they got more money than you, dad, they won't always have more impact than you are more classing.
So you're bringing up mom, Yeah, where's that? Where was that?
Yeah? I grew up without a father in my household, so you know that was.
And you were the only boy in the house.
Yeah, I was the only boy in the house. But I had a neighborhood full of boys. We had like thirty or forty boys in this neighborhood. So I walk out the door and it was a game of football going on, game of baseball, basketball.
I here, basketball, what you need? I got what I needed.
Mean, I know you had to ask mom, yes eventually.
Yeah, and then the church had lots of you know, deacons, and then baseball you know, and basketball coaches. I have an uncle that was crazy, you know. He would come around all.
The time and he'd.
Shoot like, you know, one hour worth of game to you, that'll last year, whole month. You know, don't take no wood, Nichols, or put your knuckles up it. Somebody hit you hit them back.
You know.
I'd be like, all right, that's that's enough skills for the week, for a month, you know, but I was blessed to be honest man that my mother like, she didn't. She didn't let lack be her mode of operanda. She didn't go around saying, I don't have so my kid won't be able to be what he wants to be. She would find the resources.
Nobody you wantn't you want?
You're not from a side of town where you can kind of be. Uh, you gotta be smart, you gotta be tough. Yeah, to be from that side of town as well. So how did you maneuver through all of this? Did were there any fight?
Did mister Andre into some fights sometime back in the day.
Luckily mister Andre Dickens has not been in the fights, but dre.
Young and growing up?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, th We had so many fights over stuff like basketball fights in the middle of the game, or just you know, you know, neighborhood versus neighborhood fights. Luckily this was before people were shooting and stabbing and stuff like that. The most was, you know, you just got beat up and you come home with a bloody lift. No, man, I ain't never get beat up. I might have you know,
somebody I might have lost on the scorecard. It once or twice, but not not not no KOs in my You know, I got long arms and I can run real fast, but he gets on you know, I know I know where to go, but I mean I probably have. I used to grow up. We would fight in an instant and then people would break it up. But that was just boys. It was a neighborhood full of boys and we were outside all the time, so it was just hot.
And I like today. I like today.
You know, you might be fighting over a Sega game or Nintendo or whatever they play in PlayStation.
They fighting online? Now?
Are they fighting online now? Yeah?
And then and then that's you know, that is why I'm so heavily involved now in trying to support our youth and trying to you know, bring down violence in those things. Because I had a rich childhood, even though I wasn't rich, right, I have a full gamut.
Yeah, I just came up with that. I might use that again, y'all record, but it was valuable.
It was very rich, and I had individuals that you know, would steer me the right way, you know. But growing up in Adamsville. I'll give you an example, so you know, crack was around back then. I saw somebody smoke crack. When I was like, appreciate you saying this, Yeah.
I saw it. I was like, what are you doing?
And he got high right in front of us and started acting crazy, and I'm like, this is interesting, you know, like why would you do this? And I never dealt with it, never stayed away from it, even though Dylan might have been around, and you know, people doing drugs or selling drugs and stuff like that. It never interested me because I witnessed it firsthand. I'm like, okay, I'm not doing that. And my mother was like, don't you ever touch it? And so, like I had other things
to do. I was going to school, I was going to baseball, basketball, football, or programs that were you know, very fun for me. And this lady would drive me around. My mom would get off work and drive me to wherever I needed to go. So parental support was crucial for me. But there was an example when my bike got stolen. So me and my best friend Chris, we ride our bikes up to McDonald's with our grass cutting money. You know, he cut grass, you get five ten dollars.
You go up to McDonald's with it, knowing full well that we're not supposed to leave our bikes like unchained or whatever. But we were like just going in for a minute. Get this McDonald.
Five minutes later, gone, bike's gone.
Both of them are just you.
Just mine because because I was this is also don't leave your bike to be the last bike. Because we just leaned them up against the store. I should have been the bike up against the store. His bike would have got stolen and his mama would have been the one man. But no, I had to He had to ride me back on his seat and handlehbars and all that to get back home, wait on my mama to get all work.
Man. When my mom got our work, I had.
