Todd Paris, Staff Writer and Salisbury Attorney
♦ Sunday Night Reveries
I now host the radio show “Politics This Week” after having taken over the production duties from Attorney Jeff Morris who did an outstanding job for the past few years. It airs on radio stations WRNA 1140 A.M and WRKB 1460 FM on Ford Broadcasting at 11:00 am and 4:00 pm on each Saturday. It also may be heard on the internet at the same times at the link below. It is not recorded on the site for later play. I’ve been told that the show is closely followed by a number on NC legislators and numerous government officials. Previous guests included Steve Mensing (the Editor of the Rowan Free Press and a regular in the shows formative years), Salisbury City Councilmen David Post and Kenny Hardin, former Rowan County Commission Chair Jim Sides, and city activists Whitney Peckman, Kenneth Lydell Mohammad El, and Carolyn Logan. Panelist’s opinions vary across the political spectrum in a free-wheeling discussion of local, state, and national political scene.
http://fordbroadcasting.com/site/
In the area’s shrinking print media on Sunday July 2nd a letter-to-the editor written by Salisbury City Council member David Post appeared. It was noteworthy in the letter it seems Mr. Post is waving the white flag on fixing Fibrant, at least with this council. David, being a talented CPA and attorney, has forced the Alexander council to confront the debacle and show the actual Fibrant losses in city budget. The losses now approach a negative $3 Million per year.
If you see David on the street please encourage him to run for council again. While I don’t always agree with him, we have a council member who can actually read the staff’s budget and make sure the wool is not pulled over council’s eyes about Salisbury’s financial state. He and Kenny Hardin should be re-elected and they need 3 new councilmen to replace Alexander, Blackwell, and Miller in order to begin Salisbury’s rescue mission.
From the same shrinking print media source it was revealed that Salisbury Parks and Recreation joins the Salisbury Police Department in being reduced in force to near ineffectiveness. It was revealed that some days only one employee is available to supervise all four Parks and Recreation facilities. With Parks and Recreation’s challenges, we have little doubt the same sort of cost savings through staff reductions occurred which severely damaged our Police. Our West End taxpayers requested they be allowed to be in charge of programs at Hall’s Gym and the Miller Recreational Center instead of these sites being privately contracted out.
I have an idea. West End tax-payers, with Councilman Hardin leading the charge, have urged that a Boys and Girl’s Club to be instituted in the West End. While the city is prohibited by state law from giving away or selling property worth more that $80,000.00 without a bidding process, we could rent either or both facilities to a newly formed Boy’s and Girls Club for a dollar per year and allow West End residents to recruit and/or develop the youth programs the locals find helpful.
Last time I ran for city council I made a big deal over the safety of Salisbury-Rowan Utilities water and went to a city council meeting about a year ago and mentioned it was likely Salisbury has asbestos in our drinking water due to cement asbestos water mains reaching the end of their life cycle and were breaking down. Folks there looked at me like I had grown a second head and later Salisbury-Rowan Utilities Chief Jim Behmer was summoned to tell the public that Salisbury water was safe.
Just this week I found a document on the web entitled “Annual Drinking Water Quality Report for 2016.” Like everything the city does, it appears to have won some sort of award and claims we have passed all EPA standards. However, I have listed a page from this report that seems to confirm asbestos was found in SRU water in a test on 6-4-2012. Why hasn’t this been retested since 2012? Why hasn’t the mayor and City Council told citizens what kind of water filter to buy to remove asbestos? How about Hexavalent chromium that Erin Brockovitch warned us about? We previously reported on this.
Do we really trust the old “Fibrant turned the corner and there’s no violence here” council on this issue? Stay tuned, we have lots of ugly surprises coming.
Asbestos Contaminants in the Salisbury-Rowan Utilities Water:
http://www.salisburync.gov/Departments/Salisbury-RowanUtilities/Documents/waterreport.pdf
