RFP Staff
♦Why is the City of Salisbury asking Rowan County Commissioners to “endorse” their application for a $400,000 federal EPA grant to ferret out possible contaminated sites within city limits? We’ve seen the “due diligence” exercised by Salisbury in the recent past when it comes to contaminated sites. They seem to view them as an opportunity for City ownership, to be charitably gifted to the county (329 S. Main), or to become pocket parks (1100 block of North Main) after the city begs more alms of State taxpayers to join their efforts.
Someone might see this as an effort to soak the State for more cleanup funds, to continue the property acquisition of contaminated sites. It is truly amazing. Whatever property owners on the list actually permit the analysts access to their properties to analyze for contamination should either be prepared for a costly immediate cleanup, OR just hand their deeds over to the City of Salisbury. What a clever coup to obtain property from the private landowners! But what strategic plan does the City of Salisbury have, to deal with these properties, once they remediate them at state taxpayer expense? Know too that once the city owns these properties, and cannot secure remediation funds from the “free money” at the State or Federal level, wouldn’t adjacent properties be devalued?
Someone please alert Eva GeoRene Jones about organizing a strategic plan, before the County mistakenly signs on to the City of Salisbury’s next big property grab! It is astonishing, the desperate lengths the City of Salisbury is willing to go to secure more and more privately owned property for itself. It is hypocritical that the City cried ‘foul’ over the purchase of West End Plaza. Shocking!
Rowan County Commissioners need not participate in the City’s plans to acquire more property by forfeiture. This stone is best left unturned. If Salisbury wants to strong arm property owners, they can do so with an application that stands on its own, without the county’s input—neither favorable nor unfavorable. This issue is NOT an area where the county needs to insert itself, particularly with the kind of “due diligence” we’ve seen from the City in the recent past with contaminated properties.
Whoever is responsible in the city manager’s office for this latest scheme to enlist commissioners to sign up for Contamination-Gate needs to be held accountable. Commissioners protect our property rights before anymore of the city’s parasitic binging occurs. Many wonder if the highly contaminated Salisbury Arts District is next?
Lest we forget the thread trail method for violating property rights:
