Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed on Friday regarding a proposed $1B downtown stadium for the Falcons said that an "information offensive is in the works, starting with a public briefing Wednesday before the City Council’s finance/executive committee," according to Jeremiah McWilliams of the ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION. Reed said, "You’re going to get more transparency. We’re going to give the public every piece of data that we can possibly give them. Everything is going to be known. Questions are going to be answered in public and on television." State and Falcons officials have been "invited to the Wednesday meeting." The move "comes after two years of closed-door talks between the Falcons and the Georgia World Congress Center Authority." Reed said that his administration is "assembling a finance and legal team focused on a stadium deal." He "expects that team’s analysis to be delivered within two to three weeks." There could also be "one or two more public meetings in addition to Wednesday's." Reed said the additional public meetings will be held "so that there is no sense that this transaction happened ... behind closed doors." He added that he is "confident the idea of using public money in the form of local hotel-motel taxes to partially finance the stadium enjoyed support of at least 50 percent support inside Atlanta." That is "far higher than across the state of Georgia" (ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, 2/9).
