About
Aaron Watson serves as the Post 2 At-Large Atlanta
City Councilmember. Elected to the City Council in December 2009, Aaron served
as chairperson of the City Council’s Zoning Committee in 2010 and 2011 and
continues to serve on that committee and the Executive/Finance and Utilities committees.
During his first term, Aaron has provided exemplary
leadership. He helped to approve two balanced budgets; authored one of the
first drafts of legislation that brought forth groundbreaking employee pension
reform—saving the citizens of Atlanta more than $270 million over 10 years; and
co-sponsored legislation for the Atlanta Streetcar from the Martin Luther King
Historic District to Downtown Atlanta.
In addition to his policymaking role on the City
Council, Aaron is also a member of the
Board of Trustees for the City of Atlanta General Employees Pension Plan where
he chairs the Board’s Investment Subcommittee. He is also a member of the Atlanta
Recycles Steering Committee.
In 2011, Councilmember Watson launched Living Smarter with Aaron Watson—a
communitywide initiative aimed at helping Atlanta become a more active,
healthier, greener and smarter place for everyone to live. This initiative
engages citizens in activities that span from bike rides across the city to
community farmers markets to reading to babies and toddlers and much more. In
2012, Aaron’s Living Smarter focus will expand to bring more attention to
curbside recycling in the city.
Aaron has a distinguished career in public service
in Atlanta focusing on the challenges of sensible transportation, smart land
use, and appropriate housing density to link neighborhoods and maximize the
quality of urban life.
Most notably, Aaron was an early advocate for the
Peachtree Streetcar and he also helped nurture the Beltline project to surround
Atlanta's core with parks and mass transit, and spur economic
development. As a long-term member of the Atlanta Development
Authority (under three mayors), he championed the effective use of tax
allocation districts to support development in neglected areas. He has
also supported smart mixed-use development, and the inclusion of affordable
housing in publicly supported private developments.
As a Commissioner of the Atlanta Housing
Authority (2005 to 2009), Aaron was instrumental in the historic
transformation of Atlanta's housing projects into vibrant mixed-income
communities with recreational and educational opportunities in place of
formerly desolate neighborhoods.
And, as a member and former president of the Piedmont
Park Conservancy, he has promoted a public-private partnership to restore
the beauty, health and long-term maintenance of Piedmont Park and other parks
throughout the city.
In 1993, Aaron was elected to the first of two,
four-year terms on the Atlanta Board of Education (1994-2002), where his colleagues chose
him as President of the board for five of the eight years he served.
Aaron also chaired the Finance Committee, overseeing $450 million annual operating
budget and a $430 million capital improvement budget.
Under Aaron's Leadership, the school board
imposed high standards of accountability for results from students, teachers,
and parents, becoming the first system in Georgia to end social promotions.
Aaron and the board built a regional coalition to implement SPLOST, enabling
the Atlanta Schools system and other systems in the region to invest in
infrastructure while paying off capital debt and reducing property taxes.
The oldest of four children, Aaron grew up
in South Bend, Indiana. He graduated from Notre Dame University with a
Bachelor's Degree in Accounting and practiced for four years as a certified
public accountant with Deloitte. He subsequently attended Duke University
Law School on the James A. Bell Scholarship. He currently practices
corporate finance law.
Aaron and his wife Sandra have raised their three
children in Atlanta. Two of their children are Atlanta Public School
graduates, and the youngest currently attends Valdosta State University.