CAIRO — A Grady County resident’s criticisms of the county’s recent hiring of school board vice chair John White has turned into complaints about the conduct of County Administrator Buddy Johnson.

Cairo resident John Monds said he informed Johnson and then-board of commissioners chair Ray Prince of his dissatisfaction with White’s hire prior to a board of commissioners meeting Jan. 8 and was surprised at the response he received.

“Those comments were taken by Mr. Johnson I guess as a way to attack me as a follow-up,” Monds said Tuesday.

Johnson said he was responding to what he felt were unfair criticisms of White.

“My rebuttal of Mr. Monds’ comments and his verbal unfounded attack toward our newly-hired employee at the January 8th, 2019 regular Commissioners meeting were just that, a rebuttal,” Johnson wrote in an email. “Mr. Monds’ comments, while well within his free speech rights to make, were not factually sound and because they were personal attacks with no real basis against this employee, they were in my opinion slanderous.”

Monds said he believes White, who officially began work as county clerk and human resources director Jan. 9, is unethical due to his apparent role in the 2016 firing of former Cairo High School guidance counselor Cindy Williams.

The board of education unanimously voted to fire Williams in October 2016 after determining the former guidance counselor did not follow proper ethical procedures when she altered her daughter’s grades, though the decision was later overturned by the state school board.

Monds claimed White and the county school board were responsible for withholding exculpatory evidence, something the state school board did not conclude.

Johnson pushed back on the claims at the meeting, asking Monds and then White a series of questions about White’s record with the school board and the Division of Family and Children Services before asking the commission for the issue to be dropped.

When Monds resumed his criticism of White, Johnson turned to commission chair LaFaye Copeland while Monds was speaking to say “this is getting to be slander.”

Monds later claimed when he spoke with Johnson before the Jan. 8 meeting the county administrator asked him not to repeat the comments at the meeting or in a letter to a newspaper.

The administrator said that statement was inaccurate and that he instead urged Monds not to write a letter to a newspaper unfairly attacking White.

“In a meeting with Mr. Monds days prior to the January 8th public meeting, he brought his issues to me,” Johnson wrote. “I in turn explained the facts to him, but he simply did not want to hear the facts. He said then that he was going to write a letter to the editor. I urged him to consider the facts and not to do so as that would create an unfair start for Mr. White. I told him to put himself in Mr. Whites shoes and allow him a chance to prove himself without controversy.”

Cairo resident Betty Godwin echoed Monds’ grievances with Johnson, who she said treated the meeting as if it were an interrogation at a legal proceeding.

“For the citizen to be denigrated and subjected to interrogation and being accused of slander is tantamount to intimidation or retaliation and infringement of his free speech rights,” Godwin said. “What happened has a chilling effect on the public, in particular for those citizens who want to speak at a public meeting.”

Johnson said he had a right to respond to Monds’ comments.

“I can only point out that to be an advocate for free speech you must allow all narratives to have their fair say,” Johnson wrote. “Implying that I, as a ‘county official,’ have no right to defend or to speak on behalf of the tangible, obtainable facts that surround a county employee that I will be supervising is ultimately infringing on mine and his right to free speech. By me saying nothing would set a poor tone for this new employee as to what type of leadership he will be working under in the future. ‘Freedom of speech does not negate freedom of rebuttal.’”

Godwin further claimed Johnson made “derogatory or inappropriate comments” about Monds to the effect that Monds “had his head in the sand and that he should run to be on the school board.”

Johnson disputed Godwin’s framing of his comments to Monds and said it was incorrect.

The county administrator did not use the exact language Godwin stated, instead saying at the Jan. 8 meeting that Monds’ “passion is built on a foundation of sand.” 

Johnson also said he believed Monds’ issue was with the school board and suggested he run in the next school board election.

The administrator released a statement Thursday stating he wanted to move on.

“While I agree my actions and statements may not have been the norm, they were indeed appropriate, and I stand by them as the facts speak for themselves,” Johnson wrote. “I will make no further comments on this matter as it is in no way germane to any current Grady County business and the matter is closed.”