Enforce vagrant ordinances

Stop panhandlers in Salisbury. A city ordinance forbids panhandling but the Salisbury police department does not enforce removing the vagrants (which identify as homeless) from corners unless citizens call and report them.

Why? SPD rides right by them every day with stolen shopping carts and does nothing. Do we want Salisbury to become San Francisco or Los Angeles? No. Every time you see a vagrant panhandling you need to stop, call 911 and report the panhandler to an officer. Location and description of vagrant will be needed. Just pull over, describe the vagrant, make the call. Demand the SPD send an officer to remove the person.

Also, report tent cities where vagrants dwell. A vagrant is a person without a settled home or regular work who wanders from place to place and lives by begging. Many have been found to have nice homes, cars and money already. Most of the ones I see are vagrants mooching by choice.

Seen any in Salisbury? Call. Let’s get our PD to clean up our city without us having to monitor the streets for them.

— Mike Karriker,
Salisbury

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Every child in our schools deserves respect and dignity, regardless of their sexual identity. Right now the rights of LGBTQ students are under attack in North Carolina. Soon the General Assembly will be voting to override Gov. Cooper’s vetoes of three anti-trans bills: HB 574 (“Fairness in Women’s Sports” which would bar transgender kids from sports), SB 49 (“Parents’ Bill of Rights” which would limit what educators can talk about with their students), and HB 808 (banning Gender Affirming Care for minors).
Gender-affirming care is life-saving and a decision that is best left to families and medical professionals, not politicians. All major medical associations support this care and oppose laws banning it, including the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
I fear that the G.A. leaders are more concerned about winning political points (and positions) than about the lives and dignity of the children they are using as political pawns. Trans and other LGBTQ children are already under constant attack and discrimination. They deserve better.
A critical vote will be that of Rep. Tricia Cotham from Mecklenburg, who pledged to support LGBTQ rights and “stand strong against discriminatory legislation and work to pass more protections at the state level” when she ran for the office. Yet since switching to the Republican Party she has voted for these bills that will limit LGBTQ rights. Rep. Cotham, will you keep your original promise to our LGBTQ youth?

— Eileen Hanson-Kelly,
Salisbury