I’m Done — By Tommy Purser

Okay. Okay. I lost. I failed. I give up. And no one else seems to care but me.
So, I’ll move on and let the Hazlehurst City Council move on.
I don’t like giving up but, like I said, no one seems to care about what I care about.
And I did my part … my job … to inform readers about the dysfunctional goings on with the city council. I tried to help them. I really tried. Not once, not twice, but several times and I was just ignored.
So be it. Being alone in the effort to help local government be the best it can be carries with it a unique kind of loneliness.
My latest failed effort occurred last week as the council held its 3rd and final public hearing on their plans to raise taxes by some 30% over the “rollback rate.” It’s 30% over the rollback rate and a whopping 34% over last year’s taxes.
The City ran an advertisement in the Ledger pointing out that they were levying $981,005 in taxes this year. [FACT CHECK: See “5 Year Tax History” on the City of Hazlehurst web site.] At that public hearing I mentioned before, I pointed out to the council that this year’s budget called for a couple of hundred thousand dollars less than the $981,005 they had authorized Jeff Davis County Tax Commissioner Susie Kersey to collect for the city.
Ward 3 City Councilman Chris Jones disagreed. He claimed that since the city’s fiscal year ran from July 1, 2026, to June 30, 2027, and the federal fiscal year ran from Oct. 1, 2026, to Sept. 30, 2027, that the $981,005 represented what the Tax Commissioner would collect in that fiscal year, not the city’s fiscal year.
That was hogwash. WHEN the taxes are collected means nothing. How much the city is levying means everything. The city levied $981,005 in taxes whether those taxes are collected tomorrow, this week, next week, this month, next month, this fiscal year, or 50 years in the future means nothing.
When I said that wasn’t true, Commissioner Jones doubled down on his specious assertion.
I turned and looked at the only other council members present at that meeting — Mayor John Ramay and Ward 1 Council Member Dywane Johnson — and they said nothing. They just stared at me, as if they were waiting to hear what I would say next. Neither one of them said a word. Not a word.
It appeared to me they either believed the absurdity Councilman Jones was presenting or …. and this is scary …. they didn’t know what to think.
And another thing. The City ran a legally required advertisement in this newspaper — entitled “Press Release Announcing A Proposed Property Tax Increase” — which said, in part, “The budget tentatively adopted by the City of Hazlehurst requires a millage rate higher than the rollback millage rate…” [FACT CHECK: See “Notice of Property Tax Increase 2026” on the City of Hazlehurst web site.]
Was that the truth? I don’t think so.
Was the city lying to the public it serves? Seems like it to me.
The last few months have been a lesson in futility for me. I have spent almost my entire adult life working for the betterment of Hazlehurst and Jeff Davis County.
And I am an abject failure. The current state of the Hazlehurst City Council tells me that. I have failed miserably.
I apologize.
I’m done.
See, dear readers, if any of you can do better. But leave me out of it.
I’m done.