Have your voice heard on Election Day

Published 3:55 pm Wednesday, June 11, 2025

Dear Editor:

Tuesday, June 17, 2025, is very important to the citizens of Cairo and Grady County too. It is the last day to vote for Mayor of Cairo and will be the date the Board of Education will adapt the Budget for the coming year.

Elections have consequences. Voting is one of the few ways a citizen can help to determine the direction and future of that we need to move in. If you fail to vote then don’t complain! Do nothing and the politicians will do what they want!

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The City of Cairo is a much divided City! We have a lawsuit that was instigated by a personal vendetta of the former Mayor to change things the way he wanted it and creating his own form of justice! This stupidity, if the City loses, may well cost the taxpayers more than 100K to settle! That is your money not his! We now have a City Manager that was voted in by the City Council with total disregard to what a search agent recommended. He was the least qualified of the 3 candidates presented! It was pretty obvious that his appointment to City manager would occur regardless and yet 5K was spent on this search for naught!

The election of the right person for mayor will be the first step in the right direction to get our City Government back on track. Don’t vote and you will get more of the same! It is critical to exercise you right to do so and your responsibility as a citizen to do so. There is not any excuse not to!

Concerning the Board of Education there is a lot to be said in the direction we are headed there also. The taxpayers were stuck with what amounted to a 3.4 mill increase because of our property tax increases and no roll back! This really put a burden on many of the citizens of Grady County. Now our Superintendent is doing us all a favor and cutting our mill rate by 1. Hey, I ain’t no math major but 3.4-1 is 2.4 and that’s the increase we are getting stuck with! Again smoke and mirrors just like closing Northside was going to save us 4 million! Give me a break! Are they going to roll back this to the original amount or continue to spend taxpayer’s monies?

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As I have reiterated in the past an Educator serving in a County School System management role does one thing well and that is spend money. Our money! They are Educators not money managers! I see areas that we can reduce expenses. We create new positions, add temps that funds come out of local monies, positions that could be eliminated and combined, numerous operational areas that could be made more efficient, and we just plain have too many Chiefs and not enough Indians! Based upon 2024 data we have 22 employees of the Grady County School system making over 100K a year! We have a CFO, COO, and is a CEO on the way? It is time for the Board to step up and get more involved in fiscal management of our system and not just rubber stamping everything presented to them!

The mockery concerning funding of the band was a joke regardless of who did what and the finger pointing! The budget sheet clearly exhibited the true facts and they could not be changed! The Band deserves and should get better funding. Hopefully the Board will see fit to do just that and not just 6k!

I strongly advise you call your School Board member and express your opinion and let it be known that enough is enough! They should operate within their means just like we have to! Our taxes should be rolled back to the previous level like the County and City did!

  1. Bert Stoddard 336-392-4099
  2. Derrick Majors 229-977-4961
  3. Gerald Goosby 850-321-0782
  4. Teresa Gee Hardy 229-378-0273
  5. John White 229-224-1785

Government at all levels is supposed to be for the people and by the people but you must stand up to insure that this right is practiced and adhered to when they are not! It is time to act now and not sit idly by.

Again it is just your money they are spending!

Sincerely,

Mike Bishop