Attack email on Malhotra leads to escalating set of spats between council president candidates over public safety

In his State of the City address on Feb. 25, Mayor Andre Dickens alienated his perceived opponents, a large swath of Atlantans opposed to the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, colloquially known as Cop City:

As public safety remains a hot-button issue in Atlanta and nationwide, politicians at the top of the ticket in Atlanta’s Nov. 4 elections have leaned into charged rhetoric about it. Candidates have called opponents’ talking points on the matter dangerous enough to also represent threats to public safety—none more prominently than in the race for Atlanta City Council president. One campaign has accused the other of creating egregious attack content that threatens public safety, while the other echoes the attack content in calling the opponent a public safety hazard. Their starkly contrasting positions on public safety policy clash at the heart of this quarrel. 

Council president candidate and District 11 Council Member Marci Collier Overstreet has aligned with Dickens on Cop City. They share a broader campaign theme emphasizing public safety and have cross-endorsed each other. As the first issue Overstreet addressed in her interview with Atlanta Community Press Collective (ACPC) about her campaign, she cited the city’s direction on Cop City. She emphasized public safety as an example of her outlook on the council presidency continuing Council’s established direction:

“I personally want to see a well-trained police department. So I would definitely choose a Public Safety chair who was pro-public safety and pro-training. For all seven of our committees, do you want to stay in line with the last four to eight years, moving in the right direction, or derailing it by changing the views of our overall picture?”

Overstreet’s opponent for council president, Center for Civic Innovation (CCI) co-founder Rohit Malhotra, told ACPC in his interview that the city has a duty to protect residents by pushing back against state and federal legislation unfairly targeting Atlantans:

“Atlanta’s the most surveilled city in the country. Who do you think is being surveilled? Where surveillance is set up and how is not a protective measure. It is often used to target.”

Because prognosticators expect Dickens to handily win reelection, the Atlanta City Council president race has drawn the most focus among Atlanta’s municipal elections this November. The council president helps set the council’s agenda and determines committee assignments as leader of the legislative branch, working closely with the mayor, head of the executive branch. With increased focus has come tension, multiplied by the attack content Malhotra’s campaign has accused Overstreet’s campaign of creating.

Attack labels Malhotra dangerous by association

The attack campaign against Malhotra has depicted him as an anti-police extremist and danger to public safety, based on select quotes from a few nonprofits that have supported his candidacy or received grant funding from CCI.

On Sept. 15, an email from a domain name associated with TheRealRohit.com titled “Alarming Threat to Public Safety” attacked Malhotra for his endorsers’ calls to reduce police funding. Malhotra has championed reallocations toward cost-saving housing-first policies and economic mobility as top priorities if elected.

The attack email accuses Malhotra of “extensive ties to people and groups that want to defund the Atlanta police.” One example cited is Solidaire Action, a nonprofit that has awarded grants to progressive organizations, including some endorsing Malhotra. It published a 2022 exposition on the meaning of the “Defund the Police” mantra—popularized in the summer 2020 protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The slogan posits reducing—not eliminating—police funding, in favor of social services that meet residents’ needs and are proven to reduce crime rates.

Another example from the email is Community Movement Builders (CMB), described on its website as “a Black member-based collective of community residents and activists serving Black working-class and poor Black communities … to respond to encroaching gentrification, displacement and over-policing.” The email accuses CCI of funding organizations, like CMB’s Atlanta chapter, that “expressly support defunding and divesting from the police.” 

Seven days later, TheRealRohit.com posted the attack email and another post, titled “Bombshell Revealed,” with what groups supporting Malhotra called fearmongering language about CMB. Supporters believe the words resembled those of longtime conservative powers in Atlanta. The post proffers several questions about the funding and then posits a conclusion: “As more information is revealed, it is becoming clear that Rohit Malhotra is extreme and far outside the mainstream of Atlanta voters. Let’s keep everyone safe.”

A third post was published on Sept. 24 and includes excerpts from Bill Torpy’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution column from that day. Using Torpy’s descriptions of armed violence in Atlanta in summer 2020, the post conjectures “This is what our city neighborhoods would look like if Malhotra’s funded organizations had their way—violence, lawlessness, devastation.”

Malhotra’s response disavows attack, snaps back

On Sept. 16, Malhotra acknowledged the attack in a campaign email to supporters, calling it dangerous and divisive.

