Clearing off my desk on a dreary Friday afternoon on the first day of June:

• With the always-unpredictable south Georgia weather, I hope the Decatur County Board of Education revisits the practice of holding the Bainbridge High School’s graduation ceremonies at Centennial Field. While I certainly understand the importance of tradition, future graduating classes and their families shouldn’t have to endure the same two-day waiting game that the 2012 class had to endure.

A couple of years ago, the decision was made to move the ceremonies indoors to the gymnasium. A huge backlash from the student body of BHS led the board to reverse the decision and move the ceremonies back to the football field. I would be willing to bet that any one of the more than 300 graduates this year, along with their families and the staff at BHS, would have rather had the ceremonies indoors, instead of fighting thunderstorms.

• New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is suggesting a ban on all soft drinks over 16 ounces in restaurants, cinemas, and food carts in that city. Huh? Bloomberg is concerned about the obesity level of New Yorkers and feels that by making the soft drinks smaller, people will consume less and, thus, lose weight and become healthy. Isn’t New York City still in the United States? This is a scary move by the billionaire mayor.

Just think, you can walk into any bar or restaurant and drink beer or wine until the cows come home, but you would be banned from the mega-gulp Coke while eating popcorn at the movies. It might just be me, but I would guess that there are bigger issues in New York City that might deserve the mayor’s attention than to worry about how much Dr Pepper a person drinks.

• Good to see, that after candidate qualifying ended last week, we will have a fairly crowded ballot for county-wide elected offices this year. The primaries are July 31. Districts 3 and 5 of the Decatur County Board of Commissioners, districts 1 and 3 of the Decatur County Board of Education, the office of coroner, and the office of sheriff will all be up of grabs. I think competition in any political race is healthy, and it appears that some of the incumbents will have a tough race on their hands.

Also on July 31, we will vote yes or no on the TSPLOST one-cent sales tax. This is a statewide tax, voted on regionally, that would allow an additional penny sales tax for 10 years to fund transportation projects. In the coming weeks, The Post-Searchlight will have more information and opinions on this tax initiative.

Jeff Findley is the publisher of The Post-Searchlight. You can email him at jeff.findley@thepostsearchlight.com.