From the Mayor's Office

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Andrew Blascovich
Mayor’s Office, City of Macon
andrew.blascovich@macon.ga.us

Status of Macon Audit Certification for Fiscal Year 2005
Macon, GA, 4/9/08 - On Monday April 7, 2008 the Mayor’s Office received an email regarding the certification of the audit from the 2005 fiscal year. The email was from the Department of Community Affairs (DCA) and was based off a message they received from the Department of Audits and Accounts.

Mayor Robert A. B. Reichert considers this to be of the utmost importance to the City of Macon and he has indicated his desire to resolve this issue and to do so in a timely manner. Mayor Reichert has informed City Council of the situation and continues to work to achieve a satisfactory resolution for the City of Macon, with great consideration to all parties that are involved.

It is the firm belief of Mayor Reichert that this issue can be resolved between the primary parties in this disagreement and that the audit for fiscal year 2005 that has already been accepted by the State of Georgia will remain in place.

Today Mayor Reichert has spoken with key city departments and also the previous city auditors Clifford, Lipford, Hardison, and Parker to see what the concerns and issues are with the audit from the 2005 fiscal year.

State of Georgia has not set a timetable for a resolution of this issue or withdrawn any funding from the City of Macon because of this issue. As the City of Macon moves forward to resolve this situation Mayor Reichert remains committed to keeping both City Council and the Citizens of Macon informed on the progress.

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Andrew Blascovich
Director of External Affairs, City of Macon
700 Poplar Street
Macon, GA 31201

Kiss my big, fat Annex

The county commissioners, in all their wisdom (and desperate need to look good in front of voters), held a meeting to let the people of unincorporated Bibb County yell about annexation. It was a circus. Except it wasn’t funny.

There’s a refrain from these to-be annexed people that sounds like someone convincing themselves of something: “I choose to live outside of the city.” Yeah, you choose to live JUST outside the city. You haven’t chosen to live in the sticks of Monroe or Crawford or Butts County because they aren’t JUST outside the city or any city like Macon.

See, for all its foibles, you still need Macon. You might not use all of the city’s services, but you certainly come here to eat and buy your groceries and clothes. You come to the Medical Center of Central Georgia and the Coliseum Hospital because they’re better than any alternative in a 100-mile radius. You choose to live JUST outside of the city because you think that the taxes are too high, acting as if those extra taxes would be like handing booze money to a bum.

You only see the problems with Macon but forget why you live where you live. Do you think the business you work for would be where it is if it weren’t for Macon and what it has to offer as a city? Maybe a few of you can answer that affirmatively, but most of you know you can’t. Do you think Kumho Tires would’ve plopped down in the middle of nowhere? Nope. They want to be near a city so when they hire people and bring people in they have somewhere to LIVE.

The worst part of it all is that you only see the problems and you don’t see yourselves as a part of it. You think the problem is the city’s politicians (which means you haven’t paid much attention to your dear County Commission) or the urban youth or crime or whatever you think the problem is, but you don’t see yourself as a part of it—neither its source or solution. If you think you can live on the edge of a donut, keep it up. Before you make up your mind, go take a look at Detroit, MI. The inner city emptied out to live in the suburbs and surrounding townships. What do you think the quality of life is for those living on the rim? If they still had a whole city, I tell you they’d have a better quality of life.

Not that this matters all that much. See, about two-thirds of the county population actually lives within Macon city limits. If the vote for annexation goes as it should, meaning it involves everyone affected by annexation—both the annexed and the annexers—then that two-thirds will probably triumph. If it doesn’t and the county commission continues to grand stand like it only has to champion the rights of the people in unincorporated Bibb County, they’ll find themselves without a job soon enough. The people of the city of Macon want a change and we’re going to get it.