This story has been altered to include the proper name of candidate Robert Abbott.

Adah Roberts, Macon’s former finance director, said Thursday she’s running for the District 6 seat on the new Macon-Bibb County consolidated commission.

“My vision is to see Macon-Bibb County government work cohesively to become a growing, vibrant hub of central Georgia,” Roberts, 62, said via e-mail. “While I have had no experience as a politician, I have had quite a bit of experience working with a diverse group of politicians. As finance director I worked with every department in the city and some in the county.”

She wouldn’t state a political party affiliation, saying she wanted to remain nonpartisan. The General Assembly voted this year to change elections for the new consolidated government from partisan to nonpartisan, and that change is under federal review.

Nine commissioners and a countywide mayor will be elected this year, replacing the mayor of Macon, 15-member City Council and the five-member Bibb County Commission.

Roberts listed her policy priorities as keeping taxes down, developing tourism, recruiting new businesses and supporting existing ones, cutting crime and making government “user-friendly.”

She plans to make her formal announcement Friday morning from the commission chamber at the Bibb County Courthouse.

Roberts said she worked for the city’s Finance Department for seven years, starting as interim finance director. She became assistant finance director and chief accountant, then interim finance director again, and finally finance director in her own right, she said. Roberts held the top position from July 2006 to May 2008. Then, she said, she was recruited to become finance director of Jacksonville, N.C. But her husband, Charles, an associate professor of mathematics at Mercer University, never found a comparable position near her new job.

“He never moved, and that was one of the reasons I moved back,” Roberts said. A vision problem also made her work harder, so she retired and returned to Macon in 2011, she said.

Roberts said her background in finance and her ability to get along with others makes her a good fit to serve on the new commission.

“I have enough faith to believe God will give me the wisdom needed to fulfill my responsibilities well,” she said.

District 6 covers much of western Bibb County, plus a small projection east of Interstate 475 that includes incumbent Macon City Councilman Ed DeFore’s home. DeFore and Robert Abbott, who lost a race for a Bibb County Commission seat last year, have said they also plan to seek the seat.

According to a Telegraph analysis, District 6 voters are 54 percent Republican and 43 percent Democratic. Of the 17,200 residents, about 13,200 are of voting age. Of those residents about 61 percent are white, and 34 percent are black.

To contact writer Jim Gaines, call 744-4489.