Rabbi Will McCubbins, Salisbury, N.C.
♦ Salisbury, N.C. has truly fallen long and hard since mid-2000. In the last few days the Bury’s deaths rattle became louder and more pronounced. Robert Van Geons, the City and the County’s economic development guy jumped ship and is going to take that job in Fayetteville, N.C. a military base town whose economic future pivots on strip joints and brothels. That might be a better future than the Bury’s with 16 unsolved murders, poverty devouring 27.2% of its population (and expected to climb to 32% or more as more residents unload their houses and take off to a better future), subpar city public schools, unparalleled gun violence and robbery, a lack of cops because they want out of the Dodge City and Fibrant bludgeoned the city’s finances for years to come, Mayor Karen Alexander (Please make her scripts in larger bold print with emoticons to mark proper shows of emotion), 2,000 vacant houses, a Downtown filled with empty storefronts and the South Main Badlands.
Valeria Levy, Salisbury’s leading Democrat, is moving to Toronto for a better future in a real city. Valeria said it all at the last city council when she said her son feared traveling into Salisbury. A lot of people in Rowan County fear going to Salisbury knowing they could get “slid” or robbed by the Bury’s army of miscreants.
People need to be on high alert almost every day of the week in Salisbury. Look at all the shootings, killings, armed robberies, and street beatings that go on down there. That the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office has to fill in for 15 missing Salisbury Police speaks volumes.
Not until the Local Government Commission takes over the management of Salisbury will the city have a glimmer of hope about making a comeback.
