You can help keep Salisbury safe

The police can’t do it all. Making our city safe is everyone’s job.

It’s your responsibility to read and learn the city ordinances found at www.salisburync.gov/Codesandordinances. Attend the monthly Salisbury Neighborhood Action Group (SNAG) meeting at the police department.

Call 704-638-5333 when you hear shots fired.

Call when you see anything you believe is suspicious activity.

Start or go to your neighborhood watch meeting.

Sign up for and attend the Sheriff’s Citizen Training Academy.

Get on Nextdoor and learn how to use it, or call your community resource officer Reuben Ijames to show you how to use it.

Report code violations at www.311GIS.com. Examples:

• Burned out street lights

• Overgrown grass that attracts varmints

• Abandoned houses that attract vagrants

• Abandoned vehicles that are unsightly and dangerous for children

• Damaged sidewalks

• Anyone creating a nuisance situation – read Chapter 14

• Standing water, garbage, rotten matter, automobile tires and tubes, old clothes

• Metal, glass, jagged edges that can cut a child

• Fire hazards

• Improper drainage obstructs the natural flow of branches, streams, creeks, ditches or drains

• Report vandalism, malicious mischief – read Chapter 15

It’s your responsibility to attend the Housing Advocacy Commission meeting on the first Thursday of the month at City Council chambers.

It’s your responsibility to elect city leaders that are tough on crime and see that things get done about it and the ordinances are enforced.

It’s your responsibility to elect judges that are tough on crime and making jails difficult instead of a vacation for perps.

You have only two choices in the matter of all these things; you cannot be neutral. You cannot sit and say someone else will call, someone else will do it. Someone else will vote.

You are either part of the solution or you are part of the problem.

— Steve Arey

Salisbury

Headline told truth

The writer is responding to an Aug. 31 letter, ‘Shooting wasn’t racial,’ that took issue with a Post headline:

In reply to Mr. Duke C. Brown Sr.

Mr. Brown, the only one making the story racial would be you sir.

The paper stated a fact. White officer shot a black man. That is a true statement. How you or anyone cares to spin that into a racial statement, is no fault of the paper.

You are the only using those words! The paper reported a story no different than any other paper in the USA has done. You could also relate your concerns to every other paper the same way with what you are saying here. Nowhere did it say anyone was freed because they were white! That is YOUR statement, not written in the paper. I am glad that you feel everything went as it should. But making a statement to the paper as you did, well, it was in poor judgment and reasoning on your part.

It could have read “No retrial for officer who shot a man.” Is that how you would have said it? The way the paper stated it, everyone knew what it was about and could keep up with the story. That is just how reporting the news works for every paper printed everywhere, Mr. Brown.

— Art Liles

China Grove