In today's Daily Times, an article surfaced with an interview with the new Chamber of Commerce President Bill Chambers, discussing the 'political punch' the organization will engage now that he's heading the ship. Explaining through a series of questions, he discusses the general sentiment of his membership and their feelings of under-representation in Salisbury and surrounding areas.
One thing demonstratively missing from his talk about wind energy and supporting area schools is: How is the Chamber, under his new management, planning to inspire small businesses to flourish in Salisbury again?
A City can't live with only a couple big employers... It needs to be a village of many...
Yes, he does talk about all the feel-good initiatives we're used to hearing from other local government types, but the true nexus of Salisbury's economy hinges on whether or not the area can support (and be supported by) small business. As any economist in the know will relay, the nucleus of any community is it's ability to prosper monetarily; hence, everything from that point forward all falls in line like a Domino chain.
When we take mini-roadtrips around the Bury...
Chambers, like our illustrious Mayor Jake Day, seeme to be under the impression Salisbury has an upward mobile economy and shortage of housing. Really?
First, the Help Wanted adverts in the Daily Times are practically non-existent - even in the Sunday Edition. If one goes on CareerSeekers or any other job posting websites (that tell you the number of applicants for a job) many in the area have excess of 100 applicants who've applied for positions listed.
Third, if you ride up and down City streets, there's several For Rent signs all over the place. Granted, it's summertime and schools like SU and UMES are on light course schedules; however, for a real economy to exist, there has to be a large degree of residential permanence.
Is he thinking there's some shortage of low-income Section 8 housing for those who are on unemployment and welfare? Don't worry, Day is fixing that issue by trashing up Downtown with said housing soon enough!
This isn't rocket science here...
Common sense dictates with that many rental signs, job applicants out the whazoo and business closures coming in almost monthly, Chambers' statements are unsubstantiated with tangibles! Where does he get his information from? Some fancy Powerpoint?
The problem our local leaders seem to have is optics, optics, optics! Unless you're driving around blind, you can't help but see the evidence doesn't jive with their verb.
Are we doomed to have people in our government and business leadership who keep perpetuating the same prosperity myth in spite of what we see before our very eyes? Instead of playing hard political ball with local government, wouldn't it be a better track for the Chamber to be apolitical and push for a fertile seedbed where small businesses will want to open while providing real jobs to the area?
Once again, I'm just a man asking questions...
30 comments:
Great this is just Ernie all over again. Just what we all need. I don't know about anyone else but I'm getting sick of Salisbury continuous downward spiral.
The president job at the Chamber is not elected but it seems they keep hiring the same person different name over and over again like they keep doing the same with Mayor and Council members. Why don't residents learn from their past mistakes?
The local economy is in a downward spiral NOW.. Just ask ANY small business owner, or ask any larger retail business owner (probably won't get a straight answer).
WOW, another excellent article.
Today you will see yet another post going up where the Wendy's next to Denny's is up for sale as well.
Look, it's EASY to sit around and pound your chest, I'm going to change or fix things. HOWEVER, it's another to open your big fat mouth with a concrete plan that will work. That has the full support of the City/County Council, Mayor and Executive. Unfortunately the only one with any business experience is Executive Culver.
You have a 20 year economic development director who hasn't done crap. However, it's your BS leaders who run on a platform jobs, jobs, jobs but NONE of them have actually delivered.
When you have rubber stamp council members doing whatever the Good Ol' Boys say and want, NOTHING will ever change.
When I ran for Mayor I had an economic development platform that out did ANYTHING ever proposed on the Shore. It detailed how and why. I have NEVER seen a single politician ever produce any such things. People here are desperate to hear JOBS, so they elect people who are the most charismatic and convincing. Yet they never deliver.
Salisbury is done people, done! Unless, that is, you enjoy all this smoke being blown up your you know what.
Salisbury was doomed the minute they inked that Downtown Deal. Downward bound will continue because people like Jake Day and John Cannon don't give a flip about the area. They'll cash in when the time is ripe and move to Florida. They won't have to live with the mess they've all created. They'll just ready SBYNEWs from afar and laugh their a&&es off at the big con they pulled off. Isn't that what many of our past so called leaders have done?
This is also part of the problem:
Accounting Clerk
AAPS - Salisbury, MD 21801
$9.25 - $10.00 an hour - Part-time
Accounting Clerk - Multi Client
Salisbury, MD 21801 $9.25 - $10.00 an hour to start
A well established Bookkeeping firm is looking for a part time Accounting Clerk
The list of responsibilities for this position is that of a 40+K a year full charge bookkeeper. But hey - this established business is offering you no benefits and $10. And then employers cry about not being able to keep employees, we are not loyal and lazy ........
80% renters mean only 20% give a hoot. Why does anyone expect them to care about it? They just figure who cares if all the good hardworking residents move and then they can turn to the Feds like Detroit to fix their woes with grant money. Grants for Ghettos. Happens all the time. They want the whole city to be living on the government dole. Outstanding!
11:41 AM what a bunch of hogwash. Yea renters don't want a better life. We don't strive to make our worlds better. We just plod along not caring.
The problem is people like you with your backwoods ignorant labels and way of thinking. Small town, small minds.
Aww 1145 are you offended? So sad. Boo-hoo. Transient residents aren't interested on the whole about neighborhoods looking nice or else they wouldn't park their GD cars on the front lawn and let those damn papers collect in their driveways. They would take care of their rentals and have pride. When you look around, you can't tell the rentals right off the bat because they look like sh&t. The grass is high, yards have no flowers and their buddies park their cars all over the yard and sidewalks. That's what the hood looks like. Been to any of the local slumlords' properties lately? They look like prisons without bars. Get a clue.
