Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed Announces that Peter Aman Will Remain Chief Operating Officer until December 2011

Key accomplishments to date include addressing the City’s pension crisis, reducing emergency response times, eliminating fire-station brown-outs, improving critical service delivery and building multi-million reserves for the City

Mayor Kasim Reed formally announced today that Peter Aman, Chief Operating Officer for the City of Atlanta, will serve in that position for an additional year. Scheduled to leave at the end of this calendar year, Aman has decided to continue until December 31, 2011.

“Peter is a transformational leader who has helped me to significantly improve the quality of City services while also streamlining inefficiencies in municipal government,” said Mayor Kasim Reed.

“His knowledge and expertise in addressing the City’s most difficult challenges have been invaluable. I consider myself and the City of Atlanta extremely fortunate to have Peter Aman serve the City for an additional year.”

Aman was confirmed as COO by the Atlanta City Council in January. Since then, he has led the executive management of the municipal operating departments: Corrections, Procurement, Information Technology, Office of Enterprise Assets Management, Aviation, Fire, Police, Human Resources, Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs, Planning and Community Development, Public Works, Watershed Management, Office of Contract Compliance, Emergency Management Services and the external operating agencies.

“I enjoy working with Mayor Reed and the entire Cabinet; it’s been a great experience,” Aman said. “We have a unique opportunity to remake city government, and Mayor Reed’s trust and confidence in me allow me to implement changes that will benefit the City and its residents for years to come. I believe this Administration is in the middle of making positive changes and I am delighted to continue contributing.”

In collaboration with Mayor Reed and key City leaders, Aman’s accomplishments include:

· Dramatically improving fire response times in meeting the nationally recognized standard from 42 percent in January to 70 percent in May 2010;

· Increasing the number of garbage pickups completed on the scheduled day from 85.8% in January to 98.8% in July 2010;

· Implementing $7.4 million of projected savings in the first phase of reforms to the City’s pension plan. The City’s pension liability had risen 13 percent every year over the past ten years;

· Eliminating brown-outs at fire stations within first 100 days of the Reed administration;

· Working closely with Interim CFO Roosevelt Council to control hiring and spending, thereby reducing FY10 expenses by a total of $16M at year end;

· Leading Mayor’s staff that successfully worked with City Council to pass a budget which is both fiscally conservative (about $12 million in operating reductions, pension cost reductions, efficiency gains) and moved the city forward (included $3.7 million to re-open closed recreation centers and funding for 100 new police officer positions);


· Opening seven additional outdoor pools for the summer season and refurbishing all of the 15 City recreation centers that had been closed. The first six opened in August and the remainder will open before year end;

· Improving Code Compliance through a turnaround that included restructuring of code enforcement teams, additional staffing, compliance process redesign as well as city code changes to make response times and processes more efficient;

· Driving immediate management changes in multiple departments and at multiple levels and assisting the Mayor in the recruitment and selection of Commissioners and senior management talent; and

· Reaching out and directly engaging employees at multiple levels of the City, with a special focus on the critical work performed by the front-line employees (e.g., visits to crime scenes, fires, SWAT standoffs, rope rescue, fire stations, police zone offices, pothole repairs, HR, among others).


As a partner at Bain & Company, a global business consulting firm, Aman has helped to transform and turnaround dozens of large and complex multinational media and industrial companies. He also has held several leadership roles in Bain’s Atlanta office, including those in the areas of recruiting, staff allocation and professional development, facilities and information technology operation, risk management and professional standards.

Aman’s deep involvement in the City of Atlanta began in 2002 when he led a pro bono transformation effort by Bain & Company that lasted three years, providing $7 million of donated consulting services. The work by Aman and the Bain team revealed what was then a substantial gap in the city’s operating budget and designed a series of corrective actions, including the development of a comprehensive turnaround plan, a benchmarking of city costs and employment levels versus other comparable cities, the creation of an economic development plan, and a deeper understanding of tax and fee affordability of the city.

Aman has served on the boards of The Atlanta Committee for Progress, The Atlanta Police Foundation, The Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, and The Galloway School, among others.

Aman is a graduate of Duke University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy, with honors. He earned an MBA, with distinction, from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed Elected Chair of the Metro Atlanta Urban Area Security Initiative

Program develops and provides regional strategies to improve homeland security efforts in metro Atlanta
Mayor Kasim Reed recently was unanimously elected chair of the Metro Atlanta Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) Senior Policy Group.

UASI was developed in 2003 as a result of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2002. The program was established to provide grants to assist high-risk urban areas in preventing, protecting, responding and recovering from acts of terrorism.

Since 2003, the Metro Atlanta UASI has been actively engaged in strategic planning efforts with local, state and federal partners to ensure effective communications within the region in the event of an incident. In 2006, the program also began to concentrate on more regional collaborative efforts in the areas of fire, police, medical and citizen preparedness.

“I am honored to have been appointed chair of the Metro Atlanta UASI Senior Policy Group,” Mayor Reed said. “I believe elected leaders have no greater responsibility than to ensure the safety of their constituents. I look forward to working with the Metro Atlanta UASI to make the City of Atlanta and the region as safe and secure as possible.”

As chair of the Senior Policy Group, Mayor Reed will work in collaboration with the Board of Commission Chairs of Cobb, Clayton, DeKalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett counties to develop regional strategies designed to improve homeland security efforts in and around the metro Atlanta area.

“The Program Administration Office would like to congratulate and welcome Mayor Kasim Reed as the Chair of the Metro Atlanta UASI Senior Policy Group/Urban Area Working Group (UAWG),” said Julia Janka, Program Director for the Metro Atlanta UASI. “The Program Administration Office looks forward to assisting Mayor Reed in growing the program through his leadership and guidance. We stand ready to provide program and operational support for the Metro Atlanta UASI region.”

The Metro Atlanta UASI is required to focus regionally on the following programs and objectives:

Regional Collaboration
National Incident Management System (NIMS) Compliance
National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP)
Interoperable Communications
Information Sharing and response among law enforcement agencies
Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear and High Explosives (CBRNE) capabilities
Evacuation Planning
Citizen Corps/Citizen Participation/Volunteerism
Regional Transportation and Transit Security

UASI is administered through the Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP). The grant provides funding to high-risk areas based on risk and effectiveness to address planning, operations, equipment, training and exercise on a multi-disciplinary level.

Former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin served as the first chair of the group and is succeeded by Mayor Kasim Reed. Chairman Charles Bannister of Gwinnett County served as Interim Chair for six months until elections were held in July.
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