OP-ED: Grounds for the Firing of Former City Manager Isaiah Hugley

FOUNTAIN CITY NEWS is here for several reasons and discussing crime and criminal behavior in the Valley area and its surrounds isn't one of them. The local news and mainstream media, as clique-oriented and corporate-owned as it is, is doing a reasonably decent job of tossing all of the killing and crime out here that most of us can stand in a day.

What the FOUNTAIN CITY cannot afford to overlook and bypass, however, is when its own City Manager - after nearly 40 years of public service (most of it serving the residents and citizens of Columbus and Muscogee County) - suddenly gets fired just before he is about to retire at the end of the year.

And all we've really gotten out of it, so far, is that the current Mayor, the former Mayor, AND the City Attorney are totally supporting the former City Manager, and that two persons potentially tied to the inner circle of these matters, including a Self-Made Citizen Lawyer Investigator, have been "killed" (ie,. 'committed suicide' and 'involved in a head-on collision', so we hear).

{We won't even bother with the conspiracy theories that are surrounding J. Nathan Smith, who locals tell me was a very good and well-respected man; and Tyler Carr Cashbaugh, a lawyer who was killed June 13 in a head-on collision.}

We already know mainstream media can't afford an Op-Ed on this one because they can't take sides, but can only report facts. Us too, but we can talk about what we think of it if nothing else.

First and foremost, Isaiah Hugley is a grown-@ man, so rather than continually threaten the City with an "unfiled lawsuit," it might be best to just go ahead and file it.

Hugley, you've already been fired, so judging by the current climate in Columbus (so scary and secretive), you're not going to be reinstated, period. That one is off the table at this time.

We already know that idle threats are not a fact of life, and if they were so bold as to fire you, then fire back. 

Nobody is going to know what you did and didn't do until you expose it yourself, and back it up with evidence. Until then, "whatever they said" (see the WTVM screen capture above) seized the day. Time is coming up short and 2025 is almost over. You were going to retire anyway, so put them on "Front Street and Bay Avenue", as it is.

I could give my own opinion about the "missing $45.1M that turned out to be a $45.1M backlog" (only because I'm well familiar with the principles of accounting procedures and have done them for multi-million dollar Atlanta law firms and come out with clean books EVERY time, within less than $100 unaccounted for...).

I could talk about all the conspiracy theories that were wrapped around that one, but since it turned out the $45.1M was never missing in the first place, there's no need to discuss what can't be proven.

Secondarily, let's have a real citizen-driven "look-see" at those firing offenses, simply because -given the situations of criminal charges surrounding the folks who have already been fired and arrested - Hugley is guilty of nothing more or less than dropping the ball and not exactly being on his 'A-game' with those who were assigned to do certain jobs on his watch. 

We won't know until and unless he tells us -- everything - whatever it is, even if that means a confession of some sort for something we don't know about yet. 

Can Hugley afford a hit like that on behalf of the former City Finance Director, even if she is allegedly guilty of nothing more than the improper handling of her job?

Reported: Columbus (GA) Finance Director Angelica Alexander was arrested in May 2025, along with former city employee Yvonne Ivey, as part of an investigation into the city's finance department. Alexander was charged with willful obstruction of a law enforcement officer, a misdemeanor, according to reports from local news sources. Ivey was charged with two counts of simple battery.

The charges are just really not that big of a deal AT THIS TIME. More could come later, but...

What we do know in the meantime is that this alleged 'corruption' business isn't new to Columbus. It's as old as this city and the majority of its initiating corrupt players are long gone; they may have even been related to some of the folks tossing and kicking Hugley's name around now...just to grant themselves an absolution that is never coming.

The Ledger-Enquirer, whom I worked for from 1985-1988, won a Pulitzer Prize back in the 1950s for Investigative Journalism into the loose and wanton AND OUTRAGEOUS corruption that happened in Phenix City right next door. PC has been relatively quiet ever since, except for the "Janet Sheridan" thing that was just dropped pretty recently.

{Reported: In 1955, the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service was awarded to the Columbus (GA) Ledger and Sunday Ledger-Enquirer for their "complete news coverage and fearless editorial attack on widespread corruption in neighboring Phenix City, Alabama." This coverage played a key role in dismantling a corrupt city government.}

Columbus is right next door to Phenix City, Alabama, from here you can go to the Riverwalk and chuck a pebble hard enough and hit it...but anyone in their right mind knows full well that the L-E did not do any reporting on the corruption that was happening across the river here in Columbus at the same time, for highly obvious reasons.

This is a town that has its secrets and people who know who are too scared to speak out (the rest, of course, are deceased), but "corruption" here is not a new word, so the fact that alleged "corruption" and slackness of work ethic didn't show up in public until all of these Afrocentric persons appeared in high places is a moot point.

Tertiarily, don't get me wrong about the seeming irk and ire behind this Op-Ed. I have no particular issues with Columbus that everybody else doesn't have -- those who aren't afraid to speak up, that is.

Overall, it's a simple and typical small (but not tiny) southern city with plenty of authenticity that won't be taken to task except in a commercial way that leaves the doors open to filmmakers and other business venturers who want to come here and call this home. The racism here is traditional, of course, and honed on the teeth of the 1800s Confederacy which speaks for itself.

Nothing outrageous or over-the-top happens here these days except for a few celebrity name-drops from time to time.

And honestly, the Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University is its most talented and decorative centerpiece, but I'm biased.

I love music and its every nuanced detail and even its sophisticated arrogance, and I sometimes sing in the choir with one of the most illustrious and accomplished musicians in this county and this state. I once brought one of my own favorite musical celebrities here after I returned to try and raise funds for the failed Claflin School project, so I'm no Big Columbus critic. I'm a Claflin alumna, and so are my sisters. But it's like everywhere else I've lived - has its ups and downs, its 'hoods and billion-dollar 'hoods, and its foibles and faux pas'es.

Everybody who knows knows me. They know that if I had the Schwob's money, my name would be sitting somewhere around Columbus State with a plaque on it, too. I was raised here and have two siblings who are Columbus State (fka 'Columbus College') alumna, so I have distinctly bad and and very good memories of it when it was still an unmodified hobble back in the 1960s and 70s and I was still such a child.

But back to business, Mr. Hugley - Just. do. it; and let the chips fall where they may. Your work showed up in a HubSpot piece that rated Columbus at the top of its list for industrious living, but HubSpot is just another self-made digital expert on geek media who managed to gain its place at the top of the Google search engine.

That isn't going to be enough when your four-decades long legacy is riding on proving them wrong. 

-30-