Macon Magazine

December 2024/January 2025 | maconmagazine.com 101 Moffett, who has also traveled around the country through Knight initiatives, sees the value of these programs. "It allows us not to reinvent the wheel when we can see things that the other cities are doing. That allows us to say – hey, we've tried that, or we can try that," he said. "It also allows us to see the success that we already have, that some things [other cities] are just working on, we've already mastered," Moffett explained. "Sometimes when you're here at home, you're in your own bubble. You don't think you are, but for the most part, we are. We see that a lot that some things with other communities are doing, that we are already done. That interaction allows us to grow and to network amongst our peers so that we'll be able to accomplish some of the things we need to do." T H E B E ST L AI D P L AN S … T U R N I N TO ACT I O N Knight's 2023 investments announced during Macon's bicentennial celebration weren't made at random. They put a diverse group of Macon's stakeholders on a shared path to success. Much of their work Cotton Avenue Plaza on the second Friday of each month in Downtown Macon. "I want to bring a sense of healing to this space," she explained. "I don't think that people think about a connection between outdoor spaces and mental wellness, and how those things are related to crime reduction. We want to be ensuring that people are happy in the place where they live." She said the professional development linkages from Knight have been a vital part of her journey as a leader. Not all of the networking happens in person. There's robust online exchanges between Knight cities, too. Macon-Bibb County's IT department, Planning and Zoning, and NewTown Macon recently participated in The Opportunity Project for Cities (TOPC) Demo Day, a program supported by both Knight Foundation and Google. Macon presented alongside municipal teams from across the country over video conference. Their challenge was to use technology to develop a streamlined process for business licenses and permits. Macon- Bibb County Manager Keith Moffett said the new resource will launch soon. has supported a comprehensive planning process in Macon's urban core, the Macon Action Plan (MAP). MAP was covered in the previous iteration of this story. These projects all align with greater goals for the community. Just a year later, the results are already blooming. The National Trust for Local News was given $5 million to start up a newsroom in Macon. Just 10 months later, the first issue of the Macon Melody hit the press, a twice-weekly newspaper with a full team on the ground in Central Georgia. They cover topics like high school sports, obituaries, opinion articles, and profiles of notable Maconites – locally-relevant coverage that had been dropped by similar publications who have been bought by national corporations. The Otis Redding Foundation received $1.5 million for the construction of the Otis Redding Center for the Arts. This venue rises from a formerly rubble-filled site on Cotton Avenue that had blighted Downtown Macon for years. Now, a sparkling, modern cultural center in the heart of the city will be a point of pride, and an important source of arts education for Sherrie Ann De Leon and Marisa Kwiatkowski interact with an exhibit of Muscogee artists at McEachern Art Center during the Online News Association conference.

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