And then we also have this job:
Accounting Clerk
Valucentric - Salisbury, MD
$9.25 - $10.00 an hour
Seeking a dependable Data Entry Clerk for a full time position that requires to be able to post a high volume of payments received via checks and ACH wires
At least this is full time, but you'll be walking to work on that pay after you get done paying your $1+K rent in this town.
Secretaries with the County and City make about $32,000 a year. That's hardly enough to make the outrageous rents in this area and the City has that stupid "no more than two unrelated persons living in a dwelling..." BS. If Deputy City Administrators with zero experience can make $80,000 a year why can't they pay support staff a decent wage?
11:56, Good point!
They have that two-person thing in the City to keep from city hall buddies from having competition. All their single-family homes have four students renting and none are related. It's all political bullcrap.
ANON 11:58AM
What you're referring to is "Crony Capitalism" - a term that describes much of the Clinton Foundation 'disaster relief' schemes. e.g. Think Haiti.
Yes, so it would seem there is much of this type of business dealings but when you keep electing like-minded people to run the government, you're bound to get the same result. Change it up and see what happens.
Maybe I should run for Mayor next round!
Thornton, if only they could be so lucky.
Joe, the local bull dogs wouldn't take to my governance none too much because I wouldn't tolerate their balderdash. Unlike the ones squatting in City Hall right now, I care about the residents of Salisbury. They've been bamboozled by con artists aching to rape them blind while feeding them a line of bunk a mile long.
TC you mean the art of BS is not something you've mastered? LOL Not surprising, you're pretty straight forward.
I noticed the other day businesses I didn't even know where closing are now closed. This is partly Obama's fault but our local yocals also have some blame too.
Have you seen the shacks rentals with signs? I don't know how the city passes them for human dwellings? They look like crap but they don't have chain link fences in the front yard so I guess it's aye OK.
The "mini road trips" need to be augmented by longer ones, to places where small cities have turned things around. Find out who they are, how they did it and get busy, rather than celebrating something that isn't. Reading magazines and websites isn't going to do it, nor is any number of lofty degrees with no real world experience.
Salisbury stands a slim chance of pulling itself out of an economic and social abyss. Special care and effort should be made to ensure that the city doesn't become another Chicago or Baltimore.
Does anyone have a list of all the businesses in Salisbury that have shut down in the last decade?
Shame we can't even be like Pocomoke, Cambridge and Berlin. They've managed to bring back their downtowns. Ours just looks like a wasteland. Nothing going on unless its 3rd Fridays. One Friday a month doesn't bring back anything from the dead.
Agree with the theme and tenor of the posting but with couple of quibbles.
Radio Shack's problems are national in scope driven primarily by technology and distribution shifts, and the vast majority of its company owned locations are closed subsequent to its second bankruptcy. One remains in Easton; may be a franchise spot. In other words, a vibrant 'bury economy would not have saved it.
The two Wendy's closures are worth examining. A location across from SU should be a license to mint money, and I assume it was for many years. But fast food places are in a pinch from rising wages, Obamacare costs, shifts in customer choices, and perhaps lease increases. Dunno. The one by Denny's is a defective location; they would have done much better someplace on the KMart property.
Employment losses in the manufacturing sector continue to loom large. Retooling downtown as a Section 8 ghetto won't support all the happy, upscale first floor shops in the architectural renderings; it will just add to the oversupply of empty commercial real estate.
well said
Salisbury went past the point of no return under Barrie Tilghman and Jimbeau Ireton, and Fake Day has not done anything to reverse course.
Da Bury is now known far and wide as "the Baltimore of the Shore" and in some places as "the s___hole of the Shore"!
This is the problem with Sby. You have a mayor who is incredibly ignorant and grossly uninformed and now this. IQ levels in the imbecile range. You need many big business who pay well to support the small businesses. It's not rocket science. When one of the areas biggest employers is a slaughter house notorious for low wages small businesses are never ever going to make it. It's that simple.
From John McClellan --
About two weeks ago, the two remaining Wendy's located in Salisbury suddenly closed their doors. All signage was removed. Many clients and friends began to message me asking what was happening and if I knew of any new uses forthcoming.
To many, the closure didn't come as a total surprise. During the past couple months, customer traffic and overall activity seemed to decline. But when the Wendy's sign came down, the streets began to buzz with talk of what was going to become of the site. Was the lot going on the market? Is Wendy's remodeling?
As a commercial real estate advisor, I immediately got to work thinking of prospects and contemplating new ideas for the property. I know I am not alone when I say I was truly excited about the opportunity to put a new business on one of the busiest corners in Salisbury.
We had heard rumblings about a lawsuit involving Wendy's and the regional operator - DavCo restaurants. Yesterday, the rumors were confirmed as reported in Franchise Times. This quickly put the brakes on the plans I was previously brainstorming. The article details the 3 year dispute between DavCo and Wendy's.
The issues were resolved when DavCo agreed to sell 140 existing Wendy's locations to NPC International - one of the chain's largest franchisees. NPC announced plans to remodel and re-open 90 of those locations. Our sources tell us that since the two Salisbury locations are so well located at high traffic intersections, they are ideal for a remodel.
I will continue to monitor the situation. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions.
Click the link below to read the full article from the Franchise Times.
Franchise Times Article on DavCo & NPC International
8:00 PM, While I appreciate what you said, these two properties are FOR SALE. That's a fact.
There are mechanisms ....for example a sale leaseback that have particular advantages for both parties and are popular with various trust and tax strategies.
There is a world of "sophisticated" business technique well beyond the SWED and elected officials' limited playbook.
Give them time; lots and lots of time
Salisbury has been crushed by Democrats for sport. There's no point in what they've done to the town that used to have a thriving business community. The Chamber of Commerce has been complicit and participator in many regards. It's sad to see but Salisbury is a done deal.
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