The city of Atlanta paid former Municipal Clerk Foris Webb III $910,000 for consulting tied to the stalled referendum effort over the city’s public safety training center, despite officials producing little evidence of work after the project’s early months.
The city paid Webb 26 monthly installments of $35,000, Atlanta News First reported. His Aug. 28, 2023, contract, signed by then-City Attorney Nina Hickson, had no end date or provision allowing payments to stop if petition verification could not proceed. It described his job as shepherding the referendum process, handling media inquiries, and advising the city.
Organizers delivered more than 100,000 signatures in September 2023 seeking a vote on the training center. The city declined to verify them while federal litigation moved through appeals. A January 2026 Eleventh Circuit ruling dealt the effort another setback, relying on state precedent that the referendum process could not repeal a local ordinance.
During City Council scrutiny of the contract, Councilmember Liliana Bakhtiari questioned how nearly $1 million was spent, while officials cited budget pressure. Councilmember Kelsea Bond called for accountability.
City Attorney Marquetta Bryan said she learned of the contract after an Atlanta Journal-Constitution records request, terminated it Feb. 2 and promised end dates, spending limits and tighter consultant oversight.
A July AJC investigation found the city could identify only two memos and a press release as Webb’s work product. The last released referendum-related email was dated May 2024, 17 months before his final invoice, although the city says some messages were withheld as privileged. Atlanta’s interim inspector general has opened an investigation, while a proposal to hire outside lawyers has stalled.
Webb did not respond to requests for comment and has not publicly explained the billing. The unanswered question is why monthly payments continued after the referendum work stalled and oversight faded.
