… School board discusses possible technical school

Where I grew up, there was a similar technical center that allowed students to attend and learn a skilled trade instead of a traditional high school. For those who are wondering what potential a facility like this could have, or what role it would serve, I can at least share this one: https://www.greeneccc.com/site/Default.aspx?PageID=555

— Eric Shock

… Editorial: Rowan needs a new kind of prep school

I am glad our school system is willing to have this conversation. Perhaps the repurposing of an underutilized school campus and some sensible redistricting could achieve the goal of a technical school, without the need for spending $18 million.

Thank you, Josh Wagner and other school leadership, for your willingness to think outside the box.

— Jeff Morris

Wonderful idea backed by solid research and economic needs. Thank you RSS for your forward-thinking approach in this.

— Shelley Harper Palmer

… Letter: Don’t let technology take over
our lives

“We need to forget about some of these robots and get back to some basics”

Sorry to say, they are coming like it or not.

If we just forget about robots and technology, we are hiding our head in the sand and will be left even further behind. We need to wake up to reality. It is just fact. Ignoring them will not make them go away.

Instead, we need to own where jobs are heading. Take on the technology. Get a technology incubator going in the area. Set up robotics labs and resources. Mikey Wetzel has a robotics club for high schoolers. Nothing could be better for the upcoming economy.

You want jobs? Here is the path. You want malaise? Ignore where the jobs are heading.

— Kent Winrich

… Attorney: ‘Appears likely’ that Rowan County commissioners will appeal prayer lawsuit

I truly hope that the board will appeal the decision banning prayer before the opening of its meetings. This country was founded on Christian morals and beliefs, and all of this political correctness has to stop.

No offense to the three individuals who complained about the prayers, but in this country it is supposed to be what is best for and what the majority wishes.

— Howard White

Might as well act like Trump and appeal to their base to keep their attention. Just deal with our many daily problems.

— Ralph Walton

This lawsuit is more about exclusion than it is about prayer.

Are the commissioners really serious about what they will do if they win at the Supreme Court? They have already changed how prayers are offered at meetings. Do they really want to return to that discredited, sectarian and non-inclusive practice if they win?

A moment of silence could have solved this entire matter a lot earlier and with a lot less expense.

— Pete Prunkl

… Elizabeth Cook: Was the prayer case necessary?

Never give up the fight when you know you are right. The scumbag leftists are doing everything they can to erase morals in this country.

— John Collins

… Letter: Sheriff Arpaio was just enforcing the law

The way that Arpaio enforced the law violated the civil rights of hundreds of people, but that was not what he was found guilty of. The trial resulted in a court order to cease doing so; when he continued, he was found guilty of violating a court order.

— Lewis Thomason

… Civil rights and wrongs: Reflections on issues of race, politics and history

My thoughts as I read this outreach to the moral right, if there is indeed one locally, was how do we engage each other to seriously begin dialogue? It seems to me that affluent whites are not interested in social justice for all, unless they remain in the elite position, even to the detriment of poor whites.

I wonder what is the level of fear and anxiety of those elite locals, who with all their money, resources and influence are now resigned to watch a city (Salisbury) die a slow death because they chose to deflate the so-called American dream for blacks, minorities and poor whites.

I would like (Dr. Michael Bitzer) to expound on the 2014 Analysis of Impediments Report, where the city and its affiliates self-report and indict themselves of gentrification, marginalization and in the wake of the uptick in violent crimes, a form of genocide in black and brown communities.

In poor white communities, we are witnessing the rise of heroin as the poison of choice.

— Kenneth Muhammad El

… Letter: New Orleans’ Mayor Landrieu distorts history

Mr. Poteat, please specify what, precisely, you believe Mayor Landrieu has misinterpreted. Over what was the Civil War fought? What force invaded the South for which monuments needed to be erected?

You may exhaust your thesaurus for multi-syllabic words to defend your position and to denigrate those with whom you disagree, but it in no way changes the facts of history.

— Karen South Jones

Some people are still having problems with fake history that’s spawned by bigoted alternate reality.

Mitch Landrieu told the real story about the monuments and how they were used as Jim Crow symbols to signify the re-establishment of the white racists’ rule.

There are those who still insist that the Civil War was not fought over slavery in spite of what is stated by Alexander Stephens, vice president of the Confederacy, and some of the articles in its Constitution and the secession orders of the Southern states that committed treason against the United States.

There are those who fail to recall that it was the Confederacy that started the Civil War.

Those Confederate monuments standing on public land should be put in museums.

— Reginald Brown

The War Between the States was never a civil war. That is the biggest part of the propaganda that we have had to endure. When we say that, we are saying that the U.S. was a centralized nation, which was not the case.

Before Lincoln destroyed the original republic, if you lived here, North Carolina was your country. It was a “union” of sovereign states.

For several reasons we have not time to discuss here, the Southern states peacefully left the old union and formed their own union.

— Steve Poteat

… Freightliner plant hires back 50, breaks ground on logistics center

Fifty compared to over 2,000 recently laid off.

— Jamie Donaldson

Gotta teach skills that are in high demand so people don’t have to deal with constant layoffs.

— Jamone Kelly

Wow, tough crowd. I came away from the meeting feeling somewhat optimistic and upbeat, but after reading these comments I think I need to get somebody to hide all the sharps.

— Bruce LaRue

… Duke Energy requests rate hikes for 2018

For years, instead of dealing with the expense of coal ash as it was being created, Duke Energy’s stockholders took its profits and kicked the coal ash can down the road. Faced with coal ash lawsuits and an environmental mess of their own making, they want the rate payers to pick up the tab? No way.

Duke and its stockholders profited from inaction. Duke and its stockholders can pay for cleaning it up. #notmymess

— Michael S. Young

Meeting expenses while sticking it to the little man go hand-in-hand for a company on criminal probation for crimes against the Clean Water Act for its leaking coal ash pits around our state.

Coal ash now lumped into everyday expenses is another sneaky way Dirty Duke plays on rate payers for the company’s mismanagement. This is the trash that Duke alone allowed to build up over decades of leaving open-air pits on its property, and now rate payers will pay to clean them up.

I pay the trash man every month to remove my trash each week, but Duke saved millions by leaving its contamination on site to contaminate the ground.

— Deborah B. Graham

Their profits are the only thing that they are concerned about. It’s now been 860 days of relying on bottled water, and Duke is concerned about its profits. Sad.

— Amy Rumfelt Brown

When we stop the Atlantic Coast Pipeline from being built, Duke Energy will have plenty of money to spend on coal ash cleanup. #notmymess

— Janet Joye Smith

… Opioid crisis: Cheap and available, heroin takes a deadly toll in Rowan

The syringes are allowed to be purchased to prevent the spread of HIV. There would be a much bigger problem if they were all infected with HIV. They would not care if they had to share needles to get high.

— Tricia Hartsell

I am so angry and saddened that I have no words. I just pray; that’s all I can do

— Melanie Stegall

There will be an open house on Sept. 7 from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. at Rowan Treatment Associates on Jake Alexander Boulevard in Salisbury. There will be education provided on the different types of treatments offered for opiate dependency

— Heather and John Resino

I would like to see an article on how those types of treatments work toward weaning addicts off of heroin, as well as off of methadone.

Perhaps a follow-up article on treatment modalities would be useful.

— Jeff Morris

… Woman cited for child abuse after drug overdose

Drugs are taking over people’s lives, taking over Salisbury in general.

High time to set a limit here and start putting drug dealers in prison and throwing away the key.

— Thomas Vanderburg