02/11/2026
Did you know that the rise of Fascism in Europe throughout the early 20th century praised private organizations being maintained for government oversight entirely separate from any elected office? Today we call those non-governmental organizations, NGO's, where one body has untold power to dictate how a public space is represented, modeled after, or even managed over, with full authority to provide recommendations to actual politicians to do their work without the people's consent.
That sounds sneakily authoritarian, doesn't it? Think again, the City of Salisbury has a big one called Downtown Salisbury, Inc, which dictates how our historic Downtown is managed, what businesses are allowed to operate, and who gets special treatment compared to others in the game of favoritism and storefront leases.
Downtown Salisbury, Inc, or DSI, is a textbook Non-governmental organization, NGO, which is a satellite of the larger national parent group Main Street America. MSA is responsible for DSI's recent redesign and resurfacing of Salisbury's Main Street in downtown with trees, benches, that middle turning lane, and of course, the phases not yet completed yet.
Why does an organization which belongs to another national organization have more authority over our elected officials than that of We The People of Rowan County? That's representation we don't have which we should, and that elitist approach rivaling our interests is coincidentally paralleled with businesses Downtown on our boycott list. Funny, isn't it?
Do your own research, expose the old money: