Meet Marc Whitfield, a candidate for Macon-Bibb County mayor

Marc Whitfield qualified as a candidate for Macon-Bibb County mayor March 6 right before the deadline, and he wants to be the candidate who provides a holistic approach to evaluating the county and finding solutions.

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

Marc Whitfield, of Macon, lived in Warner Robins for 20 years before moving back to Macon for the past 28 years, according to a submitted election form. He and his wife have one daughter.

Whitfield is a retired banker and has served as a board member for several organizations including the Community Development Block Grant, First Choice Primary Care and Workforce Development.

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

1. How would you address violent crime?

“Well, it starts with addressing poverty,” Whitfield said.

When Jack Ellis was elected as the mayor of Macon in 1999, Whitfield said Ellis appointed him and his father to a committee to address poverty and crime.

Whitfield wrote the initial Workforce Development Program on that committee to develop the workforce, and his father wrote the initial Police Athletic-Activities Program to address youth development, he said.

Whitfield wants to address poverty so that people will not turn to gangs and crime as a source of income to support their families.

“Until you address the poverty, the hopelessness and the despair of that group of people, and bring in or create jobs for them to have a decent wage, a living wage, we’re going to have a repetitive issue with crime,” Whitfield said. “It’s not going to go away because people have lack. As long as they have lack, you’re going to have crime.”

2. What would you do to tackle blight?

“As a banker and also being in investment, I had an opportunity to meet a lot of people who come through my doors, all walks of life,” Whitfield said. “One thing I’ve learned about taxpayers and the ones who are carrying the burden of taxes is that they like to see a return on investment, and if they don’t have return on their investment, then the smart thing is to leave and go somewhere else where you will get a return on the investment.”

When people leave, Whitfield said they abandon any investment in the community which causes blighted homes.

He believes the answer to this problem is to create jobs, he said.

“If you can’t convince companies to come in and bring jobs in, then it’s up to leadership to find a way to create jobs,” he said. “I think we have the resources here, to be able to create jobs ourselves.”

There has to be jobs available that will qualify families for a home mortgage and allow them to renovate or build a new home, Whitfield said.

“Otherwise, you’re going to have a lot of vacant homes, and that’s the blight, and I don’t care what anyone says. It is not just going to go away,” Whitfield said. “Put homeowners in there, people who are vested in that community, and then the blight will start to disappear.”

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

“I’ve been so focused on the issues of poverty and lack the infrastructure, I would have to examine the budget, and take a closer look at seeing how the allocation of expenses would work with those things,” Whitfield said.

Road conditions, interstates and the exchanges are a top priority, Whitfield said, but he said he has focused more on how he could make residents’ lives better as mayor rather than the allocation of funds.

“It hurts me to hear about the pedestrians that are getting hit over and over again on Gray Highway, and something has to be done about that,” he said.

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

“I do recognize that the mayor doesn’t have authority over the Board of Education. But I think it’s the mayor’s responsibility to look after each and every citizen and resident to see that they have a better chance, a better opportunity at life and being successful,” Whitfield said.

Whitfield said he would develop a task force to review any adverse action taken against a student or teacher. For example, if a student was accused of making terroristic threats, he would have the task force review the case before sending the student to court, he said.

“What I don’t understand is we have a superintendent that was given this award, superintendent of the year, but I don’t see the progress or the changes in the grades and the scores,” Whitfield said.

Although Whitfield said he doesn’t have anything against Superintendent Curtis Jones, he said he knows education determines whether a community will have a successful workforce.

“No one wants to come here because we don’t have skilled labor, because we have the high crime,” Whitfield said. “I think it starts with you don’t have an opportunity from the very beginning, and the foundations from the very beginning of success that starts with the school system, and the mayor needs to take a part in that process.”

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

“No, not that I can see right now. … The sheriff’s department is the one that draws my attention,” Whitfield said. “I’m looking at public safety (as) number one, and that’s the sheriff’s office, and we have to do something about the efficiency of the hiring process and the pay.”

Although he said he definitely doesn’t want the community to be over-policed, he said the county has to be properly staffed with officers.

For the other departments, Whitfield said he cannot make a decision about whether or not a department is overstaffed or understaffed without being the mayor and working within the government because he said he would have to make that decision after having discussions with the people involved.

6. What would you do to improve race relations?

“The first thing I did was enter this race,” Whitfield said. “It’s only based on race. It’s not based on who’s the better candidate. That’s not going to promote harmony, and I saw, in my opinion, that this race was shaping that way.”

As an black man who grew up Catholic and went to Mount de Sales Academy, Whitfield said he saw a different side of what many African Americans see growing up. He said most people are not racist, but some people might just be scared.

“But we all have desires that we want for our children and for our future and for our posterity,” Whitfield said.

The community needs communication, and Whitfield said it will take leaders, clergy members and everyone at the table talking about this issue.

Whitfield said too many people in the Macon community have economic disparity that majorly impacts the black community.

“I’m going to be mayor for everyone… because I want to meet the needs of all of Macon. Because if you focus on one side or the other, it’s just not going to work,” he said.