Meet Cliffard Whitby, a candidate for Macon-Bibb County mayor

Cliffard Whitby, who qualified as a candidate for Macon-Bibb County mayor March 4, wants to ensure all citizens of Macon-Bibb County move forward as a 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.

Whitby, 57, claims Macon as his hometown and has lived here his entire life. He and his wife, T. Shantel King-Whitby, have six daughters, according to a submitted election form.

He is the current president and CEO of Whitby, Inc., a company that provides construction services.

Whitby has served as the Chairman of the Macon-Bibb County Industrial Authority (MBCIA), the President of 100 Black Men of Macon-Bibb and the Tri-Chair of OneMacon. He has also been a board member of Star Choices Inc., Boys & Girls Club and BB&T Bank.

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

1. How would you address violent crime?

“Violent crime is an issue that has occupied so much of our team’s time as we have discussions with the stakeholders in this community,” Whitby said.

Whitby said he has been to speak with nearly 80 clergy members in communities that are disproportionately impacted by violent crime.

The community needs to come together and identify the different aspects that are driving violent crime.

“These young people do not have the opportunities that they need to pursue certain aspects of life and their opportunities to go on and further their education and pursue their dreams. I think it’s going to take a significant amount of resources that’s devoted to our youth and training and retraining, and actually being committed to supporting families,” he said.

2. What would you do to tackle blight?

“We’ve made tremendous strides when we were intentional about the work of blight. When I started this work, it was called substandard housing,” Whitby said. “Being intentional about the work, being intentional about addressing blight (means) devoting resources and seeking the support from the federal government to help.”

Whitby has worked with the past five mayors and has dealt with blight in his construction and community development company including renovating or building more than 1,000 homes, he said.

“We’ve got to get intentional about addressing the issues that cause blight. It’s not enough just to tear down a home. It’s not enough just to clean up a lot. You got to address the human component,” he said.

The county needs to distribute the resources equally while building on past successes and address poverty, Whitby said.

“We’ve made great strides as we consolidated this government. We made great strides. We’ve just got to make sure that that’s spread to every corner of Macon-Bibb County, and we can do it,” he said.

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

“I’m very proud of the work we’ve done in the passage of the last two SPLOST efforts in this community, the last three actually. But it’s going to take far more than just creative ways to raise taxes. It’s going to take far more than just creative ways to persuade a community to be okay with the millage going up. What it’s truly going to take is the commitment to support our young people,” he said.

Whitby said the community has to stop losing its young people to larger cities and provide opportunities for young people to find jobs.

When Whitby became the chairman of the Macon-Bibb County Industrial Authority in 2008, they had an operating budget of $250,000, he said. When he resigned in 2017, he said they had a surplus.

“We’ve got to really commit to creating a community that our young people find opportunity in and will lend it talents to moving this community in the direction that we want to go,” he said. “If we don’t have the strength to do things differently, this community can’t survive.”

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

“With all due respect, it’s not a separate system. This is our system. We’re citizens of this community. We elect school board members from this community. The mayor of the consolidated government is the top elected official in this community. We have a serious problem with education,” Whitby said.

He said Bibb County Schools are failing at an alarming rate.

As the chairman of MBCIA, Whitby said he sat across from CEOs of major companies who said their main concern with coming to Macon was the public school system and the workforce coming out of the public school system.

“Under the Whitby administration, it would be my number one priority to get the right people in the room, to get the stakeholders in the room, to get parents in the room, to get businesses in the room,” he said. “If we’re going to survive as a community, that has to be the number one priority.”

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

“David Davis is a good friend of mine. I admire the work that he has done in this community,” Whitby said. “They are on the front line of this wave of crime and violence. I have very good friends in the sheriff’s department, and I think we owe it to them to make sure they have everything they need, and they’re not constantly trying to shop around for higher wages.”

Whitby said he wants to see all first responders and Bibb County employees compensated adequately, and all departments need to be reevaluated.

He said he would not raise taxes without first presenting all of the options to the community, and he plans to create citizen advisory committees to receive the input of the community.

“I’ve been in the room when we’re dividing up the dollars. I grow the pie. I don’t redivide the pie. We’ve got to grow,” Whitby said. “We can’t continue down this road.”

6. What would you do to improve race relations?

“We cannot talk about race without talking about privilege. There are those in this community that benefit from race division,” Whitby said. “We cannot continue to divide this community and expect to have a thriving prosperous community.”

As the leader of the MBCIA, Whitby said he didn’t push an initiative that didn’t have unanimous consent. He did that by having conversations with people, he said.

“What I would do as the mayor is commit to bringing everybody to the table and leaving race outside of the door and making decisions that’s in the best interest of this community,” Whitby said. “We know race is a major issue. It was here before we got here, and we hope we can help advance ending that as a major issue in our community.”

This story was originally published April 5, 2020 at 11:31 AM.