‘No stranger to controversy.’ Robert Reichert discusses 13 years as Macon’s mayor

“Unfortunate.”

That’s how Robert Reichert characterized one of the last consequential decisions he will make as Macon-Bibb County mayor: vetoing an anti-discrimination ordinance.

“In my veto letter, I say I think Macon-Bibb County needs to make a statement that we are a warm and welcoming place, a progressive community, and we don’t discriminate against anybody,” he said.

However, he said there was simply not enough time to educate the community about the ordinance, and no amendments were allowed to be made to the ordinance.

“I felt like that the smart thing to do was to hit the reset button and let the next administration take it up with a blank slate of paper, not an imperfect ordinance that had been adopted amid a great deal of confusion and uncertainty about what it did and what it didn’t do,” he said.

In his letter to veto the legislation, Reichert referenced applying the legislation to the LGBTQIA+ community, which prompted some residents to express fears of bathroom assaults. That confused and frustrated commissioners and people who spoke from the public in support of the legislation, because the ordinance did not mention bathrooms.

Reichert also vetoed renaming Macon City Auditorium after former Mayor C. Jack Ellis.

“I have carefully reviewed the resolution to rename the Macon City Auditorium as the “C. Jack Ellis City Auditorium” in honor to his contributions to our community, and I must acknowledge that as the first African-American Mayor of Macon, his time in office was truly memorable,” Reichert wrote in his veto letter. “However, I was constrained to observe the policy of the Macon-Bibb County Commission that prohibits the naming of a park, facility, or street for a living person or within one year of their death.”

Although Reichert said these were controversial decisions, he said he has never been a stranger to controversy.

“It’s always hard to avoid controversy,” Reichert said. “But that’s really kind of how I started and how I’ve finished.”

The Reichert years

Reichert was inaugurated as mayor of the City of Macon in December 2007 just before the 2008 economic crisis.

“I just remember that the community was pretty bitterly divided at that point in time, and there were a lot of people that were unhappy with our situation,” he said. “I really don’t remember the sequence of events, but either I said somebody ought to run for mayor, or somebody suggested that I run for mayor and put my money where my mouth was. Don’t just sit there and complain.

“So, I felt like my legislative experience and my prior experience on the city council for one term qualified me to try to help, and I decided to put my hat in the ring and run for mayor.”

His first campaign for mayor centered its slogan around unity and Nu-Way Weiners: “Let’s do things a Nu-Way. Let’s work together for a change.”

Once inaugurated, Reichert said the economy was spiraling due to the mortgage lending crisis, and Macon was already struggling as people left the city, taking their tax dollars with them.

“We had a terrible time recovering from that mortgage crisis period, but managed to slowly recover, and now, here at the end of my term, we’re in COVID, and another spiral down, so we really had a time that was marked with a lot of difficult economic circumstances” he said. “I am not a stranger to trying to work through difficult situations.”

When he entered office, Reichert said the city had to lay off a lot of people to make ends meet, and one of the issues he ran into with developing the city was the perception of downtown Macon as the rectangle between Mulberry and Poplar streets from Terminal Station to Mercer Law School.

City leaders were told they needed to change that perception, and the best way to do that was to find a way to connect South and West Bibb with downtown Macon. The Second Street Corridor Connector project was born.

“When people ride over the new bridge, over the railroad tracks, for the first time, they say, ‘Wow!’” Reichert said.

After around 10 years of working on the project, the Second Street Corridor Connector opened in August.

Tackling blight

To tackle the issue of blight in Macon, Reichert set a goal that Macon-Bibb County would tear down 100 blighted houses per year, but when commissioners wanted the blight issue to be tackled faster, Reichert and the commissioners allocated $1 million to each commissioner to tackle blight in their district.

Although Reichert has received criticism for this decision because some districts have more issues with blight than others, Reichert said the commissioners worked together to divide their funds and contribute to the districts that had a greater need.

The most significant example of this was the Mill Hill Community Arts Center, which Reichert said commissioners pooled their funds in order to renovate the building.

However, Reichert believes his greatest accomplishment was consolidating the city and county government, he said.

“Consolidation I think has unified the government and pulled the people together,” Reichert said. “Our logo features a banner that says, ‘Forward Together’ because if we don’t work together, we’re not gonna move forward at all.”

While Reichert represented District 126 in the Georgia House of Representatives for 10 years, he said he constantly heard people say that if Macon and Bibb County could work together, it would transform the area.

On Jan. 1, 2014, Reichert said the city and county went from having 21 election officials who couldn’t agree on anything to having 10 elected officials, and Macon-Bibb County became the fourth largest city in Georgia overnight.

Reichert was the last mayor of the City of Macon and the first of the Macon-Bibb County consolidated government.

However, all of the county’s problems were not solved overnight, he said.

Although county leaders trimmed down government and became more efficient and effective, Reichert said they continue to work to make the county equitable, including by building recreational facilities and fire stations.

By consolidating, county leaders were able to set uniform tax rates, cut the budget by 20% and reduce the amount of employees they had, Reichert said.

But, Macon still has issues to deal with after Reichert leaves office.

‘I think he’s bringing a fresh approach’

Reichert said Macon’s number one issues to tackle are homelessness and poverty.

“We’ve got an issue with the homeless population that we need to do more about, not just complain about them. They are all God’s children. We’ve got to find a way to help take care of the homeless in a humane, compassionate way that helps them and doesn’t just help them subsist. In fact, we need to help them to survive and thrive,” he said. “We’ve got an issue with poverty and worse than just poverty, what we have is intergenerational poverty.”

A lack of education tends to cause poverty while poverty tends to cause a lack of education, Reichert said.

“Government has a role to play, but we shouldn’t be the only player. We ought to collaborate with the private sector with the not for profit sector,” he said.

Macon-Bibb County will need to partner with nonprofits and the Board of Education to end the vicious cycle of poverty that many in Macon face, Reichert said, but those partnerships will rely on the new mayor: Lester Miller.

“I think he’s bringing a fresh approach in, and that’s good. I think he’s bringing a lot of people in his transition task force, a lot of new eyes, new thoughts, new opinions about how to deal with this,” Reichert said. “I have had some wonderful partners that have helped to build the record of success that we as a community have enjoyed.”