Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who has served in her role since 2017, announced on Thursday that she will not run for reelection this year.
"As (husband) Derek and I have given thoughtful prayer and consideration to the season now before us, it is with deep emotions that I hold my head high, and choose not to seek another term as Mayor," Bottoms wrote in a statement.
The mayor said it's not a lack of funds or fear of competition that's holding her back from seeking a second term. Instead, she said it's simply faith telling her that it's time to move on.
"My faith teaches me that to everything there is a season, a time for every purpose," the Georgia native said.
Bottoms expressed her love for Atlanta, describing it as a city where her "ancestors, direct descendants of the once enslaved, traveled by horse and buggy from the cotton fields of east Georgia, in search of a better life for themselves and their children."
"I have carried their belief for a better tomorrow in my heart, their earnest work ethic in my being, and their hopes for generations not yet born on my mind, each day that I have been privileged to serve as the 60th Mayor of Atlanta, the city that I deeply love," she said.
Bottoms was elected in 2017 after narrowly defeating Mary Norwood in a runoff, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Three months into her term, the mayor was forced to deal with a major cyber attack.
"We were hit with the largest cyber-attack in municipal government history, taking our systems off line for months, in exchange for a ransom that we would not pay," she said.
The city's challenges continued to pile up throughout Bottoms' term.
"A far reaching and ever growing federal investigation into the prior Administration consumed City Hall, often leaving employees paralyzed, and fearful of making the smallest of mistakes, lest they too be investigated, or castrated on the evening news," the outgoing mayor said, noting another critical juncture during her term.
The past year proved to be especially turbulent for Atlanta, a city which has seen massive protests, a raging pandemic, controversial laws and a devastating mass shooting targeting Asian-Americans.
Bottoms spoke out last year when the George Floyd protests turned violent.
"What I see happening on the streets of Atlanta is not Atlanta," she said, according to CNN. "This is not a protest. This is not in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr. This is chaos."
More recently, the 60th mayor of Atlanta criticized the Georgia law which requires new voter identification requirements for absentee ballots. According to CNN, Bottoms said voting restrictions will "disproportionately impact Atlanta residents — particularly in communities of color and other minority groups."
The former city council member has also clashed with Georgia governor Brian Kemp, who filed a lawsuit in July, saying Atlanta's mask mandate violated his emergency orders prohibiting local action from being more prohibitive than the state's requirements.
Despite the challenges of the past five years, the 51-year-old said she is proud of the city's progress.
"We persisted, passing sweeping ethics and transparency reform, ending our City’s longstanding contract with ICE during the family separation crisis at the border, raising the minimum wage for our employees to $15/hr and giving our police and firefighters the largest pay increase in the history of Atlanta," Bottoms said.
The Georgia politician, who was seen as a possible contender to be Joe Biden’s vice presidential candidate, was later offered a Cabinet post which she turned down, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Now, the mayor awaits the next step in her career.
"While I am not yet certain of what the future holds, I trust that my next season will continue to be one full of passion and purpose, guided by the belief that within each of us is the power and responsibility to make a positive difference in the lives of others," she said.
