RFP Staff
♦ In a city infamous for covering up the “mutual termination” and “golden parachute” of its former City Manager and former city information Director’s “resignation” and “golden parachute”, we noticed the city is proclaiming their 3,000th Fibrant sign-up and the fabrication that Fibrant has yet again “turned the corner” and shown a profit. The city has incredibly made this claim for almost a year despite Fibrant’s having Everest-high debt that steamrolled the city’s ability to function. Fibrant impacted important city services. The Salisbury Fire Department and the Salisbury Police Department are woefully understaffed and city properties are once again growing into a weed-choked Amazonia. We’re not even mentioning the recent surge in Salisbury taxes, solid waste fees, and hikes in Rowan-Salisbury water and sewer utility bills…that also socks it to the county.
City hall’s lack of any veracity about the Fibrant debacle is nothing new. From the outset of Fibrant’s “soft rollout” they padded their stats with city of Salisbury employees, gratis friends of the city, subscribers who already abandoned ship, and creative accounting. They couldn’t fool Moody’s who downgraded the city’s bond rating and they couldn’t pull a fast one on the Carolina Journal.
Get it straight–Fibrant is a mammoth fiasco.
The city’s claim for it’s 3,000th Fibrant subscriber is still woefully short of its 2011 projection of 4,500 subscribers needed to break even in 2014. That projection failed to take into account the 7.6 million dollars gobbled from the city’s reserve funds and the millions in losses Fibrant steadily sustained.
Keep in mind Fibrant claims only 3 employees (Other Fibrant employees and their salaries are hidden in other city departments)
Salisbury’s city council and interim city manager are closing in on a record for the fastest growing noses in any North Carolina government.
Fact: Fibrant is flat-lined and has been since June 2011 when it burned the last of its certificate of participation’s $33 million dollars in record time on recycled equipment and other bad purchases. Fibrant, since then, is laying face down in Potter’s field waiting for burial. Fibrant owes many millions and faces paying off about $3 million dollars every year in debt and interest from now until 2029. Not a pretty picture with incumbents Time Warner Cable, AT&T U-Verse, Direct-TV, and DISH-TV dominating the Salisbury market with competitive prices and services.
Fibrant failed to bring business here and it has not rocketed Salisbury into the future. If anything it has contributed in a major way to slamming on the brakes on Salisbury’s future.
The recent talk of Fibrant adding a gig service is not likely to bring technological entrapaneurs flocking here due to the cities bad livability statistics: Bad FBI Crime Statistics, soaring 28% poverty, and poor public education according to the State Education READY Report composite scores.
Just this April, Moody’s downgraded Salisbury’s bond rating because of debt and risk associated with Fibrant. Moody’s said Fibrant was not living up to expectations to be self-supporting and will have a hard time meeting subscriber and revenue projections. We agree. Apparently City Councilman Brian Miller, long known for trumpeting Fibrant’s illusory success, is once again poo-pooing Fibrant’s reality. He asserts the city’s financial picture improved over the audit period that Moody’s examined and that Fibrant is now a self-supporting enterprise fund.
Not even remotely true.
(Featured photo: Fibrant employees fixing traffic lights)
