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The City of Salisbury, Maryland is a quiet, enjoyable little town on Maryland's Lower Eastern Shore. I had the privilege of living there for four years -- from January 1985 until September of 1989, when I left for college.
Although I didn't realize it at the time, it was a great place to live and grow-up. I went to one of the best high schools in the country (Parkside High School -- Class of '89 -- Go RAMS! "White Wall Stand Tall, No Ticks Tonight!") and had some of the finest teachers you could ever hope for in any school, much less a public school.
But times have certainly changed. The City of Salisbury is slowly descending into an abyss. The simple fact is that the city suffers from a fundamental lack of real leadership, and instead is controlled by a motley crew of self-indulgent, under-achieving, and grossly incompetent pseudo-politicians.
The city's elected leadership -- Mayor Barrie Tilghman, Council President Louise Smith, Councilman Gary Comegys, and Councilwomen Shanie Shields, Terry Cohen, and Debbie Cohen -- have proved unable or unwilling to effectively and lawfully execute their responsibilities. Mayor Tilghman has hired fundamentally incompetent subordinates -- Pam Oland, John Pick, and Police Chief Alan Webster come to mind -- who are unable to meet their statutory obligations on budget controls, state audit reports, fee and tax collections, and law enforcement.
The city is an abysmal mess of declining tax base, rising demands for services, and an incapability to find or execute solutions. Frankly, Mayor Tilghman seems more interested in burnishing her credentials with state political leaders than providing her constituents with effective and capable leadership.
For the second consecutive year, the Tilghman administration has perpetrated a direct fraud upon the citizenry of the City of Salisbury through a Willful Indifference to the Law on state-required audits. In so far as the State of Maryland is a major source of funding of the City's budget, the Tilghman administration has perpetrated that fraud on the entire state.
As a result of the administration's completely incompetent -- if not downright corrupt -- inability to adequately reconcile city accounts, the City Council of Salisbury has been induced to commit fraud by passing tax and water/sewer rate increases -- despite the presence of numerous surpluses in several accounts.
For over two years, the city leadership of Mayor Tilghman and Chief Alan Webster denied the existence of gang activity in the City of Salisbury, to the detriment of the safety and protection of the citizens and property of the City of Salisbury. The continued this denial in the face of incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. Only recently have they come to the conclusion that there is indeed a SERIOUS gang issue. (Note: There was a serious gang issue in Salisbury in the late 1980s. But since it was largely confined to the Westside, no one really cared.)
The City of Salisbury is broken. It cannot be saved. What cannot be saved should be destroyed.
The City of Salisbury should be dissolved, its charter surrendered to the State Government, and the local government agencies -- where appropriate -- absorbed by Wicomico County. To do this will require a mayoral candidate and a council slate to run on a simple platform: elect us to eliminate our jobs. All it takes to revoke a charter governmetn is a majority vote of the City Council. It is really that easy.
The next election for the City of Salisbury will be the spring of 2009. What men and women in the city will have the courage and foresight to lead Salisbury out of the abyss by eliminating the single greatest impediment to its growth? The government of Salisbury no longer leads the people. It inhibits them. It is a brake on the freedom of the citizens of Salisbury -- black or white, Christian or Jew, Hispanic or Caucasian, man or women, adult or child -- and a weight on their future and success.
The City of Salisbury is broken. It cannot be saved. What cannot be saved should be destroyed.