Atlanta mayor announces plan to resolve APS deed dispute

Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms gives her acceptance speech during the 60th Atlanta mayoral inauguration at Martin Luther King, Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Tuesday, January 2, 2018. ALYSSA POINTER/ALYSSA.POINTER@AJC.COM

Credit: ALYSSA POINTER/ALYSSA.POINTER@AJ

Credit: ALYSSA POINTER/ALYSSA.POINTER@AJ

Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms gives her acceptance speech during the 60th Atlanta mayoral inauguration at Martin Luther King, Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Tuesday, January 2, 2018. ALYSSA POINTER/ALYSSA.POINTER@AJC.COM

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced she would submit an ordinance Tuesday to the city council to give Atlanta Public Schools deeds to properties the school district has sought for years.

The mayor’s office announced Tuesday that Bottoms had reached an agreement to transfer deeds for 50 properties to APS “without restriction or condition,” according to a news release.

The move brings Bottoms one step closer to fulfilling a campaign promise to transfer the deeds on her first day in office, a deadline she missed. The city kept some deeds to school properties after the city and school district legally split in the 1970s, and the previous mayor, Kasim Reed, had balked at transferring them to APS, resulting in a court battle.

There are a “handful” of properties that require “additional legal review” and the school district and APS will work on those “in the coming weeks,” the mayor’s office said in its statement.

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