To tell her that my bike was stolen and this is a bike she paid for two Christmases before.
Man, she went knocking.
We went knocking on doors near that McDonald and I am no lie. We like come outside, everybody, everybody out who got Dre's bike?
And she lined to.
People with my husband's police officer, he gonna come up in. She's doing whatever she can for that's the situation. Still didn't get my bike. But I didn't learned she was.
I learned right there a line pushing She ain't she ain't scared of nobody.
We'll be right back with more of The Baller Alert Show. You're listening to a special edition of The Baller Alert Show.
Hey, what's up, y'all? This is Mayor Andre Dickens. You are now tuned in to the Baller Alert Show.
Yeah.
So I knew one day I was gonna run for mayor. So I was city council member. And then eight years of that, I was like, okay, I want to be mayor. But Keisha lance Botams was the mayor. I'm a friend of her hers, and I thought she was gonna run for her second term. Well, she decided she wasn't gonna run for a second term. She said, I'm gonna, you know, you know, go do some other things. And so that night when she you know, when the word kind of
whisper came out, I was like, yo, I'm running. So I called my daughter, who was I mean, I was out at dinner. Now on my way home. I called my daughter like, yo, let me talk to you about to do a thing. I'm gonna make sure I got your support. And then she was like, yeah, okay, let's do it. And then you know, I called my team, which was my city council team, cause I was running for city council again, running for.
My third term.
We were you know, we we we stopped that and immediately turned towards mayor. And I knew that there was two people already in the race that was running against Mayor Bottoms, and I was like, okay, but I'm running against them. I can beat them. And then I knew other people were gonna get in. Folks start whispering about certain other folks were gonna get in. I was like, I ain't scared of that, and so and eventually it was fourteen of us in the race, and I won by sixty four percent of the vote.
But it was not easy. MM.
So you gotta you know, you think you're a city council people, and people know you. Man ain't nothing like the name recognition of the mayor.
Okay, you know, you.
Gotta get the whole city support to be pumped up about what you're gonna do. People say the mayor name all the time. They think, do something for me. This is what you've done for others helped me out. So no matter if city council, you might can rattle off one or two of them names. But you don't know them until you know, like the mayor's like for real, everybody's like okay. So I had to get my name up. I had to come up, you know, with my slogans, my ideas, get my team together, and then you have
to go to all these debates. We went to forty two different forums and debates. It was just NonStop, and you got to raise a bunch of money and you got to ask a bunch of people for their support. You got to build a team, you got to get volunteers. I had to quit my job because my job, you can't do all that at the same time.
So I quit my judge, you had a job when you was counseling.
Yeah, as a council person, you can have it with your job. I was the chief development officer for tech Bridge, a technology company, so I had a job that was degree to work STEM career. I was making money, but I had to stop that. Took a leave of absence and I said, you know, they said, if this don't work out as mayor, you can come on back. I was like, all, but this is God's plan, this is destiny.
I prayed about this. So we won and now serve on their board as you know, a support of chech Bridge, but not you know, I work as the mayor.
So it all worked out.
I know I'm making it sound easy because it but it's a lot of days and nights to planning. And I lost twenty five pounds during the process of running from mayor, just the anxiety just to being going all the day time.
And I was gonna ask you that because mental health is a big thing, and how did you stay you know, on point or focused to finishing the job? Yeah, to get into the finish line map and for better.
Terms, you gotta you gotta do a few things.
Everybody's pulling at you.
Everybody's pulling at you, and everybody's saying, you know, if you don't do this, you're gonna lose, or you better do this so you can win, or I got an idea. You got to go over here to these people and that and talk to these people. And you're like, this is Thursday at three o'clock, and y'all want everybody to you know, you want me to be in five places at the same time.
I can't be.
