Sharon Mendoza, Landis, N.C.
♦ I’ve experienced cities with similar problems to Salisbury who overcame them. They had job losses, poverty, and major property decay with vacant business locations downtown giving off a ghost town atmosphere. City leaders fought amongst themselves trying to come up with ideas to save their communities. The fighting got so bad it drove wedges throughout those cities.
One city Huntington Beach was a small city between Los Angeles and San Diego. It was a “bedroom” community with oil derricks as the only “industrial” business. The derricks were obscenely ugly and yet Huntington Beach had a beautiful view overlooking the Pacific Ocean on Highway 1. Old decrepit motels littered Pacific Coast Highway along its city limits. Aged convenience stores and surf shops added to the additional bleak appearance. Struggling businesses would open and close soon due to a lack of customers. Huntington Beach lost its identity. Sound familiar?
Visitors no longer included Huntington Beach as a “destination” and preferred Newport Beach with its visitors drawn by the ocean. On the verge of bankruptcy and desperately seeking a “new” identity Huntington, Beach turned to it asset: The Pacific Ocean. They gave the city a new “tagline”:”Surf City”. You might recall the Jan and Dean song: “Surf City USA”. Today almost 20 years later Huntington, Beach is booming and wealthy. Streets are filled with people eating and drinking in outdoor restaurants. Sunshine and Pacific salt air. Now they have thousands of tourists spending money galore! Oh, most of the derricks are gone or have been “artistically” camouflaged.
In some ways Salisbury is a sister of Huntington Beach. Salisbury as everyone notices lost its identity. It happened when the textile mills closed and thousands of jobs were lost. It wasn’t the West End Plaza or any other business that caused this to happen. The changes in Salisbury were created by economic changing economic forces. Salisbury needs to “reinvent” itself. What are its assets? There are beautiful old buildings, visual arts, and fun community theater. Perhaps Salisbury could partly become a destination based on growing its arts community and developing more restaurant life?
But alas large difficulties may inhibit tourism and people attracted to the arts: crime, a lack of parking. and forlorn tumbled down areas. Beefing up the police force requires funds when the coffers here are noticeably bare. So what can Salisbury possibly do? Find money elsewhere and not overburden its citizens, many of them poor, with more taxes. More taxes on an already overburdened populace is like splashing gasoline on a fire. The city must identify its numerous money pits and decide to face reality with a well organized plan.
Money can be saved in many areas. First, apply sound financial stewardship with the community needs coming first. Does a building’s cost give it life? Or does its purpose give it life? A home is made by one’s character and love. Sacrifice by leaders trickles down, draws the community together. The Board of Education School members really need to look within themselves and ask: Am I doing this for my community or am I doing this for me? And let’s face it if they’re doing it for themselves, they ought to find something else to do. Spending even one dollar to build a building for show is too much. A board member took on the responsibility going beyond personal. Our legacy ought to be our responsible and rational decisions not brass plaques on an expensive “legacy” building with a silly tea pot lid atop it. While I might want an expensive designer dress I must look at my budget. If I can’t afford it, I must decide to be satisfied with something else.
While the location for the school’s Central Office has nothing to do with improving a quality education it has everything to do with being the most cost effective for the taxpayers. Cost savings would give the schools the funds needed for improvements to ensure the safety of our school children. If that means renovating the West End Plaza’s former Belk’s location to save money then that’s where it should go. Saving money, not increasing taxes and finding ways to improve our student academics, is far more important.
On to the issue of poverty, it’s a trait of what sometimes happens during times of economic change. Lost jobs, lost city tax revenue and feelings of hopelessness emerge. Many bad decisions were made by Salisbury’s city leaders during these desperate times. The statistics provided by the US Census Bureau doesn’t reveal some important facts. There are several issues causing poverty that few consider. First being that most single parent homes are with a woman as head of the household. Absentee fathers are a major factor affecting our community. Second, consider the costs in raising a family with just two children. Apartment or home rent (without Section 8) in a below average 2 bedroom is around $500; utility cost $100; food $250 (without consideration of government assistance or quality of food); clothing $100; school fees & supplies $25; car insurance, gasoline and minimal maintenance $150; medical care and dental care $25 using Medicaid. Conservatively it costs about $1200 (after tax dollars) for this family. That means before tax income you would need to make about $1500 per month. Now add in cost of child care for any child under 11-12 years of age. About $200 each (if she’s lucky) and remember that’s after tax dollars.
Without a quality education and community support these moms are much better off on welfare wouldn’t you say? At least they can be home with their children. But now the mom has to deal with society’s view of her. After a while she develops an attitude which the children quickly pick up on and begin to mimic. This attitude is firmly cemented into their character and is transferred to many things they do. School, community and life in general. Huntington Beach California addressed these very issues head on when they embraced the “Project Self-Sufficiency” program. To learn more about this program Google it. Bottom line it will take more than a beautiful Central Office building to fix poverty. The savings will give us a start for needed educational programs. Opportunities await us.
