Mayoral profile: Reichert touts experience, track record | Elections | Macon.com

When voters approved Macon-Bibb County consolidation last year, Macon Mayor Robert Reichert was one of its biggest cheerleaders.

Now Reichert wants to see the process through its most delicate stage — the actual merging of the two governments.

“The stakes have never been higher,” said Reichert, 65, a former state representative in his second term as mayor. “We’ve basically convinced everyone to double down, if you will, (on consolidation). … There’s too much at risk right now. We’re at the tipping point. We’re either going to successfully complete this consolidation and move us forward, or we’re going to end up in a mess and fall back. There’s a lot at stake here, and I think successful completion of the transition is going to be of paramount importance.”

Reichert said he thinks he and Bibb County Chairman Sam Hart have an advantage over the other candidates when it comes to consolidation since both already serve on the consolidation task force.

“It’s a brand new creature of government that functions as both a city and a county,” Reichert said, adding that the new mayor and commission will work closely with the constitutional offices to form a “seamless governmental structure.”

Perhaps key to whether consolidation succeeds is how well the new government meets the mandate of cutting the budget by 20 percent in its first half-decade. Reichert said he would have preferred the legislators who drafted the consolidation bill to have mandated 20 percent property tax decreases instead.

“My intent is to try to live up to the spirit of the law as well as the letter of the law and try our dead-level best to do that,” Reichert said.

via Mayoral profile: Reichert touts experience, track record | Elections | Macon.com.