Meet Larry Schlesinger, a candidate for Macon-Bibb County mayor

Larry Schlesinger, who qualified to run for mayor in Macon-Bibb County on March 2, plans to continue being fiscally responsible, working to make neighborhoods safe, bringing revitalization to downtown Macon and other neighborhoods and build bridges across the community.

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

Schlesinger, 69, has lived in Macon for more than 16 years, and he retired as a rabbi at Temple Beth Israel. He and his wife, Darrie, have two children, Danielle and Arielle, according to a submitted election form.

He served as a Macon City Council member from 2007-2013 and continued to serve as the commissioner for District 2 when the city and county governments consolidated in 2014. He is currently serving as the vice chairman on the Operations and Finance Committee and the Economic and Community Development Committee.

He is also a member of several boards, including the Macon Water Authority Board, the Visit Macon Board, and Macon Fire and Police Employees Retirement System Board.

Here are Larry Schlesinger’s answers to the media’s questions. Answers have been edited for brevity.

1. How would you address violent crime?

“We really need to fully fund the sheriff’s office, and I’ve tried to do that during my tenure on both the Macon City Council and the Macon-Bibb County Commission, and I voted always to fully fund the sheriff’s office. We need to put more boots on the street, which means that we need to make a competitive salary part of the package that we offer new recruits. We need to make sure that our deputies who are on the street have all the equipment that they possibly need,” Schlesinger said.

With more boots on the ground, Schlesinger said neighborhoods could get to know the officers that patrol their area and develop relationships with them.

Another way to stop violent crime is to invest in Macon-Bibb County youth, he said. He plans to implement a youth development council to provide programming for students to attend.

Macon-Bibb County needs acoustic gunshot detection in neighborhoods so the sheriff’s office can record and locate where a shooting is happening, he said.

Schlesinger said neighborhoods should form neighborhood watch groups and cooperate with the sheriff’s department to stop violent crime in their neighborhood.

2. What would you do to tackle blight?

“In order to tackle blight, I think we really have to do two things. Number one is we need to really strengthen code enforcement within the county itself. We have a code in place, but a code is not a code unless you enforce it,” Schlesinger said. “Frankly, part of their problem has been that our municipal court has been way, way, way, way, way too lenient with code violators.”

Schlesinger believes the county needs more code enforcement officers to go through neighborhoods and issue citations, he said.

For the houses that can be renovated, he said he wanted to get the Land Bank Authority to take ownership of them and sell them to homeowners who are willing to renovate them to get the properties back on the tax roll.

He wants to start in areas that are contiguous to downtown Macon, such as Pleasant Hill and Tindall Heights, he said.

“Anybody who knows anything about economic development or redevelopment will tell you that it starts downtown and radiates out. It has started in downtown Macon-Bibb County, and now we’re getting to the radiating out part,” he said.

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

“Probably the most numerous complaints I get are about potholes in the street. I’ve complained about that, and I know that the mayor’s office has acted on that,” Schlesinger said. “But, we have a responsibility to the public to make sure that they can get from point A to point B, safely, and if our roads themselves aren’t safe, then we need to fix them.”

Although Schlesinger said he understands that crews haven’t been able to fix potholes lately because of the rain which causes more problems, he said he would give road conditions, safety and traffic concerns a very high priority.

Once the construction stops on Interstate-75 and Interstate-16, he said he believes most traffic problems will end, but he said Macon needs to prioritize places that bottleneck and look for solutions to those concerns.

In order to promote pedestrian safety and to reduce crime, he said there needs to be better lighting in neighborhoods.

He said more and more people are walking and riding their bikes around downtown Macon, and the city needs to accommodate those people as well.

“I think that modes of transportation are changing themselves, and we’ve just got to provide for the safety of people no matter how they get from point A to point B,” he said.

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

“I think that we can be supportive of the school board and everything that they do. And I would say that if there’s any way that the county can be supportive of the school board, is the school board should always feel free to contact us,” Schlesinger said.

He wants to create the youth development council to provide activities for students after school to unite different organizations in the community who are already providing that service, he said.

He said he would also like to speak with the faith community about contributing to this effort.

“We really have to do what we can to make sure that we keep students on the road to success and that they don’t take a wrong turn along the way in that 80% of the time that they spend outside of class,” he said.

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

“I believe the county department that needs the most attention at this point is our Business Services Department,” Schlesinger said. “We really need to make it easy to do business in Macon-Bibb County, because economic development is really the future, and I personally do not want to raise taxes, but in order to do that, we have to continue on the path that we’ve been on.”

The county has proposed outsourcing some services the Business Services Department provides in Macon-Bibb County, such as building permits and inspections.

While speaking with a man from Moe’s Southwestern Restaurant about opening a restaurant in Macon versus opening one in Warner Robins, the man said he had to jump through hoop after hoop in Macon while it was much easier in Warner Robins, Schlesinger said.

“Small business is the economic engine of this community,” he said. “We probably need some sort of a one-stop shop that would enable a business owner or somebody who wants to set up a business here to be able to move quickly through the process. We want to make sure that when permits are filed, that they are acted upon in a very, very timely way.”

6. What would you do to improve race relations?

“It’s what I have been doing really since I arrived in Macon. I feel that we’re a family. I don’t know that we recognize that we’re a family. I basically spend an awful lot of time building relationships in all of our communities,” Schlesinger said.

He said Macon-Bibb County is more diverse than just black and white. He said the county has a large Korean, Indian and Latinos in the community as well as Muslims.

With the new coronavirus pandemic, he said this is a time to understand how much of a family the Macon-Bibb County community is by how people come together to support each other.

“I think our next mayor really needs to be cognizant of the real diversity of this community and needs to have connections in all of those communities and needs to recognize that our diversity is our greatest strength,” he said. “In order to really fulfill our destiny and to become the family that we are capable of being, we just need to support each other.”