I gotta choose and I gotta try to make things work for this campaign. Everybody's on you all the time, and now as mayor, everybody's pulling on you. So you you learn how to manage competing interests. Like there's a various interest. Somebody wants to stop sign somebody wants a traffic light, and they all got a pitchfork and a and a you know, in a megaphone saying do what I tell you. And so you have to learn to
balance that. And I'm just talking about stop signing traffic lights, right, I'm talking about other yeah, or powholes or policing or fire stations or you know anything. You know, you know, park swings or park slides. You know, a baseball, basketball court, or soccer court, soccer field. You know, it's you got to manage these competing interests. And so what I do is I pray. I'm I'm a Christian man, I'm a believer.
I'm a deacon of a church. So I you know, I go into my own, you know, conversation with God about decisions that I make, and in the morning and the night, you know, wrap up with that and try to make sure that I'm grounded too. I sleep. You know, people know that I'm up all the time. I work from can't see morning to kn't c night. But once I get into my bed, I am out.
I don't. I don't do all.
That sitting in the bed thinking about the next day, what I'm gonna wear. You know, I wish I want to said that. I wish I would have used this term instead of that term.
I don't.
I don't go down the litany of you know, things that are just keep you up.
You know, No, they.
Probably won't get you probably won't get no sleep.
Oh, I never get any sleep. I'm like out, and then it's tomorrow hours.
Do you get eight hours?
No?
I don't get eight hours yet. I mean I'm a solid six and a half, six and a half.
I hit the gym.
That's the other thing is I go to the gym three, four, sometimes five days a week, some kind of physical activity, you know. I work out in Atlanta, had a nice gym Union Fit, and also do a little running on the track in my house just to kind of stay you know, physically ready. You know, you can't do all this work if you you know, eating fried food and you know, never get any exercise.
Not gonna get there soon. I don't know ready for that.
Yeah, I do eat some fried food. I don't don't get me wrong, I'm from Atlanta. I teased something up, but you got to mix it up to put a salad in there.
Please, let's get into some of the things that you have done. You've done so many things throughout your career, but you know, as mayor, you have done a lot, and one of them was the for a lot of people who love to go to the belt Line and you know, enjoyed that space. You did the inclusionary zoning policy where you did fifteen percent apartments built around the belt Line will be for affordable housing.
Yeah.
So, and you know when I got on city Council in twenty thirteen, was the election twenty fourteen started. I started noticing things, being that I'm from Atlanta. Back then, people weren't talking about the need for affordable housing. It was actually like taboo, like affordable housing for those people that don't work. It's section eight in the housing is bad.
But I was like, yo, I'm noticing, like people that have you know, salaries and in the good quality of life are now struggling because it's harder and harder to live. Atlanta's becoming more and more expensive. I started saying that in twenty thirteen, just because I know my city, but it wasn't talked about in political circles. And then casual conversation like we need more affordable housing. But I'm like, yo, that rent is not supposed to be that much. And
so then then we started building out the beltline. As it was being built, developers was like, yeah, people would want to live near this. This is beachfront property. It will be beachfront property essentially. So people was like, yeah, I'll live there. I'll live in that. And it was putting nice amenuties in there. But when I started noticing that only the you know, well to do, only those that had nice jobs were able to live in there, And I was like, Yo, what's going to happen for
the teacher? What about the firefighter, police officer, the nurse, the person that works at Macy's, at Starbucks, at the bank. How are they going to live in this city? This is gonna be a problem.
Now.
I used to live on the West Coast for three years. I lived in LA and I knew San Francisco in LA and I knew, Wow, these places have problems with affordability, And I was like, this can happen in Atlanta. So I created this policy that said that every new apartment that goes up around the belt line has to set aside fifteen percent of its units for affordabilit meaning you know, you can set aside ten percent at sixty percent of the area meeting income or fifteen percent of the units
at eighty percent of the area median income. This allows for people, like I said, nurses, you know, teachers, firefighters, police officers, those people that in today's number, in that fifty to sixty five seventy thousand dollars rain.
These people go to work every day, they work very, very hard.
But if fifty five thousand there can't come out here and get a house in Atlanta, they're going to drive an hour to get to their job. But we want our police officers, fire fighters, and teachers to live in the community that they serve. It makes them more knowledgeable about the people they're affecting or supporting.
And so that passed.
