Steve Mensing, Editor
♦ This morning I read in the Salisbury-Centric city newsletter about how the results of the survey “prove” that the Downtown Salisbury ONLY envisioning forum was NOT Salisbury-Centric. I guess they believe most of the few remaining folks dining on that newspapers puff pieces will buy this latest hokum. Okay–lets quickly end the nonsense put out by Downtown Salisbury ONLY. Let’s lift the hood:
• Look at who showed up at the Downtown Salisbury ONLY “Visioning Forum”. It was almost completely Downtown Salisbury ONLY folks. Just eye-ball around the Trolley Barn. The people were from the city council, the chamber of commerce, EDC, Downtown Salisbury Inc., Jon Barber, downtown merchants, historic preservation, country clubbers, Salisbury Post, and a few progressive municpal friends of the city dwelling in the county. This group is the cream of Salisbury-Centric life. If you take your survey from an almost 99.9% purebred Salisbury-Centric group what do you get? A completely lop-sided survey result.
• The city newsletter interviewed people who to the last dying breath are downtown Salisbury ONLY supporters. You hear them talk about what a glorious Forum it was and that the survey was a product of county too. No Downtown Salisbury ONLY here–the county had a voice. Sure they did. The county and the outer hub of Salisbury had no voice in this at all.
The forum of reminded me of a bad infomercial where they interview all the “plants” in the on-cue cheering and clapping audience. On occasion they cut to someone solemnly nodding in agreement. Ah the JuiceMaster.
• What is so ludicrous about these particularly uncreative productions by Downtown Salisbury ONLY is their chronic hard sell of their agenda which winds up hanging the county taxpayers out to dry to pay for something lining the pockets of Downtown Salisbury ONLY’s “friends”. Who can forget Downtown Salisbury’s ONLY’s production down at city council last year when Mark Lewis led a whacky ceremony of building up a pile of bricks. You know the 329 S. Main hard sell. All the people there were school system employees, downtown merchants–the same Salisbury-centric crew trying to create the aura of overwhelming and unified support for the downtown Salisbury ONLY latest “push”.
http://m.salisburypost.com/article/20140314/SP01/140319825?template=mobile_story
The survey results demonstrate a clear Salisbury-Centric bias. These are the core talking points of Downtown Salisbury ONLY:
http://m.salisburypost.com/article/20140314/SP01/140319824?template=mobile_story
