March 16, 2026

Legislators tell CSD to hold referendum on learning center

State Sen. Elena Parent, Rep. Omari Crawford and Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver hosted a town hall Dec. 4, 2024, at Winnona Park Elementary School in Decatur.

DECATUR, Ga. — Decatur’s legislative delegation on Sunday, March 15, demanded that the Decatur School Board hold a public referendum before it moves forward with building its Early Childhood Learning Center.

State Reps. Mary Margaret Oliver and Omari Crawford and state Sen. Elena Parent signed the letter. It was sent to the Decatur School Board and Decatur City Commission.

The legislators said they support creating a new early learning facility.

“However, we are increasingly concerned that the visible conflict among our elected leaders and our other community stakeholders is accelerating and painful for all of us,” they wrote. “It does not serve the needs of children in the community nor the city of Decatur itself for such division to persist.”

If the board refuses to hold a referendum, the delegation intends to advance a bill requiring one for the ECLC to be built.

“Please respond as soon as possible as to whether you are willing to call for a voter referendum on the current ECLC plans, so that we don't have to move forward with legislation,” the legislators wrote.

Decaturish contacted the city commission and school board for comment Sunday evening. This story will be updated if they respond.

When asked for comment, Oliver said, “The letter speaks for itself.”

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A controversial project

The early learning center building will hold 150 students, with 50 students able to attend at no cost, 50 having reduced tuition for CSD staff and 50 paying tuition to attend. School officials said that equity concerns are the primary motivation for building the new facility. The 150-seat learning center would be next to the Decatur Housing Authority.

The project has proved controversial because of its $22 million cost and the school board’s approach to its critics.

The board has been accused of being dismissive of people who question the need for the facility and of acting in ways that are not transparent, undermining public trust. The ECLC is being funded by a $52 million bond issuance through the city’s Public Facilities Authority. The money will also pay for an expansion at Decatur High School.

When a group of residents and former residents intervened to stop the bond from being validated and lost, CSD’s attorney threatened legal action against the intervenors, forcing them to abandon an appeal.

The bonds have not been issued. The area where CSD intends to build the ECLC was home to Beacon Hill, a historically Black community in Decatur, displaced by the city’s urban renewal process because city leaders considered it a slum. The displacement began in the 1930s and expanded in the 1960s. Families were forced out to allow for the development of a housing project, Decatur High School, and the county courthouse.

Now, a new group of former Beacon Hill residents is asking the Decatur Historic Preservation Commission to create the Beacon Hill Historic District, although that won’t stop the project.

The Decatur City Commission, which would have final approval over the historic district, had already planned to discuss the ECLC site, located at 346 W. Trinity Place, during its regular meeting on March 16. The agenda item has no documentation attached.

Before the March 16 city commission meeting, the Beacon Hill GrassRoots Coalition, a group supporting the property’s designation as a historic site, will hold a news conference.

The purpose of the conference is to call for an archaeological survey of the property.

“There is a lack of intact and recorded African-American sites in the city and none of Decatur’s current 24 properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places are associated with African-American history,” the news release announcing the news conference said.

The March 15 letter from the legislative delegation followed a contentious school board meeting on March 10. During that meeting, two board members — Lorraine Irier and Tracey Anderson — criticized the decision-making process behind the Early Childhood Learning Center.

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Polling the board

Irier said decisions about the school board’s response to the HPC process are being made outside of public meetings. CSD’s legal counsel wrote a letter on Feb. 18 requesting that HPC provide comments on the submitted renderings and engineering plans for the ECLC within 45 days, by April 4.

HPC Chair Andrew Navratil and vice chair Gabrielle Dean wrote a letter to CSD on Feb. 26, calling for a postponement of the deadline to after the city commission votes on the historic designation issue April 20.

In a March 2 response letter, penned by school board Chair Carmen Sulton on behalf of the district, she said the district would not rescind the request for comments. It did, however, state that HPC would have until April 17 to provide input on these proposed plans.

