Steve Mensing, Editor
♦ Salisbury is getting a reputation in the county and across the state as the hokum center of the North Carolina. I doubt anywhere in the known universe makes more use of paid for meaningless awards, making wild claims of BIG interest in projects that never pan out, and calling utter “debacles” successes. If Salisbury should get a tangible award for anything it should be for extreme P.R. completely disconnected from the real.
• Meaningless Awards: (a) The former School Superintendent jets to Houston and gets a technology award from Apple for buying a cargo hold full of iPads. The iPads languish in a warehouse never to be used and then are sold at a substantial loss. Technology award wahoo! (b) The big award imprinted on the city’s annual Martin & Starnes budget. Then we find out the city paid for that. (c) Now Salisbury is a “finalist” in the “All American Cities” program. Suggest folks mosey over to this non-profit’s website and read the details of what it takes to qualify for this “award”. It isn’t health and exercise, economic vitality, or even 27.2% poverty, crummy FBI crime Stats, fielding a shell police department, having all D and F public schools, and having a fiber optic debacle whose losses soar into the millions.
• Claiming Big Interest in Projects Never Panning Out or Projects Never Showing Up in the Bury: (a) Likely the all time headliner in this department is DSI’s decrepit Bad Lands Empire Hotel where year after year we read in the city’s newsletter about the alleged feverishly interested and highly qualified developers swarming into Salisbury to score on the DREAM. Then abruptly every year the interest gets short-circuited and the nightmare blight on South Main continues. Perhaps the developers saw the dirty phase I and the prohibitive costs of abatement, gutting, and renovating to make a buck on the Bat-tel. We’ve heard about dreamy low income apartments and pricey condos coming to a Downtown area lacking in people and vehicular traffic. (Its been since 1963 when the Empire closed its flophouse its doors. That ought to scare off most folks. Except for these alleged hoards of interested developers. (b) How many times have folks in Salisbury heard the promise of retailers and restaurants who never showed up? Target? The Golden Corral? Put on your memory caps and let your thoughts skip down memory lane to the last exciting news you read about project “X” arriving in the Bury.
• Touting Debacles as Successes: (a) Okay the meltdown of city hall’s credibility jarred a lot of true believers to their senses when Salisbury’s current city manager and council finally admitted Fibrant is a debacle, has lost millions, and never came remotely close to “turning a corner”. That they continue with this 10 Gig ruse raises suspicions about some people profiting from the city’s losses. Is Fibrant continuing to operate at a great loss based on the hopes of unloading it at a loss to a private willing to gamble in a crowded field of incumbent broadband providers? Are a few people profiting on the purchase of the City’s certificates of participation due to its rising interest rates? Did the city swallow a poison pill that makes it nearly impossible to unload the “Debacle”? (b) The wild claims that Downtown Salisbury is a vibrant let alone a success when many visitors report that Downtown is lonely and without people most days save for Friday Nights Out. How many former retailers and restaurant owners left downtown with a bad taste in their mouth and the sense they were mislead?
A wise person keeps an eye on how things are now and on repeated claims set in the future by those whose previous claims proved falacious.
Be wary of those who make excessive use of the future tense and couple it with economic namedropping:
• “$300 million in investments.” (Okay specifically who, where, and how do we know the figures are correct?)
• “New retail, manufacturing, restaurants, and hotels have arrived in our city and county.” (How about subtracting the many that closed, laid off hundreds of employees, burned down and are not returning, or didn’t live up to their incentive agreements?)
• “Manufacturers have announced significant projects.” (But never completed them).
Keep in mind that brick and mortar retailers are downsizing and the internet is now America’s major shopping arena. Rapid shipping is here. Amazon is the world’s largest retailer.
The “Salisbury Giant” Recently Located on a Dig at the West End “Spite Hole” is about as Real as the Recent Claim that 90% of the First floor Business and Retail Space in Downtown Salisbury is Occupied According to the City of Salisbury’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30th, 2015.
