Just made public today (but apparently filed at the end of March 2015), Atlanta Public Schools is requesting that the courts declare the legal titles for four elementary schools are clear -- so that APS can sell the old properties (not in current use), recoup the monies, and go on about the business of cleaning up the mess it made better educating children. At the heart of this lawsuit is a dispute of words and public relations between APS and the City of Atlanta, namely the Mayor of Atlanta.
Read more about APS's efforts to move forward and the horsetrading the Mayor has attempted to stall APS plans:
http://clatl.com/freshloaf/archives/2015/05/01/aps-files-lawsuit-to-gain-full-control-of-four-vacant-school-deeds
Here are some quotes for context:
Mayor Kasim Reed earlier this year said several vacant schools remain part of the ongoing negotiations in the APS-Atlanta Beltline funding dispute. But APS Superintendent Meria Carstarphen disagreed, saying the deeds weren't part of those discussions. Reed responded to her remarks saying that the superintendent "doesn't know what she's talking about" regarding the dispute, which still remains unresolved.
According to the March 26 filing, which seeks to "establish title against all the world," the city should have transferred over all contracts, orders, leases, and bonds to the Atlanta Board of Education as part of the city's charter adopted in 1973. That shift in responsibility also should have included the ownership of all properties the city had acquired to provide a public education to Atlanta children when it oversaw the school system. Since that time, the lawsuit says, the city's education board has paid millions in costs associated with the upkeep of those four vacant schools.
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