Kenny Lane, Rowan County, N.C.
♦ Yesterday I saw Salisbury’s City Council meeting on city hall’s website and caught where the Interim City Manager John Sofley told City Council the city was writing up fewer code enforcement citations owing to staff cuts. That comes as no surprise because the city hall has been chopping more city workers to keep America’s Gig City on life supports. The Fibrant debacle is far reaching. The city can no longer afford to pay its police officers a livable wage in a city “zoned dangerous” and somewhere in the vicinity of two dozen of their experienced officers are putting in for far better pay at other law enforcement agencies. To me maintaining some semblance of a police force in a city gripped by violence is a much higher priority than arming code enforcement officers even though in recent years that job has become dangerous.
Today I read the Rowan Free Press article: Golden Moments at Tuesday’s Salisbury City Council Meeting: “A Petition to Arm Code Enforcement Officers” which raises questions. Do we next arm sanitation workers? They often catch the wrath of citizen’s who unfortunately blame the lone worker on the truck for the short staffing which leads to large item and leaf pickup being delayed. Do we arm the secretaries and clerks who frequently deal with individuals outraged about problems with billing/service etc. and show up at the office to complain?
When the city had their own animal control officer, a position which can surely encounter emotionally charged folks, no step was made to arm them for their safety. In my experience people’s children and pets will certainly draw far more emotional response than an order to cut their grass. If it was safe for animal control to go out unarmed then why the extreme danger to code enforcement today? Has such lawlessness only arisen in the few years since the county took over animal control responsibility? If so, why aren’t we addressing the conditions that led to this rise in criminal behavior instead of the symptoms?
Perhaps council’s time could be better spent concentrating on the city’s economic decline and what steps should be taken to attempt countering this. I’m sure council debates about arming its code enforcement officers is a major draw for business. Would you want to start a business in a town where the council openly ponders the safety of sending out an unarmed nuisance abatement officer? Or would you look elsewhere, perhaps Concord or Mooresville? With the overwhelming number of existing problems clamoring for attention, perhaps resources would best be allocated towards root solutions, rather than generating another cause to drive off economic development?
