Steve Mensing, Editor
•The City of Salisbury government, desperate to cover-up their collapsing financial situation, attempted to spin an S & P bond rating as a major marker of their financial health. All it means is they are still able to manage paying off their bonds and that they recently renegotiated Fibrant’s enormous certificates of participation interest at a slightly lesser rate for a year.
The notorious city manager Doug Paris has developed an alternative reality quite unlike common mortal perception. ”The World According to Doug.” Who can forget his colorful claims over the past few years since being entrusted to guard the skeletons in city hall’s closet.
• He told a state legislator and a state senator that Fibrant would never dip into the city’s reserve funds. (When they were already doing so and then did for millions).
• His nose sprouted when he hailed Fibrant as being a great success when it was miserable failure and falling way behind in subscribership. Even city workers were dropping it after its outages.
• He boasted the city would succeed in stopping the County’s airport de-annexation bid with a magical “special criteria”. No special criteria ever emerged. State legislators and senators, from both sides of the aisle, fell into slobbering paroxysms of laughter upon hearing of the special criteria and the two-part litmus test.
• He blew more strange smoke during the city’s ill-fated attempt to foist its LGC school Central Office application on the Local Government Commission. He assured the true believers in Salisbury that the LGC application was sure to be approved. Then promptly yanked it out of harm’s way when he felt the LGC’s first hot breath. (Basically do the application over Skippy) The LGC application failed all the major requirements.
• Dougie Poo warned everyone that evil forces were set to sue the city if it went through with the LGC application. Uh oh.
• He claimed the county manager and the county commissioners were conspiring against the downtown Central Office and making calls to the LGC when in fact the LGC called the county manager.
• The other day the city of Salisbury desired to purchase more Fibrant equipment from Zhone, after Doug and his at-a-distance Fibrant manager blamed them months ago for the spate of Fibrant outages. Questions percolate in even the average mind.
So do understand an inconsistency exists between the city manager’s words and what actually occurs. I apologize for the Rowan Free Press’s amusement with our zany boy wonder. Perhaps he would be better suited for a barker in at our proposed one story wax museum at 329 S. Main.
The city of Salisbury’s financial free fall can discovered in the city’s 2012 and 2013 city budgets, Fibrant’s existing debt, what they owe every year in debt and interest on their certificates of participation, and the “loaner” they took out of the city’s reserve funds. Other key markers of the city’s financial free fall:
• Numerous wrongful terminations of city’s senior employees leading to a grossly undermanned city services. Where did all the groundskeepers, police, firemen, city hall staffers, and others disappear? Yoo hoo!
• A meltdown of major city services wherein city of Salisbury’s properties have morphed into a green hell of thigh high grass and towering weeds. City trash pickups slowing to a crawl. These are symptoms of a city in financial ruin.
• The city does not respond to Freedom of Information Act inquiries. Not a good sign for any government body.
Perhaps it might be a good time for publically spirited citizens to band together to fund a court order for a complete INDEPENDENT forensic accounting of the city and its municipal entity Fibrant.
Bagdhad Bob, apparently Doug’s mentor, speaks of Iraq’s great victories.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s27Oq5ot0ZI
Meltdown of city Services:
