Students at Mercer’s Reg Murphy Center for Collaborative Journalism reviewed nine local agencies on their compliance with state law as well as any extras they provided in making their work as transparent and accessible to the public as possible. You can read about the other agencies and see their rankings here.
The Macon-Bibb County Industrial Authority’s website can be found here: https://mbcia.com
Does website list out its key staff, governing board or other leadership and how to contact them? The authority has a list of its board members, but the contact information for those members is not available. The Board Chair is Robert Fountain Jr., whose contact information is also not listed on the website. The website does not list staff for the authority, only board members.
Does the agency have a public information officer? If so, is the name and contact information listed? The authority’s media contact is unclear, but Stephen Adams, whose email is [email protected] and whose phone number is (478) 960-1373, was listed as a media contact on a press release from 2021.
Does the website have information on meeting announcements/meeting dates & times? If so, where is this posted. There is no agenda available on the website for the authority’s meetings, but the “Announcements” tab leads to a page where you can find the “Authority Report” for every month. The report does not constitute minutes from the meeting, only telling readers what the authority has accomplished.
Does the website have meeting agendas? The website does not list meeting agendas.
Does the website have approved meeting minutes? The website does not list minutes.
Does the agency provide a way for the public to watch its meetings virtually as they happen? And/or does the agency have recordings of its meetings on the website or linked from the website? There is no place to watch meetings during or after they occur, nor are there recordings on the website or YouTube.
Does the agency have social media platforms and if so, which ones? The agency has accounts on X, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. The X, Facebook and Instagram accounts are all used very similarly. They briefly update the community on projects being done with a link to a more in-depth article/run down. The LinkedIn account posts more about the success of the company or individual employees.
Does the agency provide a way for the public to make open records requests? There is not a way to submit an open records request from the site.
Please note any other information you found on the website that would be helpful to members of the public who would want to keep up with this agency’s business. The website includes a “Site Selection” tab which brings readers to a page that shows what properties the authority is promoting. This page includes massive amounts of information about Macon-Bibb County, and that information can be narrowed down to the specific property that you are looking at to develop.
Transparency Grading: Unsatisfactory: The Macon-Bibb County Industrial Authority does not have its meeting times posted on its website as required by law.
Online Accessibility Grading: Below average: The authority did not have contact information for any of its listed management. The only contact information that was listed was found on a two-year-old press release from the organization.
