Bianca Motley Broom was sworn in as the 27th mayor of College Park, Georgia in January 2020. She was elected to a second term in November 2023. She is the first woman and the first Black person to serve as mayor of College Park. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, she has lived in College Park since 2008. 

Mayor Motley Broom is deeply committed to building the community College Park’s citizens deserve. She is passionate about creating more opportunities for resident engagement and collaboration. Mayor Motley Broom is also working to bolster economic development and embrace fiscally sound and sustainable practices to ensure the city’s continued growth.

In her role as mayor, she serves as the chief executive of College Park, a city of nearly 15,000 residents with a yearly budget of over $170 million. The city supports a thriving entrepreneurial community and has over 3,000 businesses in eleven square miles, including the headquarters of Chick-fil-A. Portions of the world’s busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, are within the city’s limits. College Park also boasts the second largest convention center in the state, the Georgia International Convention Center (GICC), and in late 2019, the city opened the Gateway Center Arena @ College Park. Both facilities are city owned and operated. The Arena is a 5,000-seat venue that hosts professional sports, concerts, family events, graduations, conventions and more. It is home to both the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream and the College Park Skyhawks, the G-League affiliate of the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks.

In 2020, College Park broke ground on one of the largest projects in the region. When fully complete, the Six West development will be valued at more than $1 billion. The venture is a public-private partnership that will contain residential, retail, entertainment and corporate attractions for both residents and visitors to the city. Since the start of her tenure, the project has moved forward with important infrastructure investments, including the $9 million construction of the main thoroughfare of the development, Lottie Miller Boulevard, and the commencement of a $13 million pedestrian bridge linking Six West to the Gateway Center District. Since Mayor Motley Broom took office, College Park has seen more than $100 million in public and private investment in the city.

Even with the challenges of the COVID-19, under Mayor Motley Broom’s leadership College Park has continued to thrive. At the height of the pandemic, Mayor Motley Broom advocated for access to vaccines on the southside of metro Atlanta in partnership with Fulton County and the State of Georgia. Over 65,000 vaccinations were administered to the community at the GICC. She also collaborated with county leaders and city staff to open the GICC and the Arena for the 2020 election cycle, providing safe and accessible voting for the community.

Main Street has seen tremendous growth with visitors coming from across the region to dine and shop. The city has embraced innovative strategies such as converting parking spaces along Main Street into parklets for more outdoor seating to support business during the pandemic while also tackling pivotal issues like housing affordability. Mayor Motley Broom has championed new housing developments in areas of the city plagued by a generation of disinvestment. Those efforts have paid off through projects such as South Park Cottages (an award-winning microhome community) and Somersby (a mixed use/mixed income development adjacent to North Clayton Middle School). The Diamond College Park, a partnership with the College Park First United Methodist Church, is under construction near the College Park MARTA station, which will bring additional residents to a vibrant part of the city, along with an arts campus. Mayor Motley Broom has also been an ardent champion of the development of a nature preserve in the city in conjunction with Finding the Flint. The group is committed to connecting the community to the Flint River, which has its origins in East Point and College Park.

Mayor Motley Broom’s advocacy in the area of housing affordability and access has been recognized on state and national level. In January 2022, she testified before the Georgia House Judiciary Committee regarding House Bill 1093, legislation that would have limited the ability of local governments to regulate build-to-rent subdivisions in their communities.  In March 2023, she returned to the State Capitol to advocate on behalf of all Georgia cities regarding housing design standards preemption. She is a sought-after speaker on institutional investors and their impact on the housing market, having been invited by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the National League of Cities (NLC) and others to share her views.

She has led the city’s efforts for equitable and inclusive development, spearheading the city’s participation in NLC programs such as the Vacant Property Leadership Institute and the Southern Cities Economic Inclusion Initiative. Through these experiences and others, Mayor Motley Broom has been able to bring innovative ideas back to College Park that have improved the level of service for residents, visitors and businesses alike. She regularly interacts with her colleagues in other communities to help improve College Park.

