Macon Mayor Robert Reichert made it official Monday, formally announcing that he’s seeking a second four-year term as he opened his campaign headquarters at 420 Cotton Ave.
About 40 supporters, including many of Reichert’s relatives, stood around the sparsely-furnished room as he climbed on a battered end table and whistled for attention.
He asked the Rev. Frank Ray to open with a prayer. After urging help for disaster-stricken Japan, Ray got down to local business.
“I’m asking you to bless our beloved mayor with four more years,” he said.
Reichert said he loved the job, but went through a list of calamities that have accompanied his term: the Mother’s Day tornado, nationwide recession and its accompanying loss of jobs and public revenue.
Despite those problems he has pushed ahead with ambitious plans, such as reinstating a pay scale for all city employees, clearing the dilapidated Macon Homes for a new 75-house development in partnership with the Macon Housing Authority, moving Macon Transit Authority to the renovated Terminal Station, seeing new aircraft-repair jobs brought to Middle Georgia Regional Airport and passing a major downtown redevelopment plan with the aim of securing major improvements, such as a list of road projects on the drawing board, and -- most recently -- finally settling a deal with Bibb County on taxation and public service delivery.
Reichert asked voters to return him to office to see those plans through, and sounded a call for greater public unity.
“Let’s keep a good thing going, and let’s get it together,” he said.
Reichert will face at least two, and perhaps four, candidates in the July 19 Democratic primary.
Former Mayor Jack Ellis, whom Reichert replaced in 2007, reiterated his plans to seek the office again.
“I’m going to run,” he said Monday. “We’ll be opening our campaign headquarters later this month or early next month.”
Paul Bronson, a first-time candidate who is also a Macon-Bibb County firefighter and substitute teacher in Bibb County schools, said in December that he’s going to run, though by law he’ll have to give up his firefighting job to do so.
And City Council President Miriam Paris said that she, too, is considering a run.
“I am waiting to make an announcement as to which way I’m going to go,” she said. That decision will come by the first week of April, Paris said.
Georgia Senate Minority Leader Robert Brown is regularly rumored to be planning a mayoral campaign, but his Atlanta office did not return a call Monday seeking comment.
On the Republican side, the only announced candidate is businessman David Cousino, who won the 2007 Republican mayoral primary with 61 percent of the vote, but lost overwhelmingly to Reichert in the general election.
To contact writer Jim Gaines, call 744-4489.
