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The highlight of this week for me was the NAACP forum on Wednesday, the 23rd. Although one of our candidates has withdrawn, we've had another candidate throw his hat in the ring as a write-in, so the field still stands at thirteen.

Dr. Bryant Norman, president of our local chapter, served as moderator. Here are a sampling of his questions and my own personal answers to them.

1. Do you support Salisbury's Vision 2020? I do support V2020 and refer to it often in my work on Planning Board. Every decision we make on Planning Board must comply with this vision statement. And, I love the part that says, "We see a city where the trees arch over the streets..." it's so evocative of our town, and a great goal to have.
2. How would you advise police to approach a group of young black men? I know that our mayor has a zero-tolerance policy for any city employees to employ racism, and I strongly affirm her stand. That said, I would want our police to observe three criteria when they approach anyone: maintain public safety, show respect, protect their own safety.
3. What distinguishes you as a candidate? I have worked for my own neighborhood, and want to advocate for all the neighborhoods in Salisbury. In my own neighborhood, I was concerned about houses being bought up by absentee landlords, and preferred that new families buy the houses. I envisioned a neighborhood park to attract new families. I developed a public-private partnership with Salisbury and my neighborhood raised over $40,000 to build it. As a new candidate, I am at somewhat of a disadvantage to the sitting council; they have greater knowledge and experience than we do. I am a hard worker and have studied hard to catch up the best I can.
4. (To the sitting council members) What are your plans to reverse the trend of our training new police officers and losing them to nearby larger cities like Concord? (After the 4 encumbents answered, I asked if I might answer, as well.) A rookie policeman in Salisbury starts at just over $29,000. A rookie cop in Concord starts at $33,395, salary band 9. The national attrition rate for police is 9%; the NC attrition rate is 7%. Salisbury's attrition rate is stated at 7.5%. If this is accurate, we are not really out of the ballpark. My idea is to increase the beginning pay rate for police to be competitive with Concord and other cities, in order to retain our police. Once we have some retention, we can stop training so many. This savings in training the "revolving door" will contribute to the increase in pay, as well as allow us to increase our senior police.

The following day, I was honored to be inducted into the local Civitans club, the second largest Civitans chapter in the US.

I also reserved my ad space for the upcoming issue of Senor Savvy magazine. Check out the fall issue for a Maggie ad!

Thursday night, I met some great folks from the Milford Hills neighborhood. A neighbor bequeathed them a little over 3 acres for a neighborhood park in his wife's memory. I was invited to meet with them to share our experiences in developing a neighborhood-scale park. I was happy to brag on our parks director and staff! Our state has only 11 accredited parks departments, and Salisbury is one of them. What does this mean? Each park in our system is inspected on a weekly basis for safety: bolts on swingsets, depth of "fall material," etc. Working with our parks staff was a delight, and I was pleased to recommend them to the Milford Hills people. At the meeting, the neighbors began the process of selecting what components they do and do not want to have in their park.

On Saturday, I met many fine folks in the Woodfields neighborhood. The rain didn't keep me from knocking on every door in that neighborhood! On Sunday, I visited most of the homes in my own neighborhood -- I can't take anyone for granted!