Macon Water Authority chair addresses claims of racism, misuse of purchasing cards

The Macon Water Authority chairman denied recently-lobbed allegations that the board has misused purchasing cards and taken racist actions against two Black board members after months of dispute.

Chairman Gary Bechtel held a special meeting Thursday morning in response to recent allegations made by the MWA’s only two Black board members: Elaine Lucas (District 1) and Desmond Brown (District 2).

Audit shows no signs of fraud

Suspicions arose after The Monroe County Reporter found that MWA employees, including its President and CEO Ron Shipman, spent 10s of thousands of dollars in travel expenses on a corporate purchasing card in 2024.

Bechtel shared the results of an audit by McNair McLemore Middlebrooks & Co., which concluded that all MWA funds were properly spent without any signs of fraud or other illegal actions. The audit report obtained by The Telegraph also states that “no substantive testing was performed on individual (purchasing) card transactions.”

Lucas said the audit was insufficient during Thursday’s meeting.

“Their job is to work with communities and to give them strategies to use to convince folks that it’s raining and that they’re not being peed on,” Lucas said. “They’ve got expertise in this area, but their whole goal is to teach us how to let our citizens accept the (water) rate increases better.”

Lucas said she became suspicious about the misuse of purchasing cards when Shipman said he informally changed a purchasing card policy during a heated board meeting on March 6. But “Shipman has stated in recent meetings that there was no clear-cut purchasing card policy that he was asked to sign,” The Macon Newsroom reported.

Brown called for a review of purchasing card’s limits, uses and the apparent policy, but the board did not make an effort to conduct one. He was concerned about how personal transactions and tension within the board could impact water bills for residents.

“Let’s not continue to point fingers and use distraction tactics to take the minds... off of the main issue, and that is these water rates,” Brown said.

Lucas echoed Brown’s request and called for a grand jury investigation into where water rate increases were allocated during a board meeting on April 10, and again on Thursday. Lucas said she is in the process of taking legal action with assistance from the NAACP.

But Bechtel said Thursday he did not see a reason for a criminal investigation, even after The Monroe County Reporter revealed the board’s allegedly extensive personal purchases based on an open records request.

“We support Mr. Shipman and his leadership 110% and he will not need one of Mr. (President Donald) Trump’s pardons, as Ms. Lucas stated at the April (3) meeting,” Bechtel said.

He asked Lucas to provide evidence of wrongdoing by Shipman during Thursday’s meeting, or otherwise “conduct herself in our meetings with the quorum and respect for the staff and the other authority members.”

Allegations of racist actions

Lucas and Brown also said they are concerned that their voices as Black Democrats have been discriminated against by board members.

Lucas said their statements are often turned away and that they have been left out of board conversations.

“There are racial tendencies on this board,” Lucas said. “We are treated differently because of our race and party.”

Bechtel said her racist accusation was “ridiculous on its face” during Thursday’s meeting.

He also said some ideas are shut down due to bylaws that give the entire board the right to vote on motions. The chairman criticized Lucas for being a former Macon-Bibb county commissioner and Macon city council member.

“Miss Lucas has been in politics too long enough to know how to count votes,” he said Thursday.

But Lucas said she and Brown are outnumbered by the five white board members.

“Desmond Brown has been struggling for forever and ever trying to address the concerns of citizens in this community and he was always outvoted,” Lucas said. “You heard the chair in his arrogance, ‘Well, we just outvote y’all,’ that’s basically what he said.”

She said the board is not representative of Bibb County’s demographics, where Black residents make up the majority of the population, and about a quarter of the overall population was in poverty in 2024, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“Being elected here, it was immediately obvious to me that I was not wanted on this board, and different ones have made attempts to keep me from speaking,” Lucas told The Telegraph.

Most recently, the Bibb County Transit Authority sat in on Thursday’s meeting to offer moral support during Bechtel’s speech, which Lucas believed was an intimidation tactic. Lucas said she expressed issues to the Transit Authority in the past about “mistreatment of their riders.”

All board members except Lucas and Brown walked out of the meeting Thursday when Lucas took the podium.

“I’ve served you long enough that I can smell corruption,” Lucas said.

This story was originally published April 18, 2025 at 6:00 AM.