Chuck Hughes, RSSS Board  of Education

♦ I understand the State is being lobbied for a 10% pay raise for teachers.

Although I believe every teacher should be paid a decent salary, with raises based upon tenure and performance, simply increasing salaries for everyone does little to solve the problem of teacher migration between Local Education Agencies (LEA) (school systems). Local dollars drive this train as some LEAs have bloated fund balance coffers that allow them to pay a higher supplement than a less prosperous LEA. In the end, the ultimate salary, State pay plus LEA supplement, loads the dice in favor of affluent school districts. In the end, this is a “supplement bidding war” in which poverty laden LEAs, such as Rowan County, cannot compete.

One solution to this inequity would be to remove the LEA’s supplement option and let the State teacher salary scale reflect teacher pay based upon experience and education, complimented by a supplement based upon a cost of living index for each county. Only then will poorer counties have a fair chance to retain talented teachers who would otherwise be recruited by richer counties. This change would also mute LEA’s ongoing complaint that “we are losing teachers to Kalamazoo, so we have to find some way to compete with their supplements.” Often the only option for the LEA is to drain its fund balance in order to be competitive or accept the losses.

This is not a new concept. Federal agencies, such as the Veteran’s Administration (VA), have stabilized employee movement between one VA to another by establishing pay scales differentiated ONLY by the cost of living in each area. Thus, the playing field is leveled.

Let’s ask the North Carolina General Assembly to end the supplement war.

CarolinaJournal.com/Rick Henderson

♦ Federal Court Tosses North Carolina Congressional Map:

RFP Staff

♦ Shawn Michael Sexton, 28,  of 220 Linda Street in Salisbury, was arrested Saturday by investigators from the Rowan Sheriff’s Office for alleged sex crimes with children under the age of 13.  On Friday Mathue Richard Moro, 32, living in the 200 block of Lee Street in Salisbury and in Rockwell, was also arrested Friday afternoon by Rowan Sherriff’s Office deputies for alleged sex crimes with children under the age of 13.

Sexton was charged with taking indecent liberties with children (felony) and first degree sexual offense (victim under 13) (felony).

Under a secured $225,000 bond, Sexton remains in the Rowan County Detention Center.

Shawn Michael Sexton:

It is not known at this time if Sexton and Moro travel in the same circles.

Moro was charged with indecent liberties with children (felony), statutory rape/sex offense with a 13/14/15 year-old by defendant 6 years older (felony), and first degree sexual offense (victim under 13) (felony).

Under a secured $250,000 bond, Moro is being held in the Rowan County Detention Center.

Mathue Richard Moro:

**This article will be updated as more information arrives.**

RFP Staff

♦ In a email dated December 3, 2014 Martin and Starnes Auditor Tonya L. Marshall verified that City Finance Director would print the annual audit document for the City Council and that the only thing she needed to print and bring to the City Council meeting where the audit was to be presented was the responsibility letters. Responsibility letters are “required auditor communication with those charged with governance. In laymen’s terms it is the letter the auditor has to give to the City Council giving a summary of the things they are required to communicate, including any concerns or negative findings.

Martin and Starnes Auditor Tonya L. Marshall offers to send him a PDF or to print them for him. It’s up to him. City Finance Director Wade Furches chooses to receive the PDF and states he will drop it in the “appropriate folder” and all council would then have access to it.

We question if this actually occurred. Did the City Council actually receive the governance letter or did City Finance Director Wade Furches “forget” to “put it in their folder.”

We question this because a later governance letter from auditor Martin and Starnes to the City Council about internal controls and embezzlement was not shared with new Councilmembers Kenny Hardin and David Post. We do not know if Martin and Starnes was made aware that the latest governance letter was not shared.

Steve Mensing, Editor

♦ I’m drinking a cup of coffee this morning and reading an article in the city of Salisbury’s “newsletter”.  The article is brimming with high gloss baloney about Fibrant one of the better known municipal broadband flops in the U.S.A. Fibrant loses millions every year and touts itself as a success and the product of “visionaries”.

Baloney Alert: The first piece of drivel I read in the article was a paraphrase from an early city budget: “Salisbury is geographically blessed, approximately halfway between Washington D.C. and Atlanta, Boston, and Miami and the I-85 corridor from Raleigh to Greenville, S.C.”

Reality Check: Open a current road atlas and pick most mid-sized cities or large cities and they can make the same meaningless claim about dwelling between other major cities, corridors, and rail and airway hubs.  I haven’t looked, but I suspect Rosewell, N.M, the flying saucer capital of the world, could make the same claim.  Are people piling out of buses to visit our sleepy little crime infested tank town?

