Macon authority created to fight poverty in Pleasant Hill can’t say how it spent millions

Editor’s note: This is the first story in a series examining the Macon-Bibb County Community Enhancement Authority’s impact on the historic Pleasant Hill neighborhood. The authority was created by legislation introduced by State Rep. James Beverly, D-Macon, in 2012 with the sole mission of eliminating poverty in the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

An authority created for the sole purpose of eliminating poverty in Macon’s poorest neighborhoods can’t say how it spent millions in taxpayer dollars or even afford an audit to find out.

Though the Macon-Bibb County Community Enhancement Authority (CEA) received millions from the federal and local government, public records show the authority is operating at a loss and struggling to regain financial footing following years of conducting business without oversight or record-keeping.

The authority’s deteriorating financial position has reduced its footprint in Pleasant Hill, a historically Black neighborhood that was split in two when the Georgia Department of Transportation built Interstate 75 through it in the 1960s and further damaged decades later when GDOT began widening the highway in 2017.

The authority is responsible for building – moving and rehabilitating – a total of 24 homes affected by the interstate’s further encroachment into the neighborhood with $5.4 million in federal highway money passed through the state.

CEA was also tasked with managing two new parks, operating the Little Richard House as a neighborhood resource center and managing the Booker T. Washington Center, which houses nonprofits.

In early June, the Little Richard House closed indefinitely and the CEA moved out. Mayor Lester Miller stopped paying the authority to run the resource center following the CEA’s yearslong failure to provide the county with an audit or details showing how the county’s dollars were being spent.

Macon-Bibb County is exploring options to operate the Little Richard House without CEA’s involvement.

“We do not give another dime to the Community Enhancement Authority… is that correct?” Mayor Pro-Tem Seth Clark asked at the most recent commission meeting in reference to the Little Richard House.

Late last year, the Macon-Bibb County Commission approved paying a private company to maintain the two parks, Linear Park and Jefferson Long Park, along with numerous others.

In March, the CEA moved out of the Booker T. Washington Center and told the county operating the building on Monroe Street was not financially viable.

Most of the 23 homes the CEA completed are vacant. Several were sold to people and nonprofits with which the authority is connected. Another five are being rented, the authority’s interim executive director Latisha Woods said in a recent interview.

Neighborhood leaders like Yolanda “Y-O” Latimore said accountability is critical to the success of any organization and what is happening with CEA is “not a good look.”

“It makes everybody, every entity in Pleasant Hill look kind of funny, because that was supposed to help,” Latimore said.

She noted the importance of having an authority dedicated to eliminating poverty in Black neighborhoods.

“Whatever is broken should be repaired, even if that consists of replacing people … I don’t think the Community Enhancement Authority should disappear because it’s supposed to be something that helps the neighborhood,” Latimore said. “And we need it.”

Lack of oversight

The authority has largely operated under the radar since federal dollars first began flowing to it in 2016.

In eight years, CEA has never submitted a financial audit to any local, state or federal agency.

And now, authority board chairperson Bruce Riggins said it can’t afford one.

“Maybe when we make some more money,” he said.

While the absence of financial audits prompted the county to cut ties with the authority, CEA’s board also doesn’t seem to know how all of its money was spent.

“I think it might have been misplaced,” Riggins said, adding that under previous executive directors, money granted from GDOT to build houses may have been used to “keep other stuff going.”

The authority is managed by a board of directors. Riggins said he was appointed by his friend, then-executive director of the authority, Rep. James Beverly. Riggins said he never received any training on board governance and all he knew was “people come in, they present you with some stuff, and if it sounds like it’s good… ‘Yes, let’s go.’”

Riggins has been on the authority board for at least six years. He said his board development knowledge has grown from serving on boards of other nonprofit organizations.

The CEA is supposed to have a chairperson and four board members who serve two-year terms. The chairperson recommends two members, who then are approved by the county’s state representatives. A third member should be appointed by the county and the fourth is supposed to be a “member” of the county government, according to enabling legislation.

The county has not appointed anyone to the authority board in years.

In 2017, during Mayor Robert Reichert’s administration, the county appointed Josh Rogers, president and CEO of NewTown Macon, to serve on the authority board.

The first meeting Rogers attended occurred in lawyer Blake Sharpton’s office with Beverly, the authority’s creator, board chairman and its paid executive director. Another board member present, Isaac J. Culver III, was later convicted of wire fraud and money laundering.

“I walked out of that meeting and said, ‘I need to get my resignation drafted right now,’ ” Rogers recalled recently. “I can’t even describe to you what it was like being in that room. Really, really unsettling.”

Nobody was keeping notes about the business discussions, Rogers said. There were no financial reports presented for approval.

“Sometimes there’s a fine line between incompetence and malevolence,” he said in a recent interview. “I didn’t stick around long enough to determine which was the problem.”

Rogers said recently he is “amazed and astounded” the authority continues to operate as a governmental body without oversight or financial record-keeping.

“I’m not going to serve on any board that’s not able to produce timely and accurate financial statements,” Rogers said. “It’s impossible to fulfill your responsibilities as directors if you can’t monitor your financial resources.”

Where did all the authority’s money go? That question, Rogers said, “would take hundreds of thousands of dollars and 10 years for a forensic accountant” to answer.