Emily J. Perry, Salisbury, N.C.
♦ An incident that occurred several weeks ago regarding an employee of the Salvation Army has sparked both my interest and my concern in the City Parks & Recreation department’s recent management and transparency. What began as a small complaint regarding how rude, unprofessional, and discourteous a Salvation Army employee was towards my four year old niece at the Miller Center made me wonder why their employee was working at the Miller Center in the first place.
After a brief personal investigation I discovered a few facts:
- The Salvation Army was the sole provider of summer enrichment programs at Miller’s Recreation Center (formerly handled by Parks and Recreation). The city of Salisbury did not provide others the opportunity to bid on the contract. There was no announcement to the residents of the city that these services where needed (that I am aware of).
- The Salvation Army is already slated to run an afterschool program in lieu of the City in the fall. Again, I have not seen an announcement to the citizens of this town that these services are needed and that organizations could bid on the contract.
- The Miller Recreation Center’s staff was housed during the day uptown on the fourth floor of a building rather than working at the center.
- Hall’s gym has limited community access hours.
- The city spent money to install a state-of-the-art workout room at the Civic Center only to be closed a few years later.
- The City Park has a great dance program and Miller Recreation Center has the Salvation Army; however, each are paid programs. In order to gain access to these facilities, residents have to either phone for an appointment to enroll their children into programs, go online (which most of us were unaware), go downtown to staff offices, or continue to go by the center until someone appears.
- The city has had six coordinators in the last five years. Several firings and numerous complaints regarding harassment, mistreatment, suspensions, and resignations have all contributed to this extremely high turn-over. Even more questionable is: has the Assistant City Manager/Human Resource Director addressed these complaints? (We won’t even mention the lingering questions regarding former City Manager Doug Paris.)
Meanwhile, crime in Salisbury has spiked at a rate so alarming that Salisbury Police recently opened a substation in the West End Community while citizens are organizing community meetings to brainstorm ideas to curb this recent trend. At the heart of the recent crime seems to be youth with nowhere to go and nothing to do. As a citizen I have lots of unanswered questions but I am confident that the answers do not lie in reduced access to community programs and facilities. We need affordable, accessible, and realistic programs for youth during the summer and afterschool. How can a program operate from the fourth floor of a building on Main Street? Basic community engagement says that you go where the people reside, not ask the people to come to you.
As a taxpayer I question why the City needs to approach outside agencies to provide services, and why agencies other than the Salvation Army were not given the opportunity to bid on providing these.