It was a hard lift because the state of Georgia has a policy that prohibits rent control. Unlike a New York ors Chicago, or Maryland, they have rent control that there are certain properties that are capped. Atlanta can't do
that because the state of Georgia prohibits it. So I got around it through some technicalities around what we use to build the outline that said this is we actually by building out this beltline, we created a new economic opportunity for those developers and they have to give something back in return, which is affordable housing. So to this day it exists and over a thousand units of affordable housing.
Or when you look at these nice new apartments actually mixed in those units, are people standing right next to each other unit one twelve versus unit one thirteen, They may be paying different amounts and you wouldn't even know it, because that is the quality of the policy that we put together.
And Atlanta's filling up fast. They had come here because it's more affordable to live.
Than those other places. Yeah, we are growing.
I just it was a report I just saw. We went from number seven to number six.
Yeah, we actually went from eight to six. We skipped seven.
We went from the eighth largest city in the metro area to six that fast. And now one point eight million more people are slated to come to Atlanta between now and twenty fifty.
So you think that'll make us in the top five.
Yeah, to make us in the top five. People are moving more towards the South.
I think they're in a pandemic too. They moved here a lot. In Resolvant, we've seen uprising crime as well. So let's talk about public safety.
Yeah, you are absolutely right. During the pandemic, nationwide crime spiked. It picked up because of people being in isolation, people feeling depressed, a little bit of anxiety, uncertainty. You think that we were all locked in. But once the pandemic started coming out of it in twenty twenty one, crime was high. We were at an all time high or at least near all time high in twenty twenty one
from the last couple of decades. And so that was literally what most of the campaigns were about when I was running for mayor in twenty twenty one, was how were you going to bring down crime? People from you know, all parts of Atlanta south to the Bucket to the east side, west side.
Everybody was the Bucket, one of their own police.
Bucket won their own police. Some people in Bucket wanted their own city, like to break away from Atlanta because they were like Linux, you know, they were very well publicized.
Money to live there. They want to keep it safe.
Yeah they do, and so do everybody else.
Yeah, so people, but you know, everybody thinks what they are is the worst effected right. But oh my god, somebody got shot at Lenox and I'm like, yeah, that should not happen. But somebody got shot at greenbro That should not happen either in southwest Atlanta. That should not happen anywhere. Life is precious. So I come into this thing saying all of us deserve to live. And you know, people were, you know, taking various political angles, whether it
was Democrat, Republican, whether it's black, white. I believe that, you know, all of us actually care about public safety.
I'm a father, I have a daughter. I want her to be safe.
You know, Black folks want safety, White folks want everybody, everybody in between, young people, middle people, you know, all of the above. So I said we had to be smart on crime though, and so one the methodology is important. We don't want to come out here and just police
our way out of this problem. Police you don't want to turn into a police state where you got you know, all like over policing, because that's just historically leads to the other challenges that you have, which is excessive use of force, or people feeling like they're going to be victimized by the people that are supposed to protect them, or that you will end up in a situation where you feel like you can't move because somebody's always on your back. No, we want to use non policing and
policing actions. Yes, we need police because something's a violent crime, but there's also we needed more street lights because crime was happening, you know. Being an engineer, I said, do an overlay of where the crime is and then do our street light you know map, and you would see like where it's darker and with less light, it was a propensity for more crime and crashes, car crashes, bicycle crashes,
et cetera. So came in with the Light of the Night campaign, where we added eleven thousand street lights in the first year and another ten thousand in my second year. Now it's brighter in these areas that were darker, so you can't get away with more dirt in the dark, you know, I mean when it was dark you could and the light you can't. Then we saw night life crimes was our problem. If you were called back in twenty twenty twenty twenty one, they were shooting up the club.
Part of that was people coming from other places because Atlanta was open.
So when their city.
Was closing, DJs I was there.