“CSD’s position is clear,” Sulton’s letter said.

However, the school board never held a meeting to discuss its position on the HPC’s letter. Irier said during the March 10 meeting that it was decided behind the scenes.

“With the recent letter to the Historic Preservation Commission regarding the ECLC matter, the discussion occurred through phone calls and emails, and the board was polled,” Irier said at the meeting. “I asked that the matter be brought forward for public discussion in a public meeting so the board could deliberate openly.

CSD spokesperson Mikkal Murunga previously said the lack of a meeting to respond to the HPC was due to it involving “a legal matter that was discussed with legal counsel.”

Murunga said the board voted on the ECLC bonds in October. There has been a school board election with a new member elected since the October vote, but Murunga said that “a majority of the current board voted in favor of the new ECLC” in October.

Meeting minutes show otherwise. That October vote Murunga mentioned was not unanimous. Only two current board members, Sulton and Hans Utz, voted yes. Tracey Anderson, who was on the board in October and remains on it, voted no. The meeting minutes show that board member James Herndon recused himself. However, at the public meeting, the vote was announced as 4-1, with Herndon voting yes.

A recusal means that someone has a conflict of interest preventing them from participating in a discussion.

Herndon, however, did participate in the discussion on Oct. 14 and spoke about the importance of building the ECLC. He said the district would finally take action to close the early education gap for Black students.

"We haven't done a damn thing about it as a city since we were founded. We just haven't, I'm sorry,” Herndon said in the Oct. 14 meeting.

The board did not vote to amend the minutes to show Herndon’s recusal, and no public announcement of the change was made. On March 9, Decaturish asked Murunga about the discrepancy between the public votes and the meeting minutes. She said she would research the question and respond. She has not answered the question as of March 15.

Here is the full letter from legislators to the Decatur School Board:

Dr. Carmen Sulton, Chair of School Board

Hanz Utz, Vice Chair of School Board

James Herndon, Board Member

Tracey Anderson, Board Member

Lorraine Irier, Board Member

Nia Batra, Student Representative
board@csdecatur.net

Dear Board Members,

We, the members of the Decatur Legislative Delegation to the Georgia General Assembly, support the goal of the City Schools of Decatur (“CSD”) to offer critical early learning opportunities designed to close the academic achievement gap and provide our most vulnerable families and children increased access to high-quality early learning opportunities. We recognize that to accomplish this goal, additional quality early childhood learning space is needed and we support adding a new facility to meet these needs.

However, we are increasingly concerned that the visible conflict among our elected leaders and our other community stakeholders is accelerating and painful for all of us. It does not serve the needs of children in the community nor the City of Decatur itself for such division to persist. Many community members have raised concerns with us, chief among them that the process to reach the decision to build the ECLC has not been open, transparent, and collaborative, specifically with respect to community stakeholder input on the cost, scope, and location of the proposed project.

Therefore, we would like to offer a solution and feel strongly that action must be taken to ease the dismaying community discord. We attach a bill for your consideration that would require a voter referendum to pass before the proposed ECLC could be constructed. We do not wish to file this legislation, but we are seeking a path forward to resolve this conflict for the benefit of all of our constituents and CSD. Our request is that you understand that this deepening angst is not productive and voluntarily call for a voter referendum. CSD should only move forward with the

project in its current form if it indeed has majority support. In other words, you would only move forward with a proposal for a new ECLC which is supported by the passage of a voter referendum. Please respond as soon as possible as to whether you are willing to call for a voter referendum on the current ECLC plans, so that we don't have to move forward with legislation.

Thank you for your immediate attention and response.

Sincerely,

Mary Margaret Oliver

Georgia House District 84

Omari Crawford

Georgia House District 89

Elena Parent

Georgia Senate District 44

cc: Decatur City Commission:

Tony Powers, Mayor Tony.Powers@decaturga.com

Lesa Fronk, Mayor Pro Tem lesa.mayer@decaturga.com

Mark Arnold, Commissioner mark.arnold@decaturga.com