Steve Mensing, Editor
♦ The Chamber announced its next community meeting will be held on Monday August 11th at the Miller Recreation Center, 1402 West Bank Street in Salisbury’s West End. This community meeting will take place from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. It will focus on discussions of July 23rd’s survey outcome where over 200 standing room only participants, representing not only the West End, but communities from around the city who gathered to find answers to gang violence and crime in Salisbury, N.C.
The upcoming community meeting will be sponsored by the Chamber, the West End Community Organization, and the West End Pride. Data will be reviewed from the survey responses from the last Chamber community meeting. Of the approximately 200 attendees that evening some 76 persons participated in the multi-question survey.
Chamber organizers Kenny Hardin, Rev. Anthony Smith, and Chris Sifford and others plan to review data gathered from the community’s surveys and from that information create resolutions/interventions from the participants top three concerns as well as 1-2 resolutions/interventions for other concerns outside of the survey’s top three. The organizers hope people will share the interventions and answers with their community groups, churches, and organizations for implementation. Later they will schedule a time to meet with city and county leaders to discuss how they can better work together on community issues.
The Chamber’s organizers decided to embark on this series of community-based meetings when they recognized a major disconnect with the Salisbury Police and its ongoing lack of substantive response. Examples: a part-time police substation open twice weekly for only 2 hours each time and the department’s failure to hear the West End community during an earlier police forum there.
An RFP article about the last Chamber Community Meeting on July 23rd in the West End:
A video of Chamber’s Community Meeting last Wednesday July 23rd at the Miller Recreation Center in the West End:
A very informative video about the Chamber’s overall intentions with Kenny Hardin and Rev. Anthony Smith:
