Meet Blake Sullivan, a candidate for Macon-Bibb County mayor

Blake Sullivan, who qualified to run for mayor in Macon-Bibb County on March 3, plans to reduce runaway spending, blight and crime and increase education and jobs.

The Telegraph partnered with the Center for Collaborative Journalism, Georgia Public Broadcasting Macon and 13WMAZ to interview each mayoral candidate and gather biographical information.

Sullivan, 62, has lived in Macon for 19 years and has owned businesses in forestry, real estate and venture investing, according to a submitted election form. He and his wife, Isabelle, have a daughter, Morgan, and a son, Carl, who is married to Banleigh.

He received a bachelors of business administration from Columbus State University in Columbus and a masters in forestry from Duke University.

He is a board member for the Mercer University Innovation Center and The Rescue Mission of Middle Georgia and a member of the Macon Economic Development Commission and United States Lumber Coalition.

As a volunteer and business owner, he has won several awards, including the 2018 Volunteer of the Year Award from the Keep Macon Bibb Beautiful Commission and the 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Forest Landowners Association.

Here are Blake Sullivan’s answers to the media’s questions.

1. How would you address violent crime?

“There’s several things that need to be done. Studies out of Detroit and Baltimore show that the more blight we have in our community, the more crime there is in our neighborhoods, so we need to address that,” Sullivan said. “I want to tear down those 2,200 houses that have already been designated as blight…. We need to either take them down or we need to rehabilitate the ones that can be saved. The more we can do to cut down on blight in our communities, the lower crime rates we’ll have.”

In addition to getting rid of blight, Sullivan said the county needs more police and first responders in neighborhoods to be more proactive when it comes to crime instead of reactive, and he said officers need to be paid more.

“There’s a big distrust in pretty much a lot of neighborhoods around police officers. When crime occurs, it’s not likely that you’ll have somebody stand up and say I saw this and I’m willing to testify to it. That is a level of trust that we’ve got to work on. We’ve got to do more in the community so that the people who live there actually report crime back to the police officers and view them as a partner rather than as an adversary,” he said.

2. How do you plan to gain the funds to tackle blight?

“If you look at other cities around primarily Detroit, Philadelphia, Baltimore, they’ve all gone back to the federal government and leverage the monies that they have locally in order to tear down more houses or rehabilitate them. I think that money’s still available, it’s just a question of going up in Washington D.C. and making the effort to do that,” Sullivan said.

As a member of the United States Lumber Coalition, Sullivan said he travels to Washington D.C. a lot and has experience making his case to state representatives.

“There are resources out there. We just need to figure out ways to get those so that we can leverage our sales tax money and do more with the federal funds that are available,” he said.

3. How would you prioritize spending to improve road conditions, safety and traffic concerns?

“We have a terrible debt problem in Macon,” Sullivan said. “We’re also spending money in places where we don’t need to spend it.”

In an example, Sullivan said instead of paying a private company thousands of dollars to run the waterpark at Lake Tobesofkee, he would find a private entity to lease the waterpark to for $1 per year, and if they are successful, then, he would be willing to trade with the company.

The roads need significant repair, and the county needs to utilize its funds to fix the transportation system for residents, he said.

“One of the main reasons why I’m running for mayor is to help us get out of the debt, help us understand what we need to spend money on, and what we don’t and try to work to give our citizens the services they need,” Sullivan said.

4. What can the county government do to assist with improvements in the Bibb County School System?

“I think part of it is being a cheerleader,” Sullivan said. “I do think one of the things that we can do is to stand up and cheer when things happen well for our school system.”

The community needs to do a better job of praising the school system so that parents moving to the area will see it as a viable place for their children to be educated, he said.

Sullivan raised the money to get the Leader in Me program, a program that teaches students responsibility and leadership skills, in every school in Bibb County, he said.

The program teaches students that their education is important because it will help them get jobs and opportunities when they get older, Sullivan said.

5. What county departments are overstaffed and which are understaffed and what changes would you make?

“I don’t know which ones are overstaffed and understaffed. Again, I’ve done a lot of open records requests inside of our government. I will tell you one thing that’s very disappointing to me, is the (lack of) transparency that’s in our government itself. It’s hard to find out who’s doing what, how much it costs, whether it’s been successful or not,” Sullivan said.

In addition to publishing the budgets, he believes the county should publish a financial statement every month, he said.

Sullivan knows licenses and inspections are a problem in the county for businesses because the county proposed outsourcing building inspections and permits from the Business Development Services Department.

“If somebody wants to go in business in Macon-Bibb, if they’re not a massage parlor, or liquor store or some of the other what I call the deadly sins, they ought to be able to get a business license within one day,” Sullivan said. “We never ought to stop somebody from doing business in our town that has a legitimate business, and the government doesn’t need to be the hindrance there. We need to be the cheerleader.”

6. What would you do to improve race relations?

“I like to say Macon is a tale of two cities. If you look at it, North Macon, downtown and parts of South Macon are doing okay. The rest of our communities are not doing very well, and there’s a lot of hopelessness in poor communities in our city. We can’t ignore that,” Sullivan said.

He believes churches and faith-based organizations can do more to fight poverty, but he said the county has to work on it together.

Sullivan said people who live all over the world own rental properties in Macon and basically abandon the tenants, which causes people to constantly move to different neighborhoods.

As mayor, he plans to hold the owners accountable, which will force them to leave, he said.

“They won’t pick on Macon-Bibb because they know we’re serious about changing the trajectory about poor communities,” Sullivan said.

This story was originally published April 5, 2020 at 11:32 AM.