Focus on parks upkeep before adding property 

I recently read in the Salisbury Post that the Parks and Recreation Department was considering purchasing a home to house offices and equipment, and my first reaction was how could they possibly need more office space?

We have plenty of space at the city park building, the Civic Center building, Ellis Park, etc. it would seem to me. Storage of equipment might be another matter but I think there should be space at one of the facilities we already have. Then I played tennis at City Park. These are the courts of my youth. My mom would drop us off on weekends and we would spend hours on those courts.

Only a couple of years ago, the courts were redone and looked beautiful. Go there and look today. Cracks everywhere, netting either gone or not attached to the fence, a backboard that was never finished and the unprotected wood has warped. Somewhere the ball has been dropped on maintaining what a lot of money was surely spent on. What a shame.

Before we spend more money on the next thing, I would like to see better maintenance and use of what we have.

— Melissa Utley

Salisbury

On the Trump train …

President Trump has been underestimated from the first day of the 2016 presidential election cycle. Why? President Trump is a negotiator!!

Any good negotiator starts from an extreme position. President Trump has shown over and over his ability to start from an extreme position and moderate from that position to a more acceptable position, as with the Muslim situation. He initially started from the extreme position of not allowing any Muslims in the country to looking at and limiting the entry of individuals from nations that have supported jihadists such as ISIS, a much more moderate position!

There are many that are trying to tag President Trump as a fascist. They are misrepresenting the term fascism and fascist. President Trump is a conservative. A conservative believes in Judeo-Christian values, economic freedom, anti-communism, anti-socialism, private property rights, smaller government, American exceptionalism and self-reliance. A fascist on the other hand believes in socialism, limited property-ownership rights, larger more expansive government, states governed by a dictator or martial government, group identity rather than individuality, and reliance on the government rather than the individual’s self-reliance.

The way fascist or fascism is being used would be more fitting for the liberal/progressive left which is described by the term liberal fascism. Today liberals are returning to the use of the original term progressive to describe their ideological point of view! The birth of progressivism came in the late 1800s. Progressivism mimicked the trends in socialism and Marxism which were in vogue at the time.

The liberal fascism left and mainstream media have underestimated President Trump. If they continue their underestimation they will be left behind as his promised policies and procedures take hold!

It is time to get on the Trump train!

— Ray Shamlin

Rocky Mount

… or off the rails?

I wonder if President Trump has ever heard the old saying “It’s best to be quiet and let people think you’re stupid, that to run your mouth and remove all doubt.”

— Calvin Safrit

Salisbury.