Edit: As of today, January 08, 2015, I just noticed that the Macon-Bibb EOC website is back online. It has been down for around two weeks and possibly longer. I wonder if they will explain the reason why. Take a wild guess who designed their website. If you said Progressive Consulting you win the prize.
Back in early November we reported on problems with how heating oil assistance was being handed out by the Macon Bibb EOC (Economic Opportunity Council)
Macon Bibb EOC Heating Assistance Leaving Truly Needy in Cold
That article received a lot of attention including some national media. DailyKos and Huffington Post to name but a few. In the article I have a link to the Macon-Bibb EOC Website. I also monitor my blog for broken links as many times links will sometimes die after a while. But usually links for the main websites do not go down for any extended time.
As of today I can confirm that the Macon-Bibb EOC website has been down for well over a week and possibly longer. At first I thought they simply might have suffered from a technical error as I have done myself many times. Websites are extremely complicated and with so many pieces of software working together sometimes the various bits and pieces of the puzzle do not always play along nicely. Updates or changes can bring the whole website crashing down. Normally these outages should not last longer than a few hours or a day because any responsible website owner will keep backups that they can revert to if the site crashes.
Is it a coincidence that the Macon-Bibb EOC site has been down after my article received so much national attention? Did the national office of LEAP or government agencies begin an investigation into practices at the Macon EOC Office? Or did their website crash because they chose to use the same incompetent groups that Dallemand chose to be his “Technology experts”? Who knows….But the timing of this crash with my article sure makes me think there might be some connection. It is one hell of a coincidence.
Given the close ties that bind all these various groups together, I plan to write a followup article with a look at some other key players that are connected with the Macon-Bibb EOC and some other agencies and groups that rule Macon with an iron fist when it comes to winning government contracts or being first in line with other government largesses, contracts, and appointments.
Stay tuned for more shortly as we continue to unravel the secretive Cotton Avenue Mafia which is a name that has been bandied about as a loose connection of various public officials, private companies and charities that wield an inordinate amount of power behind the scenes in Macon, Georgia where Cotton Avenue runs through downtown. Unlike the real Cosa Nostra displayed in movies like The Godfather, this cabal doesn’t shake people down for money with threats of breaking bones, but they have far more influence on the day to day activities and lives of people in Bibb county than Tony Soprano could ever dream of having. Their protection money after all comes come from property taxes and government contracts and grants. In other words from taxpayers. We all understand the importance of paying taxes but we also want to make sure it is spent wisely, and that proper bids are conducted, and that they avoid wasteful spending on useless boondoggles.
I chose that photograph of Cotton Avenue on purpose. When you look at photos of downtown Macon from long ago you see a far more exciting and vital town than you see today. Even our population has largely remained stagnant as Columbus, Savannah, Augusta, Athens, Rome, and even Warner Robins and Houston County have grown tremendously with our state as a whole. In fact Bibb has only seen a 1% growth since the year 2000 and a 3.7% loss in population within the old city limits. Consolidation had the potential to see some positive changes but as of yet I have seen no evidence that Bibb county has any reason for optimism. I hope I am proved wrong.
Make Sure and Read my Follow Up Article: Nepotism, Cronyism, and the Cotton Avenue Mafia Rule Macon, GA
You are an absolutely awesome, articulate, and well informed writer on the present declined of Macon, GA and the people who play a role in that decline. You mentioned attracting interest from other notable and popular sites that expose the seedy parts of politicians and the politics that permeates their communities, I’m willing to bet that your site will be in that group of notable notables soon. Thank you for such interesting and well thought out reads.
Thank you so much for your kind words. It is always nice to get feedback and recognition. I can tell people are visiting my site in pretty large numbers and also have some articles with over 2,000 Facebook likes but I don’t get many comments here on my site which I really appreciate. They often will share a link on Facebook and comment there but I never get to read those.