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Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009

Brown questions Reichert about school board seat

During some downtime at Tuesday’s annual gathering of Bibb County state legislators and local government leaders, state Sen. Robert Brown hit Macon Mayor Robert Reichert with an unexpected question.

Brown asked the mayor how he would feel about serving on the Bibb County school board.

Reichert said he hadn’t thought about it, since no one has formally pushed for such a change. The board is an independent body with six elected members who choose a superintendent to handle day-to-day operations.

But after a few seconds of thought, Reichert said the idea was “like chicken soup when you’re sick: It couldn’t hurt.” It would lend itself to synergy, the mayor said, given how important public education is to Macon’s future. Brown, D-Macon, wasn’t necessarily making a formal proposal. He wouldn’t answer Telegraph questions about the idea after he floated it, wouldn’t say where it came from and wouldn’t say whether he plans to pursue it.

Brown typically plays things close to the vest and all he would say was that it was “just a question.”

But it’s not a question he asked during an earlier meeting Tuesday morning with Superintendent Sharon Patterson and board members Lynn Farmer and Ella Carter.

“I’ve never heard that,” Farmer told The Telegraph later in the day. “ I wouldn’t agree with it. I think the school board should be elected to serve on the school board. We’re not sitting on the council. ... We’re a separate elected entity.”

There was a time that both the city’s mayor and county commission chairman served on the board and appointed other members, Patterson said. But that predates the school board becoming an elected body.