PEOPLE
Fulton Commission Chair Robb Pitts says he’s still watching budgets and high school basketball
Fulton County Commission Chair Robb Pitts, at right, chats with Alton Adams, Fulton’s deputy chief operating officer for public safety. DONNA P. WILLIAMS
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Robb Pitts cultivated a reputation for keeping close watch over budgetary and financial matters while serving two decades on the Atlanta City Council and has continued that work as a member of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, which he now chairs. He’s championed such things as adding new revenue streams for government and tax relief for the elderly. But he’s not solely identified with finances and budget spreadsheets and projections. He’s proud of such projects as a renovation of the county library system and improvement of the county’s animal control services and considers improving the county’s transportation infrastructure to be a crucial job moving forward. To that end, he wants to see the county become a leader in alternative vehicle programs. Pitts, who’s in his midseventies, is a broker and business consultant. He has also earned degrees from Ohio University and other institutions, including an MBA from Emory University. He spoke recently with Atlanta Senior Life contributor Mark Woolsey. Q. What first got you interested in public service?
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DECEMBER 2021 | AtlantaSeniorLife.com
A. I was in Cleveland Ohio. When I moved back to Georgia, my home state and living for my first time in Atlanta, I got to know several prominent elected
officials. I worked with them — going to meetings and listening. In those days, it was pretty much all males and after hours they would go to a couple of watering holes and I would be listening as they talked and responded. After a while I made a decision, I could just do it better than they were doing it and I decided I wanted to become involved myself in their campaigns and getting to know a lot of neighborhood and community people.
“One of my goals is to make Fulton County the autonomous and electric vehicle capital of the world.” ROBB PITTS Q. How has politics changed since you got involved with it some 30 years ago? A. I would say there were more business types going back a few years in office. They were pretty much males. That’s changed and more females are getting elected and more diverse interests and neighborhood interests and so forth. The other thing that I have seen is once a person wins an office, they become an expert overnight. It’s like an instantaneous transformation. Going back a few years when you got elected you listened and learned. You did your homework. Q. You were a member of Atlanta City Council in the 80s and 90s. What was that like?
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