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Sunday, Jul. 05, 2009

Macon looks to other cities for bright ideas

Not all good ideas come from within.

That’s the stance officials in Mayor Robert Reichert’s administration are taking in their management of Macon. They have begun taking periodic trips to “benchmark” cities to gauge what other municipalities are doing right or wrong, and they’re seeing what bright ideas they might be able to bring back to the midstate.

This year, various members of the mayor’s staff visited their counterparts in Savannah. Last weekend, they went to Augusta. This month, Reichert himself will accompany a group to Greenville, S.C. Trips to Chatanooga, Tenn., and Columbus are in the works as well.

“We’re trying to focus on areas that are similar to Macon in terms of locale, size,” said Andrew Blascovich, Reichert’s director of external affairs who has been part of the first two out-of-town trips. “You get a lot of great firsthand knowledge on how things are actually done.”

Officials are looking at things such as initiatives to combat poverty and crime, or programs that have been successfully used to clean up and redevelop urban centers.

The trips also have served to promote more regional thinking, something the mayor likes, Blascovich said. In meeting with other Georgia cities in particular, Macon officials are establishing relationships that could bear fruit in the long run, he said.

The travel is funded by grant money that the Peyton Anderson Foundation made available to Reichert shortly after he was elected in 2007. The trips are chaperoned by professors with the Center for Economic Analysis at Macon State University, which was already working with administration officials to implement management practices based on past performance statistical data.

Greg George, the center’s director, said they will put together a report outlining what has been learned after the five visits are complete. So far, he said, elected officials and employees in the cities they have visited have been frank and forthcoming about what has and has not worked for them.

All of that information will be compiled into a useful resource, he said.

“I think it’s going to be a nice piece of work,” he said. “It will have a lot of good ideas that can help Macon out.”

To contact writer Matt Barnwell, call 744-4251.