Yeah, east side in Atlanta, No, west side in Atlanta. We ain't got to beef because we know what the understandings are. But if you come out here from Saint Louis or Chicago or whoever, and you're trying to and you're trying to get in, be started to cook. So what we started to do was say, hey, how do we make sure the night life is safer? So we train right now, we train nightlife operators on how to
de escalate, you know, fights. So just because you take people's guns and don't let them bring guns into the club, don't mean that when you kick them both out that they're not going straight to the trunk and shooting each other in the parking lot. So we taught them how to one keep the aggressor inside of the building, let the lesser leave, get thirty minutes gone, and then by that time the aggressor is going to chill out and
he don't know where the other one is. And then now they can all go home safely, and then we talked them about you know, alcoholism, how to make sure that these bartenders don't over you know, don't keep pouring for somebody who's clearly drunk, this and that and lighting in the parking lot and these other things. I'm harping on that to say that I get very granular about
how we make, you know, decisions in the city. So police is one thing, non policing, and then the last thing is to really we saw that a lot of crime was happening with our young people. So if we bring down youth crime, we bring down all crime, because it's so many things that they were doing. It was
fourteen fifteen, sixteen year olds shooting at each other. And so we did the Year of the Youth, which was hugely successful last year, which gave them so many things to do, the very things that I did when I was younger, all of the after school programs, all of the summer jobs, all of the training. Kids were making money. They were having fun, they were in art school, they were getting internships. They were at you know, Tyler Perry Studios or Coca Cola or working in the Mayor's office.
Five thousand teenagers worked last year and made seventeen dollars in our minimum way, I mean a average wage. They had money, they were having fun, they weren't trying to do crime. And so we had forty six percent reduction in youth homicide last year.
So that is a non.
Policing action that made it better for young people, which brought down crime. So they weren't doing, you know, the things that were leading to the challenges that we saw, and that's how we brought down homicide twenty one percent last year.
Speaking of Ada Towner's, do you feel like Atlanta's or is Atlanta being affected by their legal immigration crisis?
Not yet in a not in a huge way yet.
Atlanta, right now, we have a few individuals that have migrated here. These these individuals are coming through various points, either through Texas or they go to Texas and then go to like a Denver and then they end up in Atlanta. But so far we have not had the large amount of immigrants as a New York has had or some other places. They say, we are poyised at some point get them if the border continues going as
is going right now. In Atlanta, we're still under you know, somewhere in that you know, mid hundreds and not thousands of individuals, and.
So how can we prepare for something like that.
Yeah, we have gone to the federal government and for the number that we have, we have asked for financial support. And we are applying as financial support to housing so like hotels, and to some of the you know, clothing and food and and some of these folks have skills. They may not have the language, but they have skills. They know how to do construction or culinary et cetera.
Et cetera.
So some of this has been like, well, let's help them find a pathway towards a job or a business. And you know, some of that's moving forward. These folks are actually no longer in need of government support because they are they're working, they're are I mean, our economy is booming. We're in Atlanta, we're below three percent unemployment. So you want a job, you pretty much can find one that means, you know, Atlanta or a newcomer to
this country or this city. So some of them, we've you know, pretty rapidly in a short amount of time, got them to self sufficiency. And then others we're just taking it one day at a time and helping them. I'm still concerned, but we're dealing with it the best as best we can. I have a hotline directly to the White House because you know, we made routine visits and we are consequential to this upcoming year election. So if I if I need to yell for help, I can't.
We'll be right back. Stay tuned with more of the Baller Alert Show. You're listening to a special edition of The Baller Alert Show.
Hey, what's up, y'all? This is Mayor Andre Dickens. You are now tuned in to the Baller Alert Show.
How could we get more young people? Have five kids on my babies, but how can we get young young people more involved in their neighborhoods?
Yeah, I would love that. I want a city where everybody participates. Man, Like, these young folks got a lot of energy and they got a lot of you know, ideas, and they are the future. Why not train them now? So, whether that's if you want to work and come through the at L Year of the Youth program, we have opportunities for them depending on their ages.
Speak about that.
Yeah, so you can anybody can go to at L yearofthe Youth dot com. So While we started the Year of the Youth last year, we're keeping it going every year. I'm going to call it the Year of the Youth, right because I think they're just so vital and so important. So in that program are various other programs that we support.
