{"id":69817,"date":"2024-05-09T20:57:04","date_gmt":"2024-05-10T00:57:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/?p=69817"},"modified":"2024-07-02T17:11:29","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T17:11:29","slug":"700thbrick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/700thbrick\/","title":{"rendered":"Commission presents Mayor with brick commemorating 700th #BlightFight demolition"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the Commission Meeting on May 7, the Commissioners joined together at the podium to present Mayor Lester Miller with a special gift: a brick from the 700th<\/sup> blighted and dangerous structure removed from a neighborhood as part of the ongoing Blight Fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that this is just a single milestone, and your Commission is behind you. Here\u2019s to 700 more; congratulations,\u201d Mayor Pro Tem Clark said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we can all agree that we\u2019re doing great work in that area. We say time and time again that this is more than tearing down; it\u2019s about building up,\u201d replied Mayor Lester Miller, pointing out the millions the Commission has put toward beginning the in-fill process.<\/p>\n

\"\"The 700th<\/sup> demolition happened at 1160 Holt Avenue, an abandoned house with a large hole in the roof, the foundation appearing to crumble, walls falling in, and obvious signs of fires inside.<\/p>\n

And as Mayor Pro Tem Clark pointed out right before the demolition, it was also significant for the neighborhood. It was the 22nd<\/sup>\u00a0demolition in the neighborhood surround Central High and Miller Middle Schools,\u00a0 showing a focus to remove dangerous structures from a specific area. When #BlightFight began, Code Enforcement began by looking at dangerous structures around schools and recreation centers to make the first improvements in areas where children and families would gather.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor three years, we have focused on removing blighted and dangerous structures from our neighborhoods because people said they were tired of it,\u201d Mayor Lester Miller told the assembled group at that time. \u201cThey were tired of how it looked\u2026tired of the crime it can attract\u2026tired of the creatures that live there. Tired of thinking their neighborhoods had been forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cOur children \u2013 and my child does walk to school already, so this is very personal to me \u2013 deserve to start and end their school days with a pleasant walk, one where they can get focused on their day or prepare for evening activities,\u201d he said. \u201cNot a walk where the houses are falling in, rodents live, and present other dangers. They don\u2019t deserve this view.\u201d<\/p>\n

At both the demolition and the presentation of the brick, the Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem both reminded the community that the demolitions are just the first step \u2013 albeit a very visible and quick one \u2013 in the #BlightFight.<\/p>\n

Currently, several groups are working on ways to build affordable homes or even get people to buy older homes to revitalize them. Macon-Bibb and the Peyton Anderson Foundation gave $1 million ($500,000 from each) to Habitat for Humanity to build eight homes, and the mortgage payments from those will be used to build even more in the future.\u00a0\u00a0Additionally, $3.2 million ($1.6 million each from Macon-Bibb and the Knight Foundation) was given to NewTown Macon and the Historic Macon Foundation, and $7.5 million started a revolving loan fund to build even more housing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the Commission Meeting on May 7, the Commissioners joined together at the podium to present Mayor Lester Miller with a special gift: a brick from the 700th blighted and dangerous structure removed from a neighborhood as part of the ongoing Blight Fight. \u201cWe know that this is just a single milestone, and your Commission […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":69829,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3296,2866,2867,2869,1806,8,2737,2868],"tags":[2063,1036,3321],"class_list":["post-69817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blightfight","category-code-enforcement","category-comms","category-facilities","category-mayor","category-news","category-pbd","category-public-works","tag-blightfight","tag-blight-fight","tag-demolitions"],"author_name":"Edna Ruiz","featured_image_url":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Brick-700-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69817"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69844,"href":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69817\/revisions\/69844"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}