Editor,

I do believe Hogansville city government has very little respect for its citizens and the downtown merchants. The recent vote by the council to increase the burden on tax payers with higher fees and vacation pay demonstrates their lack of concern.

Ms. Strickland stated the increase was a small amount compared to previous years. Did anyone at City Hall combine these small increases on water, gas, electric, property and employee raises for the net effect?

Travel expenses is code for vacation money. If you have to attend seminars to perform your job, maybe you should pay your own way.

Our downtown area is slowly dying. In my 30 years on Main Street I have never seen so many empty buildings. There are more vacant buildings than active businesses. When is the last time a Hogansville government official walked the downtown area — not counting when they were running for office?

I spoke to the mayor in October 2015 about ways to help the downtown businesses. Some of the suggestions I made were discount business licenses, reduce utility cost in the start-up phase, lower deposits for connection of utilities and keep the hotel tax money in our coffers.

At that time, I got the usual response: “We will look into it,”“We can’t because of rules and regulations” and, “We are putting a committee together to study the problem.”

This is the same attitude taken when a discussion by council occurred concerning trains blocking Main Street. Council and the mayor stated it was an inconvenience for citizens in vehicles and truck drivers. There was not one mention of the business lost by downtown merchants.

Maybe it is time for Hogansville to turn the city over to Troup County commissioners. If there was a referendum on the ballot to disband Hogansville government, which way would the vote go?

Jim Sherman

Hogansville