A conversation with City Council candidate Robert Welsh

• Courtesy Robert Welsh

Vacant homes bother Robert Welsh.

The Peoplestown resident watched the problem get increasingly worse over the years and saw very little action taken. So he decided to take matters into his own hands at a run for Atlanta City Council.

"I got really sick and tired of being sick and tired of the city not paying attention to the vacant housing issue," Welsh says.

When CL recently sat down with Welsh at Octane Coffee in Grant Park, he not only spoke to the issues negatively impacting the neighborhoods in his district, but also offered thorough solutions to many of those problems. And that's not something you necessarily see from every municipal candidate. He's a bit of a policy wonk - one who works as a budget manager for the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities - but says he's not afraid to find solutions to widespread problems in District 1.

Welsh - who last period raised $1,989.59 in cash and $6,075.00 in-kind donations - also talked about the new Falcons stadium, southeast Atlanta's recent crime wave, his opponent Carla Smith, and a slew of other topics. We've included some excerpts from the lengthy conversation below:

You mentioned that the new Falcons stadium is one of the biggest issues you've had a problem with. Can you explain your thoughts on that and how Council handled it?

Here's what I see. My litmus is pretty simple. If people don't want to live around it, it brings into question a lot about a particular project and whether something that is purported to be an economic catalyst, something that's going to revitalize the area. You've got to question, you've got to put a human face on development and if the folks don't want to live in and around it, it kind of brings a lot of questions in my mind.

That being said, I would not have voted for it under the way that it was brought to the City Council, particularly without a very robust and very specific plan that laid out exactly what the city was going to do with those dollars, what they were going to invest in the community, what the church's plans are, what those community group's plans are, and just having some real details about what they plan to do. If you're going to use public money, it needs to work. The idea that we're getting a better deal just because it's more money than some other place got to publicly fund a stadium, to me is kind of like, what are you really comparing it to?

I would not have supported it under the way that it was brought, I would have voted against it simply because you just have way too many problems without a real plan that really kind of paralleled what the Council was voting on and they didn't have a lot of time to review it. There were a lot of questions - and I was at a lot of those hearings - around the validity of the numbers. I thought what was interesting was some of the sports economists and some of their viewings and some of the things that I've read and studied as it relates to the issue. But to keep it simple: Can you get people to move there? Can you get people to move around the community? I think that's the test. So I wouldn't have supported it the way that it was brought to the Council chamber.

You live in Peoplestown, close to Turner Field. What's your take on the possible plans for development around the baseball stadium? What would you hope to see built in that area?