Report, eritas, research, evaluation and opinions provided by Robert A
Editor’s Note: The tension at the June 3, 2025 CC Commissioners Meeting was so thick it had to almost be cut through with a “Chainsaw.” The cause of this “high” tension was a Public Hearing on the New FY 25-26 Cleveland County Budget was on the agenda and major increases in property tax bills were expected to be approved by the CC Commissioners. Although the Budget was claimed to be balanced and revenue neutral,” it was neither balanced nor revenue neutral.
When the meeting got to this FY 25-26 Budget Item, the County Manager’s whole presentation took just shy of five minutes. With no explanations why the Recommended FY 25-26 Budget took 167 Pages of documents and the FY 25-26 Budget Ordnance contained only 7 pages and also contained many discrepancies and contradictions.
Ten People had signed up to speak and the speakers could be summed up into three groups:
1.Those Against the Budget because the spending levels were excessively high and CC was a Poor, Tier I County.
2.Those who represented certain groups that wanted funding from this new budget.
3.Representatives from Firefighters Associations who were obviously “plants” by Commissioner Chairman Kevin Gordon who “preached” to the Commissioners about how things would so much better if the New Budget was approved.
After the Public Hearing was closed, Commissioner Doug Bridges made the motion to approve the budget before there was any chance for the other Commissioners to ask questions of the County Manager or to speak on any topic related to the Budget.
Johnny Hutchins “seconded” the motion and the vote was 3-2 to approve the budget. Kevin Gordon, Johnny Hutchins and Doug Bridges voted to approve the Budget and Tony Berry and Deb Hardin voted against the Budget.
Tony Berry then gave his valid reasons for voting against the new Budget.
When the meeting was adjourned, two Sheriff’s Department Deputies came up to the front of the meeting room to prevent citizens from interacting with the CC Commissioners. Very soon thereafter Commissioners Gordon, Hutchins, Deb Hardin and Doug Bridges had disappeared from the Commissioner’s Chambers while Commissioner Tony Berry was being congratulated by many people. Other discussions were going on by some regarding running for Commissioner’s in the 2026 Elections. Wayne King was one of those talked about. Also note that the CCGOP Chairman and Vice-Chairman had attended this meeting and sat amongst the Kevin Gordon Crowd.
Folks, this was a short story of what transpired at the June 3, 2025 Commissioner’s Meeting regarding the FY 25-26 Budget approval. Robert A plans a full expose regarding major discrepancies, deceptions and outrageous miscalculation that will be covered in another article(s)
Stay Tuned. And make sure you have a good supply of anger management meds when Robert A discloses to you CC Citizens and Taxpayers the identities of those who have large property holdings in Cleveland County that appear to NOT be taxed like the rest of us. Like, maybe ZERO dollars on $100 Million$ OR MORE in property value.
And, the present-day Commissioner who refuses to pay Property Tax and the county garnishes the Commissioner’s salary to Pay those taxes.
Folks, Robert A is NOT joking about this.