We financially support nonprofits that are either doing you know, whether that's sports, but some are doing stems, some are doing arts and dance, some are doing you know, chess and chess and other skills games, and some are doing entrepreneurship. So I mean, like it depends on how old your kid is. Some programs are for middle school and some are for high school, some are for younger and some
of them for college. And in internships, you can also you know, contact us again this summer, we are going to have jobs for young people. Some of them are in the government, some of them are in your neighborhood. So we actually we help fund nonprofits to pay for internships for kids. So let's say it's a nonprofit that
just does community gardening. You know, there's some nonprofits that are in the area that are serving our food deserts, and they don't have enough money to pay an intern seventeen dollars an hour.
That's fine.
We'll pay a portion or all of that young person to come work for you because we want them to learn about urban gardening and urban farming. So that's you know, So it just depends on your kids interests well.
Also talk about economics for a minute.
You fieled over twenty three thousand potholes.
Low and we got more to go it y call three one one if you see a powerhole, we don't feel it again. Three one one. If you have a powerhole and we try to fill it within a week.
Man.
Yeah.
Man, you're also part of invest Atlanta. Yeah, can you let us know a little bit about that and all the great things that you guys done.
Yeah.
Invest Atlanta is one of the man, it's one of the best organizations that a city could form. It is our economic development tool. I'm the chairman of it. The mayor is always the chair of Invest Atlanta. And I was going to Invest Atlanta when I was a council member as well. And the goal of Investing Atlanta is to help small businesses start and for businesses that are started to grow, and then to attract new businesses here
to Atlanta. So it's all about you know, so you might got an idea and you don't know what to do with it. Well, invest Atlanta can help you get started. And then if you are started, Let's say you are in business in this you and your you know, just one employee, and you want to grow, but you need a loan or you need a grant, or you need you know to help you know, expand you need to buy a piece of equipment. Let's say you a pizza parlor and one of your you know, ovens goes down
or let's not go in the negative. Now you want to open up have another oven. Well, these ovens might be hundreds of thousands of dollars, So we help you finance that because you want your business to thrive, because we know that you will hire more employees, which then helps our local economy. It's you know, it's a it's a great cycle. We have grants that we give out, which are grants are free, I mean you don't have
to pay them back. So we have some of those and we did about nine million dollars or so last year and grants, and most of them went to women and minorities, particularly on the South and the West side. So it was a big you know, a big turnarout turnout of these grants went to communities in need. But then you know, sometimes it's people that used to in the past was like, Hey, I don't want one of them loans. I can get a loan from the bank. I don't want to invest that landloan, give me a grant,
you know. And so now now with bank loans being seven eight percent invested, Atlanta's loans off between one and three percent. So and everybody's like, young, mas, let me get one of them loans, because a one percent loan is almost like free money.
And Atlanta's like the home of an entrepreneur. Like everybody is an entrepreneur, no doubt.
Did you see Black Enterprise two weeks ago or maybe last week said that Atlanta is the best place to start a business. That's what Black Enterprise said, that Atlanta is the best place for you to start a business. And that's why everybody here has got at least a business on them. They might be working at a regular nine to five, but they also got another business. And we, you know, we applaud that we support that.
In Atlanta.
You know, we want to help you succeed because we know that your success means family success and community success.
Do you feel any weight on your shoulders when you know, looking at other mayors that come before you, like the Maynor Jackson's, Andrew Young's and people like that, do you feel any weight on your shoulders?
Absolutely, But I think it's that's a good thing. I think it's a good thing.
I wouldn't want to not be challenged in that way. The people deserve us to level up, to do even more, to stand on those shoulders, to not collapse under the pressure. It's hard being after Maynor Jackson, this huge legend, Mayor Jackson, and.
A lot of people don't know Harsville Jackson is the airport and they are two mayors, William Hartsville and Mayor Jackson.
So that's just a fun fact.
For the people. That's right. That's right.
So maybe about fifteen years ago it was just Hartsville, but then Mayor Jackson we added his name, and you know, he was the first black mayor of the Deep South, and fifty years ago we're celebrating this whole year, the fiftieth anniversary of his inauguration.
Imagine being the mayor when a legendary.