Mayor Motley Broom is the Second Vice President of the Georgia Municipal Association (GMA). She is also chair of GMA’s Federal Policy Council.  She is a member of GMA’s Board of Directors, Executive Committee and Legislative Policy Council. Mayor Motley Broom has previously served GMA in various other capacities, including: chair of GMA’s Member Services Advisory Council, chair of the Municipal Government Policy Committee, President of GMA’s Third District, Southwest, member of the Governor’s COVID-19 Advisory Committee, member of the Environment and Natural Resources Committee, member of GMA’s Equity and Inclusion Commission and member of the GMA Hall of Fame selection committee.  With her co-chair, Chief Louis M. Dekmar of the LaGrange Police Department, she also led GMA’s Excellence in Policing committee, providing a roadmap for communities across the state to improve public safety outcomes. 

Mayor Motley Broom was elected in November 2023 to NLC’s Board of Directors for a two-year term. She served on NLC’s Community & Economic Development Committee from 2020-2021 and is currently a member of NLC’s Public Safety and Crime Prevention Federal Advocacy Committee. In 2023, she was one of nine local elected officials from around the county selected to participate in NLC’s Housing Supply Accelerator, a joint effort with the American Planning Association to address the housing challenges facing cities across the country.

Since taking office in 2020, Mayor Motley Broom has continued the work to educate herself to College Park’s benefit. While every newly elected official in Georgia is required to take six hours of training, she has gone above and beyond what is compulsory. Mayor Motley Broom has taken over 170 hours of training through GMA and the University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government (CVIOG). She has earned a Certificate of Excellence from CVIOG as a result of these efforts.

A conflict resolution specialist, Mayor Motley Broom is a registered arbitrator, civil mediator, and domestic relations mediator in Georgia. She is a full-time neutral at Miles Mediation, the largest mediation and arbitration firm in the Southeast. From 2017-2019, she served as a part-time judge in Fulton County Magistrate Court. Prior to her appointment to the bench, she was a trial attorney and litigator for nearly fifteen years.  

Mayor Motley Broom earned a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy Studies and Religion from Duke University. She also minored in African and African-American Studies. While at Duke she was elected Duke Student Government’s Vice President for Student Affairs and served on the Duke University Board of Trustees as a student representative. Mayor Motley Broom is currently a member of the Duke Atlanta Alumni Regional Board. 

She earned her Juris Doctorate at Washington University School of Law, where her commitment to public service was recognized by her designation as a Webster Society Scholar. Mayor Motley Broom was also active in both the Student Bar Association and the Black Law Students Association during her time in law school. She received an MBA with honors and earned certificates in Strategy and Execution, Change Management and Management Analytics from Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. 

Being active in the community is an integral part of Mayor Motley Broom’s life. She served as board president of The Main Street Academy and also served on the board of the Historic College Park Neighborhood Association. She is a member of the College Park Woman’s Club and has volunteered in various capacities throughout the Atlanta region including Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Wholesome Wave Georgia and Hosea Helps. Mayor Motley Broom is a member of the National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals – Georgia Chapter and several other professional organizations, including the State Bar of Georgia, the Gate City Bar Association, the Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys, the Georgia Association of Women Lawyers, the Stonewall Bar Association of Georgia, the Lawyers Club of Atlanta and Mediators Beyond Borders.  She is a frequent presenter on issues of implicit bias in the law with particular emphasis on alternative dispute resolution. 

Mayor Motley Broom has been featured in several publications, including the Washington Post, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia Trend, Business View Magazine, the Atlanta Business Chronicle, The Atlanta Voice, Saporta Report, The Atlanta Lawyer, the Daily Report and the Clayton Daily News among others. Her television and radio appearances include Outside TV, WSB-TV, WGCL-TV, WABE 90.1 FM, WSB 95.5 FM and WOAK 1380 AM. 

In 2022 and 2023, she was named as one of the Top 100 Black Women of Influence by the Atlanta Business League. Also in 2023, the Congress Heights Arts and Culture Center honored her with their Public Servant Award. Mayor Motley Broom has been recognized by both the 100 Black Men of South Metro Atlanta, Inc. and the College Park Black History Month Committee with their Trailblazer Awards.

An enthusiastic amateur potter, Mayor Motley Broom has sold her work at several local arts festivals. She also enjoys spending time with her family, her three dogs, swimming and reading. She is a lifelong Cleveland Browns fan and the granddaughter of Pro Football Hall of Fame Fullback Marion Motley.