Baloney Alert: It was alleged in the article that Salisbury is home to 4 colleges and an affiliated med school program.  Then leaps to a conclusion that the Bury has the infrastructure to educate future “Knowledge employees”. What Hood Theological?

Reality Check:  The colleges in Salisbury lack any substantive or notable tech programs–certainly none approaching the measure of the schools pipelining Silicon Valley. Stanford?

Baloney Alert: Calling Fibrant bold, smart, and visionary.

Reality Check: Fibrant was a bold idea–bold as in wreckless.  It certainly was not smart when you consider that wall street analysts and the John Locke people warned a few Salisbury types about pulling the trigger on a municipal broadband misadventure.  Visionary?  Not hardly.  Not even remotely.

Reality check: Fibrant was terribly expensive and it has sandbagged the city of Salisbury with some towering debt. It has never broken even or turned the corner and made a profit as several city council incumbents once claimed.

As you know Fibrant burned through its $33 million dollars in certificates of participation money from its “soft” rollout in November 2010 until the “well” mysteriously ran dry in June 2011.

A perusal of Fibrant’s and the city’s financial figures last Tuesday showed Fibrant to be a huge loser in its fifth year of operation. Its interest and loan payments are monsterous. It owes millions to the water and sewer funds. Accumulated losses stagger somewhere past 12 million dollars. Money–lots of it was siphoned from the general fund (the taxpayers suffer here). Those few Fibrant subscribers out there are being double-dipped. Not only are they paying for over-priced internet and in a few cases TV service–they are being backdoored by taxes and utility bills. Also I noted money wasn’t included from bad pole wiring (run n’ gun) costs owed to Duke. Our calculations are more dire than the ones the city put out on Tuesday. The city’s figures of $50 million is bad enough. In the next few days we’ll post some numbers. We don’t do “magic math”. Remember the RFP was the only news source reporting how Fibrant was not turning any corner or making a profit. It was eating this tank town alive.

It seems that Bailey is at least made a stab at some transparency not witnessed during previous “Magic Math” sessions with Sofley. Don’t get your hopes up. Teresa Harris was an assistant to “magic math” for many years.

Reality Check: It would be nice if Fibrant looked and acted like private sector companies–you know with boards of directors and managers heading up marketing, technology, customer care, and various administrative heads. It would be fantastic if Fibrant possessed the massive buying power of large broadband corporations or could afford research and development like the big boys have or their billions of dollars. But folks that isn’t happening. And those elements combined will always outcompete and out market insular municipal broadband networks. Especially those staggering under immense debt and in a towns where its working class tax base is melting away to safer environs. Salisbury is currently not a destination or a place where many folks would risk living.

Reality Check: Fibrant can not compete in price with TWC-MAXX, AT&T Gigapower, AT&T U-Verse, DirecTV, or DISH. More subscribers will be dropping out of Fibrant to join 2,800 who already left. Fibrant is WAY over its head. Many people will not set up businesses or come live in Salisbury because of the extreme crime, lack of a fully staffed police department, Salisbury’s reputation around the state for cronyism and corruption, the D and F public schools, the 27.2% poverty, and the lack of substantial attractions.

Reality Check: Salisbury is NOT the only 10 Gig city in the USA and hardly the first. (Most people don’t need 100 Mbps let a alone a gig) Salisbury’s being the first 10 gig myth is trampled by the fact that Minneapolis and Santa Monica went 10 Gig in fall of 2014, VTel serves Vermont with 10 Gig since June 2015. Detroit’s Rocket Fiber went 10 Gig in November. Chattanooga went 10 Gig around October. All of those mentioned, except Detroit, are vastly more livable places. By the way residential customers and small businesses are not asking for 10 gigs. Most of their devices and home or office networks can’t handle ten gigs. And no everyday consumer applications exist for 10 gigs.

Salisbury has no competitive advantage when compared to Huntersville, Cary, Chapel Hill, nicer sections of Charlotte, Raleigh, or Winston-Salem.

I agree in theory it would be good for Salisbury to palm Fibrant off on some unsuspecting mom n’ pop private broadband who wants to take an extreme gamble and is prepared to wear body armor to work.

Good luck. Five years of never turning the corner or remotely coming close would be cause enough for most well-grounded business persons to fold their tent and move on. The City of Salisbury needs to get out of Fibrant anyway they can.