“Calling me a threat to public safety is a threat to public safety,” Malhotra wrote. “Our campaign has an entire platform on public safety, but instead of focusing on that, they decided to threaten my personal public safety. It’s shameful. Especially in a time like now.”

The response also accused the attack of darkening Malhotra’s beard and skin in the accompanying photo. The last two posts on TheRealRohit.com insisted this did not occur, calling the accusation a “cynical distraction of his record on public safety” and implying Malhotra should apologize for it. Malhotra has alluded to the attack in multiple campaign emails since.

As for the CCI grant to CMB, Malhotra told ACPC he’s proud of CCI’s nationally recognized work in voter education and support of majority-Black, women-founded organizations across Atlanta. The initiative involving CMB received Dickens’ and City Council’s promotion, support and attendance, he said.

“Our grant processes are rigorous and transparent—peer-reviewed and board-approved,” Malhotra said. “The grant singled out in the attack was one of millions of dollars’ worth we’ve redistributed, earmarked for nonpartisan voter registration and engagement during COVID-era municipal and school board races. To misuse logic in a failed attempt to stoke fear about me is a similar tactic that we usually see from MAGA Republicans.” 

“I talk about my positions on public safety at every forum I am a part of––but to be fair, you’d have to show up to know that. We will soon publish our extensive policy platform on our own website.”

Malhotra-supporting coalition’s demands

A coalition supporting Malhotra published a press release and an accompanying Instagram post on Sept. 25. The release stated that Fred Hicks, an Overstreet consultant, owns TheRealRohit.com.

“These actions are part of a broader pattern of dog-whistle politics and othering tactics that have characterized Overstreet’s campaign,” the coalition said. The group worries about diction inciting fear and potential violence, especially against Malhotra, and threats to the democratic process. It demanded an apology and transparency about the attack from Overstreet and Hicks, as well as Hicks’ ouster from Overstreet’s team.

Signing organizations included Asian American Advocacy Fund, Barred Business Power, GLAHR Action Network and Georgia Working Families Party (GA-WFP). The original attack email cited WFP endorsing Malhotra as another safety threat, noting a July GA-WFP Instagram post excerpt saying “Rohit is right—it IS time to be bold and courageous,” and a national WFP May 2020 tweet saying “Defund the police.”

“There is a long history of those in power othering people who challenge the status quo,” said Britney Whaley, southeast regional director of the Working Families Party. “Xenophobic, duplicitous attacks put our communities directly in harm’s way—no matter who does it. Respect the voters by running on the issues, and take responsibility for your actions. Rohit Malhotra is running an honest race with integrity, and we demand the other candidate do the same.”

Overstreet did not respond to ACPC requests for comment. TheRealRohit.com has been reset to a blank webpage since the coalition statement’s release.

The council president race is not alone in attack campaigns. An email recently circulated advertising a website against District 9 candidate Charles Bourgeois. The site focuses mainly on controversial tweets from Bourgeois’s Twitter account from 2010 to 2013, when Bourgeois was in his early 20s. Bourgeois’s lone opponent is incumbent Dustin Hillis.

Debate escalates attack tension, broader issue of public safety

It’s difficult to argue any Atlanta issue has been more prominent and controversial than public safety in the last five years. The candidates underscored that and expanded their attacks at their debate Oct. 8, hosted by Atlanta Press Club.

Overstreet consistently criticized Malhotra via association to CCI and his coalition of supporters, calling him anti-police and extremist, in line with the attack content. Malhotra would later note that support for alternatives is not anti-police.

Overstreet further denounced Malhotra on CCI finances and grant funding to nonprofits like CMB—which Overstreet insisted had orchestrated the viral pingpong balls demonstration at the Sept. 16, 2024, City Council meeting.

“Given that your company, CCI, reported nearly a $400,000 loss in 2024 to the IRS, has lost money in the last three of four years, yet you’ve given yourself a 200% raise over the years,” Overstreet posed in her debate-sanctioned question for Malhotra. “And you’ve funded companies and organizations, such as Community Movement Builders, that brought over 30,000 pingpongs to throw at City Council members. How can you, and your positions and your record, not be considered public safety hazards?”

Malhotra reiterated his pride for millions of dollars CCI had given across more than a decade to Black-led organizations for issues he believes the public deems important, such as food insecurity, in funding processes most local elected officials partook in.

“I think it’s ironic that we try to denounce Trump nationally, but we use his political tactics locally—which is to just cherrypick the data which is convenient for you to be able to say,” he said. 

