Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for May 1, 2006 MAY DAY, MAY DAY!

From the Belleville News Democrat...

Often-nasty political discord saddles once-mighty city of Cairo

JIM SUHR
Associated Press

CAIRO, Ill. - While marveling at the rich history of this once-mighty city where the Ohio and Mississippi rivers meet, musician Stace England can't believe the paralyzing political strife that has washed over the community in recent months.

Feuding between Mayor Paul Farris and the city council has brought business on behalf of the 3,600 residents to a standstill. Many city bills aren't getting paid, including $140,000 to the city's insurance carrier.

Farris' dissenters consider him a tyrant. Farris has been unapologetic, for months withholding the $600 monthly stipend to several of his critics on the council until they apologize. Undaunted, the council members are suing Farris in small-claims court.

"It's like watching a drug addict - you want to have an intervention, but you can't do much until they want to help themselves," says England, who has put this Alexander County seat's history to music in a new country-and-blues CD, "Greetings From Cairo, Illinois."

His cut about the current mess in Cairo - pronounced KAYR'-oh - aptly enough is "Can't We All Get Along."

The prospects aren't good. Farris has said he plans to seek re-election next year, but many on the council say they don't expect the corrosive tone to abate until he's gone.

"We have dethroned a dictator in Iraq, but we're letting one stand in Cairo," says Joey Thurston, a 12-year councilman. "It's his way or the highway. There's no working with him."

"It's getting worse as we go along," adds 18-year councilman Bobby Whitaker, a retired state Department of Transportation supervisor.

Farris did not return numerous messages left at his home and on his cell phone for this story. But he recently told the Southeast Missourian of Cape Girardeau that the council "can't just consistently make a mess of things."

"They don't have to agree with me - Just come to the meetings and stop playing their games," the newspaper has quoted him as saying.

Farris has been mayor here since narrowly winning the post in April 2003 from a 12-year incumbent, taking the helm of a community that already was in deep financial distress because its tax base had eroded steadily over the years.

The biggest remaining employer is Bunge North America's soybean-processing site, with about 80 workers.

Having campaigned on the pledge that he'd clean house, Farris didn't disappoint. Within days of taking office, he fired the police and fire chiefs, streets superintendent, city clerk and city lawyer, among others.

All but one member of the six-person council opposed the firings, alleging cronyism in Farris' newly appointed staff. But Farris didn't flinch, insisting those who got the ax "weren't doing their jobs."

The six fired workers have sued Farris in federal court, claiming they were denied due process. Those cases remain unresolved.

Legal issues again found Farris last year, when state prosecutors charged him, the city clerk and a former city treasurer with felony official misconduct and forgery charges for depositing $50,000 in city funds into a Pulaski County bank account. Municipal rules require city money to be deposited in certain banks in Cairo.

The city attorney argued then that the Pulaski County account was necessary because a Cairo bank refused to honor the signatures of the treasurer and city clerk. A judge later tossed out the charges, ruling there wasn't enough evidence.

The strife hasn't eased as the city, long among the state's poorest, struggles with what many on the council say could be $200,000 to $500,000 of red ink. They insist they can't tell for sure because Farris often doesn't give them much documentation.

"We don't have a clue," complains Whitaker, among the four council members rebelling against Farris.

Farris has claimed he has veto power. Baloney, his critics say.

"He doesn't acknowledge us as elected officials," Whitaker says. "He's not our boss. People who elected us are."

The bottom line, Whitaker says, is "we're a poor, struggling community trying to survive."

Strife isn't anything new here. The town's warts include public lynchings in the early 1900s and a race riot that erupted in 1967 after a black soldier was found hanged in a Cairo police station, fueling an exodus of employers and residents. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights later described Cairo as "a vivid symbol of racial polarization."

Years of conflict and a decline in river transportation conspired against this predominantly black town, where riverfront Commercial Street - once the main, bustling thoroughfare - is virtually vacant, some of its store fronts charred.

"If you came downtown, you'd think you were in Baghdad with all the buildings falling in," Thurston says.

It wasn't always this way.

Cairo once served as Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's headquarters in the Civil War's early years before he thrust Union troops into the South. Steamboats helped make this community a vital transportation nexus, and in the late 1800s combined river and rail shipments gave Cairo the nation's highest per-capita commercial valuation.

Commercial Street was lined with liquor stores, clothiers, smoke shops, grocers and druggists - a far cry from the decay it is today.

The town's mess "is embarrassing," says council member Linda Jackson, a 45-year-old bank worker tired of what she considers bad press over the political bickering in a city where she believes "the agendas are set up for chaos."

"We're in the paper and people from here to there can see what's happening," Jackson says.

England, the 45-year-old musician, considers the dysfunction a tragedy.

"Cairo is like an onion - the more you peel back, the more layers you find," says England, who lives in Cobden - about 40 miles to the north - but spent several years researching Cairo for his CD. "You have to look hard for the beauty, and when you find it it's spectacular. That's the people."