RFP Staff

♦ Kenneth S. Lane v. City of Salisbury, 14CVS432 apparently settled his case with the city. It appears so on the published Rowan County Civil Superior Court Docket. The terms are not public, however part of the deposition, namely that of ex-Chief Rory Collins, was delivered by late night courier to the satellite offices of Rowan Free Press. The “fourth estate” never sleeps.

You may remember the celebrated and respected Kenny Lane, after 22 years of loyal service to the Citizens of Salisbury as a police officer, was unceremoniously terminated a few years back with his career as a law enforcement officer ruined by the former police chief and the city’s Human Resources. He subsequently availed himself of the services of local Attorney David Shelby, and filed suit.

There is much to be gleaned from the deposition of ex-Chief Rory Collins. We are attaching selected pages of the deposition.  Noteworthy among these, is Chief Collin’s admission that during the entire term of his service as Salisbury Chief of Police and for ten years as a law enforcement officer, that while on duty he was under the daily influence Oxycontin, a powerful narcotic often referred to as “Hillbilly Heroin.” This powerful narcotic is widely known to cause death and severe addiction and once the supply is removed, addicts often have to turn to heroin to get the same “high.”

The news is more disturbing in that he carried a city issued firearm and drove a municipal vehicle while twice a day consuming this powerful narcotic and then appears to be confused about a City policy prohibiting such act. The policy is reproduced below.

Suddenly, a lot of decisions made while he was Chief of Police, including Officer Lane’s firing, the more than 75% attrition rate of SPD Officers over five years, and his silence during city council’s almost total destruction of a once proud and effective department due to the multi-million dollar annual Fibrant subsidy, now makes sense.

Perhaps he was “asleep at the wheel?” Maybe this was exactly what City Council desired? There is much more to come from this deposition and lawsuit.

The deposition of Former Chief Rory Collins:

Salisbury Police Policy Manual:

RFP Staff

♦ Nicole Marie Jackson, 44, of Heron Glen Drive was arrested Saturday for attempting to run over China Grove Policeman J. Corriher after a routine traffic stop at the intersection of Highway 29 and Ryder Avenue.  In the process of issuing a traffic citation to Jackson, the situation escalated.  Jackson allegedly accelerated and drove straight at the officer in an attempt to hit him with her vehicle.

Immediately after the incident Jackson allegedly fled the scene at high-speeds.  Soon a second officer M.B. Shoemaker began his pursuit of Jackson’s vehicle allegedly driving recklessly and speeding at 15 mph over the speed limit and later in excess of posted highway work zone speeds.

After Jackson’s arrest, she was charged with assault with a deadly weapon inflict serious injury on an officer (felony) and flee to elude (felony).

Under a secured $50,000 bond, Jackson is being held in the Rowan County Detention Center.

RFP Staff

♦ This past Thursday Tasha Miller Russ, 40, and her daughter Cassidy Leigh Russ, 18, were arrested in the 5oo block of Tony’s Lane in Rowan County and both charged  for allegedly permitting a 5 year-old boy to dwell in unfit conditions.  The trash strewn interior smelled of rotting food and human fecal matter.  Cockroaches darted along the walls and swarmed out of trash bags.  Tragically the 5 year-old boy walked unclothed.  The refrigerator and cabinets contained no edible food.  The house had no running water.  The sink was piled with garbage.

A Rowan Country Sheriff’s Office Deputy accompanied a social worker from the Rowan County Department of Social Services for a home safety survey met with some initial resistance to their visit from the daughter Cassidy Leigh Russ.  The deputy and the social worker finally gained entry and moved through their inspection, they were troubled by the foul conditions in which the 5 year-old was living.

DSS removed the youngster from the premises and is currently working on placing the child with a foster family.

Both Tasha Miller Russ and her daughter Cassidy Leigh Russ were charged child abuse a general misdemeanor.  Cassidy was additionally charged with resist/delay/obstruct a public officer.

Under a secured $500 bond each, the two women were briefly held in the Rowan County Detention Center and released.

Tasha Miller Russ:

Cassidy Leigh Russ:

RFP Staff

♦ Under oath in a deposition dated January 7th, 2016 former Salisbury Police Chief Rory Collins disclosed that Salisbury Human Resources, which includes Assistant City Manager Zack Kyle and Human Resources Manager Ruth Kennerly terminated four police officers, a decision belonging to the Police Chief. This is proof of a long-awaited rumor that Kyle and Kennerly micromanaged Salisbury Police Department personnel decisions.