Mayor's hit his fiftieth anniversary, like right now, All day, every day it is like, well Maynor was doing this, doing that, and I'm like, yeah, I know, got to catch up the mayor.
I've only been at this two years. I'm catching up. You know.
It's not really a competition. This is more of an inspiration. It's looking at a man who you know. I'm going to maybe go a little long, but I want to tell a quick story since we're talking to young people. Maynard became mayor at thirty five. This dude, but wait, there's more. As they say in Late night TV, this dude ran for US senator at thirty In nineteen sixty eight. He ran for US senator. They don't only get two of them per state. He ran against an incumbent, a
white man named Talmage. He Now, remember this is nineteen sixty eight. We had just got the voters rights active in sixty four. So this black man runs in the state of Georgia to be the US Senator. He didn't win, but what he saw was I won Atlanta. He won Atlanta, and so he was like, well, you know what, I ain't winning US Senator, I'm going to run for vice mayor at the time. We used to have that, we
won't have that now vice mayor. He won vice mayor by a big, huge amount, so he became the vice mayor of the City of Atlanta, and Samsel was the mayor. So then when the next election came around, he ran against his the mayor. Sam Sel was running for his second term.
Maynor.
Jackson then ran for mayor. So mayor ran for senator, then ran for vice mayor and one, then ran for mayor and one.
This dude was relentless.
About getting to the goal, and the goal was to make sure that Atlanta was economically inclusive. He said, when that airport was we were building the fifth runway. We were building this airport out to make it the world's business airport. And he said, stop all construction, and I need twenty five percent of all that construction to go to black on firms. Minority on firms. Stopped the construction, and then all these folks started going crazy, saying, what is he doing.
He can't do that, He doesn't have the right to death. No, we're in control of the airport.
He said, y'all can have seventy five percent of this great thing, or you can have one hundred percent of nothing because I will stop all construction right now. And the business folks and everybody got together and chopped up twenty five percent and let it go to the minority businesses that to this day still exists. We're at thirty seven percent now, But had he not started it, where would we be. So yes, I live on you know,
It's not weight on my shoulders. It's inspiration. So whenever I got to make a tough decision, I think about what would Shirley Franklin do?
What did the ambassador Andrew Young? Do we have the World Cup coming? Well?
The Olympics was these guys were doing the Olympics and Bill Campbell and Ambassador Young were setting up the play to win the Olympics and along with Maynor Jackson and then Shirley Franklin was a part of that committee. So I'm looking at leaders as role models and inspiration. I talked to them. I call I can't you know, unfortunately I can't call manor Jackson, but I call his wife, Valerie Jackson, and we talk and she tells me stories and they give me ideas and I feel supported.
I wouldn't. I can't ask for more than what I have I'd hate to do this job if I didn't feel support it and have you know.
Examples some of the things that you are doing now. Is coming this year of just run down real quick Murphy's Crossing with that a new Marta station at that location, and that is pretty big for the city.
Yeah, that's big.
We haven't added a new Marta station in a long time, so we're going to bring a new Marta station and that would be the first mortar station on the belt line, so you can, you know, get off at Murphy Crossing station once we build it, and Murphy Crossing is going to have affordable apartments as well as market rate apartments, some retail and all that stuff.
But it'll be right there on the belt line.
So then you can take a walk, you can scoot, you can jog, you can do whatever.
You can ride to the belt line.
You can come straight from the airport straight to the belt line at Murphy Crossing and then going the way you need to go.
And you got three more Marta stations coming too.
That's right.
We are proposing three more and hopefully we'll get support from the city from everybody to do so. But we think everybody's excited about it because I announced it and folks like, yes, the one at Crog where everybody right now goes to that Crog.
Area the belt line.
And then one at Armory Yards, which is like northeast up there where the breweries are and in that area near where I eighty five the belt line and BEU for Highway area.
And then one on.
Joseph Boone which is on the west side not far from the Au Center and Martin Luther King area and uh you know, going towards you know, Grove Park in that area. So I think it's going to be phenomenal that people and all four of these are on the belt line, so you can take Marta to the belt line in four different places, get out on wall or eventually you know, we can have some transportation on it. So I'm trying to make sure that we grow the city out in the right way.
