A. P. Davis, Huntersville, N.C.
The Rowan Free Press should be lauded for airing the truth about what is going on in Rowan County and Salisbury, N.C.
Although my wife and I left Salisbury back in 2007, we return to visit friends and relatives still remaining. Salisbury stays a “land that time forgot” still controlled by a powerful few banking and real estate families, downtown special interests, and a city manager who does their bidding. It is still business as usual here just as its been done for years. The result is that Salisbury is a less than marginal city that still finds ways to chase business away and stimulate “soaring poverty” as the national media calls it. Year after year for over a decade many of us became Salisbury expatriates moving away to saner and safer places with a future.
If you buck the status quo in Salisbury you will be subjected to ostracism and vendetta. Businesses not paying homage to the powers that be and the city manager’s office face arbitrary code and inspection reviews, medians suddenly sprouting at accesses to their businesses and driving away customers, an interruption of city services, inopportune street closures, and other games used to dominate squeaky wheels into submission.
Your article on: “Searchlight on Kickbacks and Bribery in Local Government” is a roadmap for spotting white collar crime and turning it in.
Your current series: “The Rowan Free Press Plan to Lift Salisbury, NC Out of Poverty” is insightful, doable, and informative, but I doubt Salisbury’s dwindling power structure would employ much of its wisdom due to their short-sightedness and need for a tight grip. Salisbury is a house of cards well-suited for roosting chickens.
There are greener pastures where the city blueprints work and prosper. Unless you are willing to stand up and come out in the open about what is going on in Salisbury, you might want to explore the possibilities of Huntersville, Cary, Apex, Davidson, Matthews, Wake Forest, and Chapel Hill.