On page 32 of the deposition Former Chief Collins revealed that “human resources mandates that all department heads let them know of any – and I do mean any – issue going on personnel related all the way down to somebody talking to somebody rudely.”

Collins also reveals that he reprimanded someone in writing without going through Kyle and Kennerly, and learned “real quick” that it should have gone through them.

On page 33 of the deposition Former Chief Collins revealed that Kyle and Kennerly terminated four officers: Rueben Ijames, Alfredo Bizzio, Wesley Lane, and Kenny Lane.

Collins stated in response to being asked if he terminated Kenny Lane, “no, sir. I wasn’t involved in that…they made the decision.” In response to a question about Wesley Lane, Former Chief Collins stated he didn’t agree with the decision… remarking, “It wasn’t my plan. I was told what I was going to do with that.”

Kyle and Kennerly’s micromanagement of these personnel decisions is an unprofessional human resources practice. Discipline should be conducted by the employee’s direct supervisor, who has first hand knowledge of the employee and the incident that requires disciplinary action. Kyle and Kennerly need to be neutral at this step because the employee handbook allows the employee to grieve the action to Human Resources if the employee disagrees with the discipline. Kyle and Kennerly are undermining the city’s own grievance process by micromanaging discipline at the department level. They cannot objectively review their own disciplinary actions.

Upon additional research, Rowan Free Press has learned that neither Kyle or Kennerly have a degree or prior experience in human resources. Kyle formerly served as a Planning Director in Virginia before coming to Salisbury, and Kennerly served as the city’s multiculturalism employee coordinating community events such as La Fiesta Rowan.

RFP Staff

♦ In an email dated July 3, 2014 City Finance Director Wade Furches explains to audit company Martin and Starnes that he will be taking his family to the North Carolina Government Finance Officers Conference at the beach and requests free tickets to the banquet from Martin and Starnes for his family. Furches states “it will cost me $30 for my family members to go to the banquet. So that will cost me $120. That banquet is my kids’ favorite part of the trip.” He then states “I was wondering if I could get some free banquet tickets… Just trying to save a few bucks, if possible.”

Martin and Starnes employee Tonya L. Marshall responds via email later that same day stating she will verify how many tickets the company has and the Furches should hear back from her Monday. Furches emails Marshall back on Monday stating “not to be a pesty beggar, but have you heard anything on this?” On the following day Marshall replies back “we have three tickets, all yours.” Furches replies “Thank you, thank you, thank you! I will see you at the beach to get them.”

As the city’s Finance Director Furches has influence on the recommendation on whether the city continues to contract with Martin & Starnes for auditing services, which is a lucrative contract for Martin & Starnes. Accepting favors and gifts from vendors is a major ethical breach and potential illegal act. Requesting favor and gifts is even worse.

We call on City Finance Director Wade Furches to resign. We further call on the City Council to select a new auditing firm given that Martin and Starnes agreed to supply the request favor and gift. No, he should be fired.

RFP Staff

♦ Welcome Home BILLY FLOYD PLESS to the Streets of Salisbury, N.C. and Spencer! We Await your Joyous Release from the State Pen on Wednesday February 10th!

Billy Floyd Pless’s Previous Record:

http://webapps6.doc.state.nc.us/opi/viewoffender.do?method=view&offenderID=0325377&searchLastName=pless&searchFirstName=billy&searchMiddleName=f&listurl=pagelistoffendersearchresults&listpage=1

RFP Staff

♦ Video: Salisbury City Council Fibrant Budget Discussion on February  2nd:

Public Announcement

♦ Tonight a program on Champ Ferguson, one of two confederates executed for war crimes after the War between the States, will be presented by Damon Webb at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, February 10th in the Stanback Room of the Rowan Public Library in Downtown Salisbury, N.C.   This program is free and open to the public.

For additional information about this evening’s program call Steve Poteat at 704-633-7229 or E-mail: RowanSCV@Carolina.rr.com

Champ Ferguson Bio:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champ_Ferguson

RFP Staff

♦ As a result of a public records request, Rowan Free Press discovered that City of Salisbury Finance Director Wade Furches requested free tickets to a banquet at the beach for his family from a city vendor that he has influence over. The earlier story was published by Rowan Free Press and includes images of the emails he sent to audit vendor Martin and Starnes requesting the free tickets. Martin and Starnes contract with the city is in excess of $30,000 per year for audit services. Furches requested tickets with a value of $120. Martin and Starnes agreed to provide him with three tickets for the beach banquet.