Connect Us is the town.
Yes, Can you give us five of the best wings in Atlanta?
The best wings spot?
Man?
Well, I'm a lemon pepper head, right, love lemon pepper So you know I like JR.
Crickets. I love wings. Stop. I know Rick Ross, you said, yeah, crickets.
See they was getting on me by jail crickets go ahead, contain.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, jail crickets wings stop. I even you know, we got atl wings that far from my house. We got JJ's. I don't know if y'all like j So how many is that? That's four or five?
Put the little stuff on the.
Top of what is that stuff? I don't know what it is.
You can't say it, but you know they call it the cracks.
Like, yeah, it is the one. Oh man, what is said American Deli? I said American Deli. That's what I thought. I hit five. I thought that American americ.
Yeah, all right, So one more thing. Keith Lee came here. He gave, you know, kind of gave Atlanta a satisfactory brother's coming back though, but he's coming back.
So where do you suggest that he go this time? Yeah?
Man, Keith Lee. Man, that was a bad week in Atlanta history. Man when he came out told everybody our food wasn't good. Yeah, well something went wrong that day.
Should go.
So he tends to like grabpable food that he could eat in this car and talk about. So I wouldn't you know, there's some fine dining that I don't think he's interested in.
That's not his thing.
So I would say, like Local Green, y'all ever been in Local Green over there, Joseph Lowry was Zach Zach. He got this new I mean, now it's they got salmon. They don't do beef and chicken, but got salmon. And this cauliflower burger is to die for. It is so good. And I know people will be like, wow, cauliflower, but no, it's delicious to sea LEAs you ever had to see Lee, which is these great. These are kind of on the healthy side of they're delicious. But then also, you.
Know, I mean selectly bigger.
Ain't bad, but they're now everywhere so in Atlanta, you know, but but but okay. The other side of the game is if he was to go to busy Bee, he can get some good busy beef fried chicken.
And I love.
The Baltimore Seafood. I don't know if you've ever been to like it's called Baltimore Seafood, but it's in Atlanta. Listen, let's let's not do that because it's called Baltimore. Maybe they got the ingredients in Baltimore. I want to get Atlanta at.
Atlanta, Atlanta and do y'all like spice House.
Spice House is good.
I love spice House because I like I like Jamaican food and I like Haitian food and stuff.
Yeah, like Mangoes is good.
Mangoes is good. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What he got to one on Auburn and one right there that Ralph David Abernathy. And now it's so I eat everywhere. I mean he he could have gone to a number of spots like I mean, I eat everywhere, by the way, So I'm thinking I'm trying to stay away from too fancy.
Like the places that you know he's gonna go to.
Yeah, yeah, places that he's just gonna grab.
But see, another thing that he had was he was talking about the he was talking about the customer service too.
Yeah, so that was the thing that he was yeah.
Yeah, See he went to some of the tourist spots on the weekend, and it's just long lines. And that's a challenge. I mean, I mean, you definitely have to be honest about that. You know, I like the food at those places, but you can't go there on a Saturday if you you know, locals don't do that because they they He'll find.
Some look at one of the places that you said one quick last question, where can I find a peach tree?
Yeah? See, so that's the deal.
We we talk about peaches a lot, but we don't really have a lot of peach trees in Atlanta.
You have to grow your own in your backyard.
But now you go North Georgia you can get to some peaches, or south you can get to some peach trees. But in the city of Atlanta, now we just we ain't got that many street signs called we got oh my god, we got all the P Street got.
Peach tree, Industrial, Pea Street, Center, West Street Circle.
Yeah, P Street Street Downewoody P Street Street.
Dickens, we appreciate us on the bottle.
Yeah, no, that one bad. I'm sitting up thinking all the places I eat. I eat everywhere, and I'm like, why am I freezing up? And why do I sound so that ain't healthy.
I'm like, you're here.
Before we get out of here, though, we do have a pep talk.
Hey, this is Andre Dickens, the mayor of the City of Atlanta, and my word of advice for you is to always aim high, reach for your goals because you just might hit them.
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