Steve Mensing, Editor
♦ It appears Salisbury’s city council has adopted a system of patterned responses incurring a great deal of frustration and anger in those traditionally disenfranchised communities residing outside “8 Block”. Any student of the city quickly notices that City Council, the city manager, and their allies have their own agenda separate and apart from the traditionally disenfranchised neighborhoods who now encompass the numerical majority of the city.
The Salisbury City Hall Pattern:
City Council has their own agenda. They often carry it out through creating an illusion of public support. They accomplish this illusion by getting their allies together armed with their talking points and finding ways to not include the opposition. In reading Freedom of Information Act inquiries we’ve seen evidence of the games the “mutually terminated” city manager and city council played to quell opposing voices.
Our city hall has stepped away from being a representative government of the city’s communities to representing it’s cronies and wealthy banking and real estate families. City hall often uses downtown merchants by promising them buildings said to bring warm bodies into the area. The city hall agenda has brought great harm to the city. It now threatens to snuff what remains of the city’s livability.
Many astute people living in the West End and elsewhere have noted city hall’s mock surprise when they are confronted by neighborhoods questioning what the city has done. Repeatedly City Council and city staffers feign listening. But somehow the listening never turns into sustained required action.
And after the “feigned listening” comes the making of insincere promises. The street lighting that never arrives. The say in rec department programs that never materializes. The phantom police patrols and pit crews that no one in the neighborhood witnessed since the initial and brief show of force. The shootings, the drive-byes, and break-ins are still occurring.
People learn to distrust folks who feign interest and listening. The broken promises bring frustration and anger. Faking taking action and delivering only “show” wears thin.
William Peoples has seen years of it. Dee Dee Wright recognizes a ruse when she see it.
The City Hall pattern of feigning listening, making insincere promises, and faking action has lost its novelty. It only delivers frustration and ire.
