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Wednesday, Nov. 04, 2009

Mike Anthony resigns from city of Macon

Mike Anthony, director of the Macon-Bibb County Parks and Recreation Department and a jack-of-many trades in former Mayor Jack Ellis’ administration, plans to retire from the city in January, City Council members said today.

Macon’s chief administrative officer sent City Council members an e-mail informing them of Anthony’s resignation Friday. A posting to fill his job is already online.

“(Anthony) has been with the City for 12 years and has made many contributions to the organization as Airport Director, Finance Director and CAO,” current CAO Thomas Thomas wrote in the brief e-mail. “The Mayor’s Office wishes him well in his future endeavors.”

Attempts to reach Anthony this afternoon have not been successful. He was out of town attending the Recreation and Park Association’s annual conference today, according to the parks department.

Anthony became parks and recreation director in 1997, under then-Mayor Jim Marshall. Twice under Ellis he was named the mayor’s interim chief administrative officer.

His first stint came in 2003, seven months after he fought off a potentially deadly case of bacterial meningitis. The second came in 2006, when Ellis switched from then-interim CAO Regina McDuffie back to Anthony, who had been heading the parks department again in the interim. Anthony also stood in as Ellis’ airports director after the Federal Aviation Administration threatened to ground flights out of Macon over a series of regulation shortcomings.

He helped bring in TBI and negotiate a contract with the private company, which manages the airport for the city today.

Anthony is also a retired colonel, with a 29-year military career.

“He was a pinch hitter,” Councilman James Timley said Wednesday. “When things didn’t go (well) or somebody left, he would always fill in.”

“I thought he did a good job,” said Timley, the council’s president pro tem. “I thought he did a decent job. I didn’t really have any problem with him.”

Information from The Telegraph’s archives was used in this report.

For more on this story, see Thursday’s Telegraph.