Meet Clarence "CT" Martin

Councilmember Clarence Terrell "C.T." Martin is a native Atlantan elected to the Atlanta City Council in a 1990 special election. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, and a Master of Science degree in Social Work from Atlanta University. For over 30 years, Mr. Martin has provided professional services in a number of areas including education, social services, enfranchisement and voter rights, government (local, state and federal), and private business enterprise. Since his election, Councilman Martin has labored tirelessly to bring the voice of visionary African Americans to impact on national policy.

At Mayor Maynard Jackson’s request, Mr. Martin chaired the Atlanta delegation for the 1992 "Save Our Cities" March on Washington, D.C., a demonstration involving over 25,000 citizens seeking a more sensitive federal commitment to solving urban crises. Recently, he participated in mobilizing participants in the "Million Man March" to Washington. To further capture the momentum from that event, he ventured ahead to organize the "Stand-up For Children" March in 1996. At the local level in Atlanta, his vision for wide scale solutions to the needs of the next generation inspired him to establish the first "Mobile Youth Resource Center System -Youthmobile" in the city’s history. It consists of staffed vehicles linked through a computer data base and remote communications system with other support systems such as the school system, AFDC, Atlanta Police Department, food suppliers, counseling, and parenting services. This model program serves as an innovative strategy that emphasizes mobility, triage, automated access to human resources data, and the ability to optimize and expand the service delivery of scarce staff. The "Youthmobile" provides a wealth of valuable information on job placement, drug awareness, educational opportunities and pregnancy prevention and provides mobile human services to needy youth across the City of Atlanta.

Councilman Martin also established the first "Youth Commission" in the city’s history. The goal of the "Youth Commission" is to interact with other state, local, religious, and educational agencies to insure that Atlanta’s children are given every opportunity to achieve their greatest potential. It will serve as a clearinghouse for ideas, providing advice, counsel, and resource development to the Mayor and City Council on critical youth related issues.

In 1998, Councilman Martin is carrying his mission forward for improving the quality of life for the City by serving as CHAIRMAN of the Public Safety Committee and 1998's President Pro-tem. When all other public officals' voices were focused on the concentration of security measures downtown for the Olympics, only Councilman C.T. Martin recognized the potential dangers to Southwest neighborhoods created by these downtown shifts of public safety coverage. Councilman Martin has an "excellent staff" to help carry out his task. He also supplements his broad policy making roles with genuine "hands-on" programs for youth. He has adopted a 24 member elementary school class to whom he routinely reads literature. He has also arranged for donations to cover the cost of uniforms for elementary school children and school supplies. Dedicated to the promise that every community needs a well balanced system of recreation facilities and programs, Councilman Martin is in the midst of guiding the dream of a community recreation center to reality in 1998.

Since 1995, faced the the dilemma/challenge of minimizing acquisition costs in the face of city improvement budgets not originally designed to accommodate this project, Councilman Martin has labored unceasingly, marshalling every possible city departmental resource to create a process that produced a site, architectural design, and construction. The proposed site is located in Adamsville, and is large enough to accommodate a full service community recreation center. In reversal of the Mayor's veto of design and construction funds for the recreation, Mayor Campbell, in a letter dated February 5, 1997, reassured citizens that design will be completed during 1997. It would be funded through Revenue Bonds. Construction will commence and be completed no later than 1999. Now is the time to coordinate with the Parks and Recreation Department on identifying the range of programs which the community desires and forecasting the staffing and volunteer needs to provide adequate supervision and management of these programs.

Call Andrea Boone at (404) 330-6055 today for your copy of last year's operating budget.