Page 50 of the City of Salisbury Employee Handbook outlines Rules of Conduct for city employees. An image of that page is below. A listed example of misconduct that will cause discipline up to and including dismissal is “acceptance of gifts in exchange for favors or influence.” As the Finance Director, Furches plays a role in developing and administering the annual auditing contract. He also has influence on whether Martin and Starnes continues to be the city auditor. He has the ability to push for a change in the auditing firm. As the city’s Finance Director, such a push would likely be successful. Martin and Starnes was put in a tough spot by his request. We at Rowan Free Press feel Furches’ action was additionally egregious in the fact that he did more than accept a gift as outlined in the employee handbook, but he solicited the gift and then pushed for it when he did not get a timely response from the vendor.

State law (G.S. 133-32) prohibits employees who are involved in developing, approving, or administering contracts from receiving anything of value from vendors who currently contract with a city, have had a contract within the past year, or anticipate biding on a contract in the future. At the time of the Furches request, Martin and Starnes had been contracted with to provide the prior year audit, current year audit, and received the audit contract for the following year after the tickets were given. Violation of this law is a misdemeanor for both the giver and recipient. A summary of this statute below:

http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/BySection/Chapter_133/GS_133-32.html

We at Rowan Free Press feel that Furches’ action was a significant ethical breach, violation of the employee handbook, and potential violation of the state law. We call on him to resign and for the city to refer the matter to the SBI for investigation.

RFP Staff

♦ Cori Brooks Mayhew, a 23 year-old Granite Quarry woman was arrested Sunday night by Rowan County Sheriff’s office deputies for allegedly shooting boyfriend Justin Joyce, 22, in the face on the 700 block of Barringer Street in Granite Quarry. The shooting is said to be a domestic dispute gone haywire.

Joyce, with what is said to be a serious facial wound, was transported to Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem to undergo emergency surgery. Nothing was released at this point about the Joyce’s condition.

Cori Brooks Mayhew was charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill/inflicting serious injury (felony). Minutes ago Mayhew was issued a secured $75,OOO bond by the magistrate. Mayhew is being held in the Rowan County Detention Center.

Cori Brooks Mayhew:

**This article will be updated later as more information becomes available.**

Jane Doe, 8 Block, N.C. (Jane works for the city and desires to avoid losing her job at the hands of Zack and Ruth)

♦ I usually don’t get terribly upset when I read the thoughtless negativity being spewed of late by Salisbury’s incumbent city council.  Yesterday I read Maggie Blackwell’s very hurtful and insensitive post about Salisbury’s late Hallmark Card Shop being passed around on Facebook.  Maggie Blackwell’s post:

Maggie Blackwell wrote: “So glad old Hallmark decided to pull their store from our area…” Blackwell surely knew that a local family owned that franchise and worked very hard to make a go of that shop a popular gift destination in the Tinseltown area. The late Hallmark Card Shop provided jobs for people residing in Salisbury. Let it be known many persons from Salisbury and out in the county enjoyed Hallmark’s cards and gifts and unlike Blackwell do not act snooty and above it all in their shopping choices.

Blackwell who professes an allegiance to the shop local movement, sounded anything but in her Facebook rant when she told the world she buys her “special” cards at Whole Foods (far from Salisbury) or online at PapyrusCards.Com. No mention of Critters on Main Street where you can often find humorous and interesting cards.

Todd Paris, Associate Editor and Salisbury Attorney

♦ My recent Freedom of Information Request response while delayed and only partially answered, has created enormous interest recently and generated many stories by your staff. Kudos to those many talented folks, both above and below the Mason-Dixon line who toil to provide the truth. Those men and women rock!

I am gratified that the “shady curtain” down at Salisbury’s City Hall parted, ever so slightly, to allow transparency’s sunshine to peek in.

I decided to start sharing my FOIA’s with RFP as they are submitted to provide a public time mark to prove when they were submitted. This is my most recent FOIA effort:

Dear Myra Heard,

I applaud the recent transparency on Fibrant. How fantastic to be open about where and how Fibrant money is being spent. What great leadership by our Mayor.

Please provide the following per FOIA:

1. All communication between Karen Alexander (KKA Architecture) and city officials regarding the planning, designing, and construction oversight of the Salisbury Customer Service Center aka Fibrant building.

2. All financial records including invoices and payments to Karen Alexander (KKA Architecture) related to the planning, designing, and construction oversight of the Salisbury Customer Service Center aka Fibrant building.

