Macon&Eggs: Mickey Mouse For Mayor?

Would you vote for Mickey Mouse for mayor or sheriff of your city?  Turns out some voters in Georgia did just that. What motivates a voter to do such a thing? People are people, says Charles Richardson, editorial page editor at The Telegraph of Macon. This is one of the two hot topics we talk about on Macon&Eggs this week. Listen to the conversation below.

HOT TOPIC #1:

State voting officials say about 20 percent of Georgia registered voters turned out for the recent primary elections. But it wasn’t all serious business when it came to voting in Bibb County. The Telegraph reports that several voters wrote in a variety of names for offices offering a space for a write-in candidate. The paper reports that a printout of the write-in list was more than 40 pages long and included more than 1,000 names. The write-in names ranged from people’s neighbors and cartoon characters to Mickey Mouse which was the top choice. Donald Trump and former candidate Ted Cruz made the mayoral write-in list.

HOT TOPIC #2:

Hot topic number 2 takes us to Macon’s Cotton Avenue…where in the 1970s it was common to see African Americans shopping, working and playing in this popular part of downtown. Now Cotton Avenue is fading….and efforts are underway to preserve it.

Cotton Avenue was named to Historic Macon’s latest “Fading Five” list, an initiative that aims to preserve historic structures. The Macon-Bibb County Commission is seeking to have the Planning and Zoning Commission form the Cotton Avenue Historic District, with boundaries from “that area that was historically known as Cotton Avenue, running from College Street and terminating at Second and Mulberry streets,” according to a resolution recently approved by county commissioners.

Two Macon downtown churches — Steward Chapel AME and Tremont — became mobilization sites for the boycott of the Macon Transit system during the civil rights era of the 1960s.