Steve Mensing, Editor
♦If you thought Salisbury’s traffic lights were slow or non functioning, wait until you put in a call to Valdosta, Georgia or somewhere off in the hinterlands of Northern Florida as you attempt to track down Fibrant’s at-a-distance general manager Mike Jury. If it crossed your mind that hard traveling Mr. Everywhere’s platter was already overflowing, take a very deep breath and count to 10,000 (About the length of time it takes some lights on Innes Street to change). The tireless Mr. Jury already charged with Fibrant’s cost cutting strategies, keeping Fibrant’s outage-prone equipment alive, and now the implementer of Fibrant’s ”conservative subscribership strategy” (Settling for even less subscribers) has now taken over the city’s traffic signals. We’re not making a crank long-distance call here. Our hard traveling Mr. Jury has increased his workload by taking over the city’s technology services and all the operations out at the city’s Customer Service Center. Some staff were shifted from Fibrant over to the city’s utilities as more city employees were chopped due to the ever expanding mushroom cloud of the Fibrant debacle. Hey on a more positive note those city employees who “qualify” will get a raise.
The city’s “magic budget” is shaped by Fibrant’s devastation to the city’s financial core. Fibrant’s meltdown was well hidden from public view since June 2011 when Fibrant completely polished off every last cent of its certificate of participation millions and started swilling millions from the city’s reserve funds and from neighboring county towns’ SKU funds. To date Fibrant has not paid a penny back. Of course Fibrant will not need to borrow millions from our city’s reserve funds this year. Why bother when the city can terminate a lot of long-term key city employees for big money savings. Great backdoor move to cut the budget to avoid raising taxes, fees, and utilities in a city council election year. Okay you might wait until hell freezes over for an ill-timed traffic light and your trash pickup team is woefully undermanned, but what the heck you want to keep Mayor Woodson and the rest of the esteemed city council in office. Don’t want to miss all the pageantry of those non-stop award ceremonies and championship teams. The positive smoke screening never ends in the city of smoke and mirrors and wrongful terminations.
Just remember when your Fibrant services and your city traffic lights crash again you can reach Mike Jury anywhere in the lower Southern United States with a hit of the speed dial. Mr. Jury is in the running for “2013 RFP Man of the Year”. He is truly “Mr. Everywhere” as well as at-a-distance Fibrant general manager. Salisbury’s traffic light kingpin. CEO of Altitude Communications in Valdosta, Georgia. Co-honcho at M & J Consultants in Matthews, N.C. Did I miss the one in Northern Florida? And some of our RFP staff members have placed the ever willing Mr. Jury on the short list to replace Mr. Paris as city manager when the ink dries on the city’s magic budget. Seriously how much longer will our noble city council be able to carry its city manager and his glow-in-the-dark baggage? The skeletons are rattling and groaning in the closet.
For more about Mike “Mr. Everywhere” Jury:
