MACON, Ga. — Macon-Bibb County hopes tenants at Green Meadows Townhomes will sleep a bit easier knowing new management is on the way.
The county took Green Meadows owners to court Friday to ask a judge to step in and help them fix crime there. They cite 1,800 emergency calls to the complex over three years and hundreds of reports of gunshots over 16 months.
"People just act like they don't care," District 9 Commissioner Al Tillman said. "What they need to know is we're doing this because we do care."
Tillman knows Green Meadows well. He knew it even before he started representing the area in the Bibb County Commission.
Tillman says he helped fix Green Meadows management problems in 2009 when he was with the Bibb County NAACP.
"We all met up in Columbus, Georgia, with the state NAACP office, and we resolved a lot of those issues that were going on with management," Tillman recalled.
Nearly 15 years later, Macon-Bibb Mayor Lester Miller says the problems are back. He believes much of the issue lies with management.
"We've got a lot of drug and gang activity, number one," Miller said. "There have been many, many, a couple unfortunate situations I can think of. On one occasion, a bullet went through a window and hit a small child in the neck. You can't get much worse than that."
Friday, Bibb County Superior Court Judge Bryant Culpepper appointed Atlanta attorney Boniface Echols as the property's receiver. Echols will work with owners to manage the complex, and the county hopes he'll fix things up.
Echols will have the power to make repairs to apartment units, set rent and hire new security.
Part of the county's lawsuit details security guards' treatment of tenants, including fining them $100 in cash or through the payment app Cash App if residents were found out past curfew.
According to the lawsuit, some guards would ask for sexual favors if tenants couldn't pay the fines. The county says many of the people who live at Green Meadows rely on federal assistance.
Miller also says many units are in disrepair and are in major need of updates.
"We need someone providing proper security over there. We need someone to make sure that even the residents are safe, but the apartments themselves need to be brought up to code," Miller said.
This is another example of a nuisance action Macon-Bibb has filed in court.
Previous actions involved hotels and convenience stores, where the county asked for at least a temporary shutdown.
Miller says they asked for a receivership in this situation to avoid displacing hundreds of people. The receivership will last until the court says otherwise, according to Judge Culpepper's order.