John Q. Public, at Large
♦ It’s been a very long year. The alliance between Jon Barber and the Salisbury establishment suffered a number of major setbacks.
• The FOIA emails revealing that the “mutually terminated” Doug Paris wrote Mr. Barber’s scripts against fellow county commissioners.
• The FOIA email where the former city manager Doug Paris wrote and directed a script for DSI’s Mark Lewis’s 329 S. Main command performance down at City Hall. “Look left, then look right…fetch a brick.”
• The ill-fated legal request by Barber’s attorney for an “outside entity” resulting in a criminal investigation into Barber’s alleged county’s color copier pilferage for a multitude of Barber’s “nonprofit business entities”.
• The revelation in FOIA emails of Phase I environmental reports outlining likely ground contamination in properties the city once considered building a Centerpiece Project ‘Needle Park’ and other failed build-it-and-they-will-come dreams. “So many tanks–so little thanks.”
• The withdrawal of the city’s ill-fated finance package for 329 S. Main, the denial of the presence of contamination, the ugly threats to sue over ‘slander of title, and the subsequent filing of a “notice of residual contamination” at 329 S. Main by the “mutually terminated” Doug Paris at the Register of Deeds.
• Moody’s downgrading of the City of Salisbury’s bonds and the resulting impossibility of getting further credit approved by the Local Government Commission unless and until the City begins to repay the $7.6 million in Water Reserve Funds it siphoned off in order to prop up the ill-fated Fibrant adventure to nowhere.
• The loss of public trust in city council due their continued cover-ups of the “mutual termination” and “golden Parachuting” of former city manager Doug Paris. The illegal continued failure of City Hall to properly respond to public information requests.
• City council whose members, particularly the Mayor and Mayor Pro-Tem, flounder in excuses as their minority constituents demand answers and hold city council accountable for their failed leadership. Know that minorities now hold the numerical upper-hand and comprise quite an overwhelming voting block with the many disenfranchised and forcibly annexed folks living outside of privileged “8 block”.
How many more leadership failures will Salisbury’s stakeholders endure between now and November 2015, when the current bunch gets showed the door? Heaven forbid state and federal law enforcement are pictured trundling computers and ledgers through city hall’s front door or Moody’s goes completely junk bond on the city.
When will the State swoop down and become the legal guardians for Salisbury’s incompetent five? For the sake of our businesses and residents, hopefully before Salisbury completes its transformation into another Stockton or Detroit.
