Kelly-Jeanne Lee
From Ballotpedia
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Kelly-Jeanne Lee ran for election to the Atlanta City Council to represent District 1 in Georgia. She lost in the general election on November 2, 2021.
Lee completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Kelly-Jeanne Lee was born in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania. Lee attended Georgia State University, and she earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Vermont in 1999. Her professional experience includes working as an educator.[1]
Elections
2021
See also: City elections in Atlanta, Georgia (2021)
General runoff election
General runoff election for Atlanta City Council District 1
Jason Winston defeated Nathan Clubb in the general runoff election for Atlanta City Council District 1 on November 30, 2021.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Jason Winston (Nonpartisan)  | 52.4 | 3,089 |
 | Nathan Clubb (Nonpartisan) | 47.6 | 2,803 | |
| Total votes: 5,892 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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General election
General election for Atlanta City Council District 1
The following candidates ran in the general election for Atlanta City Council District 1 on November 2, 2021.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Jason Winston (Nonpartisan) | 29.4 | 1,971 |
| ✔ | | Nathan Clubb (Nonpartisan) | 27.5 | 1,844 |
| Russell Hopson (Nonpartisan) | 15.3 | 1,023 | ||
 | Kelly-Jeanne Lee (Nonpartisan) | 10.5 | 702 | |
 | Clarence Blalock (Nonpartisan) | 10.1 | 676 | |
| Victor Tate (Nonpartisan) | 7.2 | 485 | ||
| Total votes: 6,701 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Campaign themes
2021
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Kelly-Jeanne Lee completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Lee's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I was raised by a single mom who at 25 had just a high school diploma and two kids under three. She had the task of finding affordable housing with access to transit in a school district that could support my academic needs as well as the challenges that my brother faces - he was born with a chromosomal abnormality and a host of other differences that impacted his body and his learning processes. Her ability to do that shaped both of our lives. My brother received job training and was able to find work to help support himself and to give him purpose and a sense of community. I was able to become a first generation college student, to become a teacher, and to do what my mom was unable to do - buy a home. There are a lot of families like mine in the city of Atlanta, but I'm not sure that they are able to find what mine was. I'm running because I know first hand that affordable housing, transit, and education can dramatically change the course of peoples' lives and I want to fight so that families across our city have what they need to thrive.
- We must assure that all of our neighbors have access to housing- we must assist long-term residents in remaining in their homes, create affordable housing both for rent as well as to purchase, and assure that our unhoused neighbors become housed.
- Our infrastructure is in need of update and advancement. We have broken or absent sidewalks, minimal lighting or signaling, streets that need traffic calming, and a public transit system that has not received the attention and expansion we have been promised. We must prioritize these goals as it makes our community safer and, if done correctly, builds equity.
- A thriving small business community is at the heart of a healthy community. We must work to support our small-businesses as we navigate the continuing struggles of the pandemic.
Community Question Featured local question
It is crucial that residents are involved in all levels of decision-making. I am on the executive board for Lakewood Heights and involved at the NPU level as well. These are the first rungs of communication with residents, and attendance at these meetings should be a priority for all council people. However, we know that only a very engaged subset of residents is able or interested in attending these meetings. We must do more. As an educator, I hold weekly office hours for my students, but students don't always attend. I often find myself using this time to reach out to other stakeholders in the student's life. This is scalable easily to governance. It's not enough to home that residents come to me with their issues, I intend to hold weekly office house in different parts of the district from places like community centers and parks, coffee shops and cafes and actively engage communities who might not seek out a community meeting or attend NPU.
Community Question Featured local question
Crime is a symptom of other social challenges that must be met. In order to decrease crime and increase public safety, we must do several things. We must work to house as many of our neighbors as possible, provide wrap-around services for families in need, and work-force development for youth (especially non-college bound) youth in our community. We also must expand the Police Alternatives and Diversion Initiative to a 24/7 program that puts trained professionals on the scene to assist with emergencies that do not require police presence such as issues pertaining to mental health and homelessness. We can then reduce the scope of the work that the police do to what will have the greatest impact and most specifically requires their expertise. This will improve the overall safety of our community.
Community Question Featured local question
It should be decriminalized and anyone jailed for related offenses should be freed as quickly as possible.
Community Question Featured local question
I think that Atlanta is a world-class city, but that we do not have a world-class transit system to match. We must form a robust, interconnected transit system that includes light rail and long promised BRT options within our city's perimeter as quickly as is reasonable.
Community Question Featured local question
Our infrastructure is in need of update and advancement. We have broken or absent sidewalks, minimal lighting or signaling, streets that need traffic calming, and a public transit system that has not received the attention and expansion we have been promised. We must prioritize these goals as it makes our community safer and, if done correctly, builds equity.
I'm passionate about many of the urban planning aspects of public policy. Our city was designed for cars and with no planning for density. We are currently faced with the need to tackle several problems at once. We need to reinstate, improve, and significantly expand our current transit systems. We need to find ways to add density within our city's perimeter immediately that can be accommodated by existing infrastructure so that we can address our current housing crisis. We concurrently need to build infrastructure that can support additional long-term growth within the city's perimeter.
This office is largely about constituent services - improving the quality of life for people in our community. A city council person should be accessible and transparent, should seek first to understand, and be ready to connect neighbors with the help they need to resolve problems that community members encounter. Your city council person should be an ear to listen and a then a megaphone to project what she hears.
I look up to strong women leaders all over both our country and the world. I volunteered for Elizabeth Warren's first senate campaign, which was the first major campaign that I helped with. She inspired me to get more involved and that spark has been pushing me ever since. She also made the transition from being a teacher to being a policymaker, which is something that I feel driven to do. I hope that I can follow in her footsteps in bringing the perspectives and drive for public service I have developed through my years in the classroom to bear as a public servant for a larger community.
I have a distinct memory of watching the Challenger explode. In January of 1986, I was not quite 5. In my mind, I watched it on TV in my elementary school library, but I wouldn't have been there yet, and so I'm not sure exactly where I was. I just remember wood paneling, an old TV on a cart, and the silence and swift switching off of the TV that followed the bright flash of the explosion. We were awkwardly shuffled out and went on with our day.
My very first job was as a Girl Scout camp counselor. I was a CIT (counselor in training) at 13 and 14, and then from 15-19 worked as a camp counselor every summer. I loved being in the mountains, living in a tent, the smell of wood smoke, working with kids and with horses, and the ability to grow my leadership skills.
I'm a book nerd and so this is a hard question to answer. A longtime favorite has been The Passion by Jeanette Winterson. I read it nearly 20 years ago now, but can still picture it - the language Winterson uses is beautifully descriptive. It combines historical fiction, magical realism, and LGBT themes; all things that I enjoy in a story.
Meet Me At Our Spot - The Anxiety
I think that there are many types of experience that could be an asset to someone holding this office. Short of having held the job before, however, no one will be ready on day one. The best thing that we can do is build relationships with people within and outside of government who we can work with as guides and sounding boards as we learn the role we are elected to fill.
I think that the biggest assets one can have to do this job well are a deep love of a community, the willingness to work hard to make it better for everyone, and the humility to know what we are experts on and where we need to seek council.
What do you call cheese that isn't yours? Nacho cheese.
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See also
2021 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on October 4, 2021
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