State Sen. Robert Brown and Macon Mayor Robert Reichert held dueling news conferences Thursday, with Brown charging that Reichert seeks to “bamboozle” voters with an inaccurate campaign commercial, and Reichert refuting Brown’s claims from the site where the commercial was filmed.

Both men seek the Democratic nomination for mayor in the July 19 primary, along with former Mayor Jack Ellis and firefighter Paul Bronson.

Brown, the state Senate minority leader, called a news conference Thursday morning at his campaign headquarters on New Street. He said that four years ago, Reichert promised a “new way,” bringing “high-quality, high-paying jobs” to Macon. But Reichert hasn’t delivered on that and is now running “deceptive campaign ads on television,” Brown said.

Reichert has run two televised campaign ads, one focusing on housing, the other on jobs.

The job-related ad shows him standing in front of an industrial building under construction.

“For the last four years, one of my priorities has been to bring high-quality, high-paying jobs to Macon. That means bringing employers, like this one,” Reichert says in the ad, gesturing to the work site behind him.

According to the Georgia Department of Labor, Macon’s unemployment rate was 7.2 percent when Reichert took office, but had climbed to 12.4 percent by March 2011, Brown said.

“His new way has turned out to be the old way, and that’s the wrong way,” he said.

Brown handed out an “Unemployed Macon Workers Plea” on his campaign letterhead. “Please help me see one of the high quality, high paying jobs Mayor Reichert brought to Macon for me,” it said.

Further, Brown said he’s been unable to find the building in front of which Reichert posed in the commercial and couldn’t identify it through the city’s Inspections and Fees Department. If it’s not within city limits, Reichert hasn’t brought jobs to Macon, Brown said, even suggesting the video may have been “Photoshopped.”

Four hours later, Reichert replied, standing in front of the building in question: the under-construction expansion of First Quality Enterprises, on Avondale Mill Road just across from the Middle Georgia Regional Airport.

The building is not within Macon city limits, but most industrial parks aren’t -- and that’s not relevant to employees’ addresses anyway, Reichert said.

“They’re all in unincorporated Bibb County, but they provide jobs for people who live in Macon,” he said.

He decried Brown’s rhetoric and “lack of logic,” saying a mayoral candidate needed to show more dignity and credibility than Brown was displaying.

Reichert said he and Bibb County Commission Chairman Sam Hart worked as a team to persuade First Quality not only to keep its factory in Macon, but also to add 125 jobs.

“I would say my role was very significant,” Reichert said. In conjunction with the Macon Economic Development Commission and Macon-Bibb County Industrial Authority, he and Hart have worked to secure new jobs at Timco, Bombardier, North Coast Logistics and others still in development, such as First Quality and Kumho Tires, Reichert said.

While the overall unemployment rate has increased during his term, he said, that’s due to the national economy. Reichert took a shot at Brown’s local billboards aligning himself with President Barack Obama, noting that both he and Obama have served most of their terms during the worst economic trouble since the Great Depression.

It shows a “remarkable lack of contact,” Reichert added, for Brown to claim he couldn’t identify the building in the commercial. The Inspections and Fees Department must have records of the First Quality building, since the department covers all of Bibb County and has done inspections since construction started, Reichert said.

Brown said the only high-paying jobs Reichert has been responsible for are those on the mayor’s staff, alluding to the substantial pay raises -- up to $27,000 -- for some top administrators included in the city pay plan approved this year. Meanwhile, 31 lower ranking city workers were “fired,” Brown said.

Reichert shot back that Brown had no room to object, since the city-county consolidation bill he pushed hard but unsuccessfully this year included a 50 percent raise for the mayor, increasing the salary to $150,000.

The city eliminated 31 jobs last year in a round of budget cuts. On March 23, Human Resources Director Ben Hubbard said some of the affected employees retired and others were moved to different jobs, so only 20 were actually laid off. Six of those have since been rehired by the city, one more reached retirement age, three went back to school and eight more found other jobs, leaving seven still looking for work, Hubbard said.

Almost offhandedly, Brown said he wanted to debate Reichert “on our issues, any set of issues, anytime before 9 at night.” Asked about the limitation, Brown replied: “That’s my bedtime.”

Thursday afternoon Reichert said he was willing to debate Brown and other candidates after they qualify for office, which will happen no later than June 10.

The Telegraph is sponsoring a mayoral debate for all qualified candidates at 7 p.m. July 14, said Charles Richardson, editorial page editor at The Telegraph. Brown has been invited but hasn’t yet responded, Richardson said. The debate will be broadcast live on the television stations of co-sponsors FOX 24 and ABC 16 television stations, and on radio station 940 AM, he said.

To contact writer Jim Gaines, call 744-4489.