Nonprofit monitor Candid confirms CCI’s 2024 fiscal year as a $376,480 net loss, its third net loss in four years. Amid a second straight drop in revenue of more than $200,000—after a revenue increase of more than $500,000 in 2022—Malhotra’s salary has risen from $113,384 in 2020 to $150,000 last year. 

“Sounds like you probably actually gave away a little bit too much of that million dollars,” Overstreet replied. “You probably should’ve left a little more so that you would not have left a $400,000 deficit in your company. And I would also like to add that just because you say it’s true doesn’t make it so. So you should probably keep your day job and figure out how not to have a crumbling business.”

The debate’s first question to Overstreet regarded the city’s more than $30 million deficit last year, attributed in part to police overtime, a factor in layoffs and other cuts. Overstreet said the city’s AAA bond rating showed it’s in excellent standing, which she committed to maintaining.

“We have the highest-regarded police department in the City of Atlanta, and we are adjusting our overtime and looking at our vacancies,” she said. The proposed 2026 budget shows 31.6% of the general fund going to police, more than double the general fund allocation to any other department. At $361 million in proposed total budget, the Atlanta Police Department is projected for a $54.6 million increase—up 17.8% from the adopted 2025 budget. It’s the largest hike by percentage among major departments. Malhotra emphasized CCI’s work includes examining the city budget in detail like this to proactively address potential shortfalls.

Malhotra used his question to press Overstreet on: the attack content, another council member endorsing Overstreet—whom Malhotra said called Black people in District 11 thugs—and Black history events she sponsored and hosted with Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, despite what Malhotra called Jones’ restricting of teaching Black history in Georgia schools. Overstreet denied Malhotra’s assertion that she was silent on these matters or failed to rebuff racism, accusing him of divisiveness as a smokescreen for not having the facts.

“This is all demonstrable, and none of those questions were actually answered,” Malhotra replied. “This is not about identity. This is about issues. I am not trying to be divisive. These are the things that make us divisive, when we split people and we tear people apart by using identity as a political tool.”

Malhotra also stressed city government’s unfulfilled promise to convert Atlanta City Detention Center (ACDC) to an alternative services center, which former Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms signed into law in 2019. Atlanta City Council has contemplated staged withdrawal of detainees at ACDC; the corresponding resolution is still in committee.

“You can’t just call it the John Lewis Center for Rehabilitation and then not do and practice the words of John Lewis,” he said. “We could’ve had a center by now that is actually providing direct services to people.”

Overstreet said Atlanta should work with Fulton County on the jail to balance with community services.

“Collaboration is important, and extremism should not be the way of the future for our city,” she said. “And it is important that everyone knows that leadership doesn’t look like 30,000 pingpong balls being thrown toward city council.”

“It seems like these pingpong balls really hurt your feelings,” Malhotra joked at Overstreet’s repeated allusion to them.

“They did,” Overstreet responded.

Afterward, Malhotra said he had no connection to pingpong balls, which protesters said symbolized the council and Dickens “dropping the ball on democracy” and the 116,000 unprocessed signatures from the 2023 Cop City referendum petition campaign. The mayor’s office appealed a September 2023 ruling to verify petition signatures for the referendum, despite Dickens’ promise that city government would put the referendum on the ballot if the requisite 15% of Atlantans’ signatures were delivered. 

“I’m not proud of the process,” Overstreet said. “I do believe that the city of Atlanta stands strongly behind the Public Safety Training Center. That is why I voted yes. … I also advocated, in real time during full council, for those signatures to be counted, as well as for them to be on a public website. I also advocated for a referendum.”

In August 2024, Malhotra had helped write a letter from local advocates beseeching the council to enact a referendum vote, which he alluded to in his response. Two years later, the referendum appeal remains unadjudicated. City officials celebrated Cop City’s grand opening this April.

“This is what people are tired of in politics, revisionist history,” Malhotra said. “It’s funny when council members say that they would have made sure that people had the right to decide but never once introduced legislation to make that happen… And when we talk about making sure that the petitions were counted, we doxxed 116,000 people by putting their names and addresses online.”

Overstreet continued to emphasize her record as reflective of her commitment to Atlanta.

“I’ve also championed public safety, which is going to make a difference in the lives of everyone,” she said.

Malhotra closed by highlighting Atlanta’s affordability problem and highest income inequality in the U.S. with a notion of change.

“It is time for a new generation of leadership that is willing to be bold and transformative,” he said. “We need to make sure that the legislative branch remains independent from the executive branch of government.”