E-Mail Address: aaronwatson@atlantaga.gov

Office Location:
Atlanta City Hall
55 Trinity Ave, S.W.
Suite 2900
 Atlanta, GA 30303-3584

Committee Assignments:
Zoning (Chair)
Finance Executive
City Utilities Committee

Main Phone: (404) 330-6302
Fax: (404) 658-6454

The oldest of four children, Aaron grew up in South Bend, Indiana. Aaron graduated from Notre Dame, with a BBA in accounting and practiced for four years as a certified public accountant with Deloitte. He subsequently attended Duke University Law School on the James A. Bell Scholarship.

In 1993, Aaron was elected to the first of two four-year terms on the Atlanta Board of Education, where his colleagues chose him as president of the board for five of the eight years he served. Watson also chaired the Finance Committee, overseeing a $450 million annual operating budget and a $430 million capital improvement budget.  

Under Aaron's leadership, the school board imposed standards of accountability for results from students, teachers, and parents, becoming the first system in Georgia to end social promotion. The board recruited a stable and successful superintendent. Importantly, Aaron and the board built a regional coalition to implement SPLOST, enabling the system to invest in infrastructure while paying off capital debt and reducing property taxes.

After eight years of concentrated attention to schools, Aaron turned his attention to the challenges of sensible transportation, smart land use, and appropriate housing density to link neighborhoods and maximize the quality of urban life. Aaron was an early advocate for the Peachtree Streetcar. He also helped nurture the Beltline project to surround Atlanta's core with parks and mass transit, and spur economic development. As a member of the Atlanta Development Authority, he championed the effective use of tax allocation districts to support development in neglected areas. He has also supported smart mixed-use development, and the inclusion of affordable housing in publicly supported private developments.

As a commissioner of the Atlanta Housing Authority, Aaron has been instrumental in the historic transformation of Atlanta's housing projects into vibrant mixed-income communities with recreational and educational opportunities for formerly desolate neighborhoods. And as a member and former president of the Piedmont Conservancy, he has promoted a public-private partnership to restore the beauty, health and long-term maintenance of Piedmont Park.

Aaron and his wife Sandra have raised their three children in Atlanta. Two of their children are Atlanta Public School graduates, and one currently attends the Atlanta Girls' School.