3. The total amount paid to Karen Alexander (KKA Architecture) related to the planning, designing, and construction oversight of the Salisbury Customer Service Center aka Fibrant Building.

4. The original budgeted amount for the facility and the final cost of the facility.

5. The sources used to pay for KKA’s services and the facility.

Please provide this info electronically. Having City Attorney Rivers Lawther laboriously photocopy these materials and hand carry them to my office (as you did last time) no doubt increases his bill, which can hardly be afforded, with the 3M + dollar Fibrant subsidy.

Very truly yours,

Todd

RFP Staff/Landis Police Department/Capt. Hosey

♦ Shannon Clement, 26, mother of a toddler 20 months old, charged with youngster’s alleged over dose in Landis N.C.

According to Capt. Hosey of the Landis Police Department on the department’s Facebook page: “Around 10:30 this morning, a 911 call was made from 416 S. Beaver St, Landis, regarding a 20-month-old child having difficulty breathing. The call was made by a family friend, who came to the home out of concern when she was unable to reach the resident, Shannon Clement, 26, by telephone.

When Clement failed to answer the door, the friend went inside the home and found Clement asleep in bed, with the child. The caller told investigators that when she pulled the covers back on the bed, several pills fell onto the floor.

During the frantic 911 call, the caller describes the child as having difficulty breathing, unconscious, limp, with purple lips and “white stuff all over her face.” The unconscious child can be heard gasping for breath during the call.

The Landis Fire Department, Rowan County EMS, and the Landis Police Department responded.

The child was transported by EMS to a local hospital & is currently being treated for an overdose. Thankfully, the child is expected to make a full recovery.

Landis Police investigators searched the home, and found an assortment of drugs & drug paraphernalia inside. Investigators charged Clement with one count of Felony Child Abuse by Neglect, one count of Felony Maintaining a Dwelling for Controlled Substances, two counts of Possession of a Schedule II Controlled Substance, one count of Possession of a Schedule IV Controlled Substance, and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia.

Clement was booked into the Rowan County jail under a $90,000 secured bond.  -Capt. Hosey”

RFP Staff

♦ Dateline – Salisbury, NC. It always amuses us to hear that “no one reads” Rowan Free Press while stories persist that Salisbury City Hall H-R spends countless hours each day snooping on city employee’s Facebook pages. In HR’s view reading or posting on RFP is a fire-able offense. We have the ability to see the “hits” and “views” the RFP gets and while we won’t provide lists of our viewers for their own safety from vendettas from one of the more corrupt governmental entities in North Carolina or East of Bell California. We can say that RFP rise in readership is immense especially over the last 14 months.

Witness the most recent proof: the only media carrying information from ex-Chief Collin’s deposition in Lane vs. City of Salisbury which has created excessive anxiety and the gnashing of teeth down at Salisbury’s alleged City Hall. Not one word has been printed about this scandalous information in the local “fish-wrapper” which has become little more than the unofficial propaganda arm for city council incumbents and city staff who suck off the teat of a dying and decaying city. Pity.

Delivered again by late night courier a copy of a motion to seal Collin’s deposition. This is done to hide the entirety of this deposition for “good cause shown” because said information may be used to “embarrass and harass” defendant Collins. This was filed by Patrick Flanagan, League of Municipalities lawyer for the “City of Transparency and Light.”

City Halls Motion to Seal:

https://app.box.com/s/tgshgh2r4e37kzmszgwkvn8fohlzffcv

City Hall is flipping out over revelations that Chief Collins spent the last ten years of his career under the influence of a twice daily doses of oxycotin, AKA “hillybilly heroin”. This is the same ex-police chief City Manager Lane Bailey decided to pay six months salary to as an “advisor” for apparently doing absolutely nothing. We think the Hillbilly Heroin Chief needs to be fired immediately.

Once again, Salisbury’s alleged city hall, very likely without the knowledge of Kenny Hardin and David Post, has decided to suppress the truth, distort the facts, and hide their mistakes behind the sheerest of veils. The public has a right to know under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution and do not be surprised if Rowan Free Press appears in Court to protect your rights in this case. In order to protect those rights, RFP has decided to give out the entire deposition in PDF form in the very near future. It will also be posted on a mirror website in the Netherlands. As its printed on a wall somewhere in Salisbury: “The truth will set you free”–but only if it actually gets printed.

CarolinaJournal.com/Barry Smith

♦ N.C. Supreme Court Ends Congressional Redistricting Lawsuit: