Steve Mensing, Editor
♦ Any excuse making for those on Salisbury city council needing to “do better” next time doesn’t fly with those efficient reality testers dwelling in this humble burg. In any city I ever experienced (Philadelphia, Denver, and Silver City) their city councils were charged with knowing what was going on in the city manager’s office and in city government’s various departments. N.C. statutes demand it here. If city council doesn’t have oversight over the city manager’s office, who does? Unattended city halls anywhere can lead to corruption going unchecked.
That Mayor Woodson and the city attorney signed the city manager’s 2012 “contract” speaks volumes about either a lack of due diligence or acquiescing to what goes on here.
City council has more responsibility than glad handing constituents, trotting out championship tennis teams, and covering-up for the Fibrant debacle and extraordinary severance packages.
To date I have not received any response to our recent Freedom of Information Act inquiries which is par for the course for a city hall with zero transparency.
A lot of folks, forming Salisbury’s closed information society, are going to be dumbstruck as they learn more about Salisbury’s financial condition, the depths of the Fibrant debacle, and in the future about higher-ups turning on each other under a hailstorm of warrants.
In many ways some of Salisbury’s public is just as culpable as their elected officials in their dereliction of knowing the truth about what is going on in their city. Many in “8 block” have been absent without leave, believing puff pieces in the city’s newsletter and trusting individuals who have a propensity for warping the truth.
If you can’t notice the extreme deficits in city services, the thermometer of downtown vacancies, the city’s 3 major stats (poverty, crime, and education) and city’s condition outside of “8 block”, your wake-up call is going to be rude and loud.
You need to pay attention because Salisbury is taking water fast.
