News from Across the Nation - July 24, 2017

CALIFORNIA

It’s that time of year when pools of water beckon man and beast. But sometimes it’s a good idea to stay out of the water. NAPA COUNTY issued a countywide warning recently after two dogs died when they swam in — and likely drank — water in a pond that contained a growth of toxic algae. Another lake in the area was closed after another outbreak of a toxic algae bloom. Warning signs were posted and the county got the word out in a news release from its health department and on its Facebook page. While animals can die from the toxin, children and adults can experience serious injury to the liver, kidney and nervous system if affected water is swallowed. 

ORANGE COUNTY recently announced the arrests of 23 people on charges of public benefits fraud. The defendants were charged with improperly collecting $220,572 in benefits from SNAP — formerly known as Food Stamps — as well as child care benefits, Temporary Assistance and Medicaid benefits. The county’s Department of Social Services Special Investigations Unit investigated the cases. District Attorney David Hoovler began investigating welfare fraud in 2014 and since then has charged 185 people who had received $1.8 million in benefits. Recipients charged with fraud have paid back more than $500,000 and others have voluntarily repaid more than $200,000 without charges being filed.

 

SONOMA COUNTY signed off on one of its biggest land deals recently, selling a county-owned former hospital complex on 82 acres for what ultimately may add up to $11.5 million. The 81-year-old hospital, which didn’t meet current seismic building standards, closed three years ago after racking up costly maintenance bills.

A developer proposes to build up to 800 rental units, housing for veterans, a grocery store, an amphitheater and other amenities. The county has defended the sale price, which is about $2 million less than the property’s appraised value, claiming the value to taxpayers is much greater when factoring in the cost of developing the planned affordable housing and the demolition and maintenance costs the county will avoid through the sale, The Press Democrat reported. The county pegged the total maximum value of the deal to taxpayers at $71.9 million.

 

FLORIDA

SARASOTA COUNTY is facing a $300 million bill after the state Supreme Court said an obscure law requires the county to reimburse any hospital for indigent care. The court reversed two lower courts’ decisions that had favored the county. Two private hospitals began billing the county in 2011, but the county refused to pay them.

“This is going to be a big blow to our county,” County Commissioner Nancy Detert told the Daily Progress newspaper. “That’s an unrealistic number,” she said of the $300 million. “That’s never going to happen.”

GEORGIA

The opioid crisis took a new twist recently in FORSYTH COUNTY, where two new strains of fentanyl recently popped up. Acryl-fentanyl and tetra-hydro-furan fentanyl, are more resistant to Naloxone or Narcon, the life-saving antidote, and can be absorbed through the skin, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s Crime Lab.

An article in the New England Journal of Medicine suggested that “up to six times the usual 0.4mg intravenous dose [of naloxone] might be required for fentanyl analogues or other synthetic opioids because of its greater toxicity compared with other opioids and the unpredictable amount of substance in each tablet.”

The Georgia State Board of Pharmacy voted to immediately pass an emergency rule which regulates the newly identified tetra-hydro-furan as a Schedule 1 substance, giving all Georgia police officers the same authority as drug agents to seize the substance.

ILLINOIS

COOK COUNTY could lay off more than 1,000 county workers after a tax on soda and other sweetened beverages slated to begin July 1, was blocked. A judge put a temporary hold on the penny-per-ounce tax that was supposed to raise $67.5 million through Nov. 30, after the Illinois Retail Merchants Association and several grocery stores sued, saying the tax is unconstitutional. County officials say the tax, expected to raise $200 million for fiscal year 2018, is needed to pay for services and will also improve the public’s health. A hearing is planned for July 21.

JERSEY COUNTY has filed a lawsuit against the makers of OxyContin, Dilaudid, Opana, Percocet and other opioids. The county is the second in the state to file such a lawsuit, joining ST. CLAIR COUNTY, which filed its lawsuit in April. St. Clair County’s suit claims Purdue Pharma and other companies misrepresented opioids’ risk addiction. “These drug companies have raked in billions of dollars by deceitful advertising and fraudulent conduct that has brought misery and heartbreak to our community,” Jersey County State’s Attorney Ben Goetten said. New statistics from the state Department of Public Health show 2,278 drug-related overdose deaths statewide in 2016, a 44.3 percent increase in three years. Of those, more than 80 percent were opioid-related.

INDIANA

MONROE COUNTY Sheriff Brad Swain has ordered his deputies not to use Narcan on emergency calls, in order to save their dwindling supply for deputies. Deputies are to use the life-saving antidote to opioid overdoses if they have been exposed to fentanyl, a drug that is 50 to 100 times more potent than heroin.

“Given the incidents of officers in life-threatening situations, due to exposure to fentanyl, keep the remaining units available for use in such cases we may encounter in which a deputy or other public safety professional may be in distress,” Swain said in an email sent to deputies July 10.

There are no plans to get more Narcan for the Sheriff’s Office, the News and Tribune reported. “If there is a source that will provide this without stressing the public tax dollars, I am going to do that,” Swain told the newspaper. “This is an unexpected and unanticipated expense so if I can get a supply, we will continue with the program, but like any other grant-related program, supply runs out and we move on.”

MICHIGAN

The sheriff of WAYNE COUNTY reiterated that he will not detain anyone in his jail for Immigration and Customs Enforcement unless ICE gets them a warrant from an independent judge or magistrate. Sheriff Benny Napoleon said he’s abiding by what courts have ruled. Agreeing to ICE detainer requests could expose the county to liability, immigrant advocates say. The jail has a daily population of between 1,700 to 2,200. “We’re not a part of Customs and Immigration,” Napoleon told the Detroit Free Press. “We’re a police agency.”

“Every day, I send ICE a notification of all the people who are newly brought into the Wayne County Jail,” Napoleon told the newspaper. “If they want any of these people, they have ample time to get a [judicial] warrant and have time to commit them to a jail or wherever they want.”

NEBRASKA

The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that WASHINGTON COUNTY could not be sued for the death of a quarry worker who drowned while working on a road when the Missouri River flooded in 2011.

The county is protected by sovereign immunity, after giving a contractor oral permission to do work on the road, at which point the contractor accepted full responsibility for the project, the Pilot-Tribune and Enterprise reported. The court ruled that the contractor had adequately warned its crews about the conditions that ultimately led to the worker’s truck sinking into a soft shoulder and overturning into a ditch.

NEW YORK

SUFFOLK COUNTY has installed 12 cameras, capable of panning, tilting and zooming, throughout the county in hopes of preventing crime. The cameras will be moved based on crime statistics and community feedback; their $130,000 cost was funded by asset forfeitures, CBS New York reported.

NORTH CAROLINA

You can buy your booze earlier now in North Carolina’s counties. Gov. Roy Cooper (D) signed a bill allowing local governments to move up sales times for beer, wine or mixed drinks to 10 a.m. from noon.

OHIO

BUTLER COUNTY Sheriff Richard Jones says his deputies won’t carry naloxone, despite its effectiveness reversing the effects opioid and heroin overdoses.  Jones’ position reflects those by a city councilman in his county, and he explained that deputy safety is his main concern, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported, because when people who overdose are revived, they are often violent and are almost never happy to see the police.

PENNSYLVANIA

The ERIE COUNTY COUNCIL has voted to sponsor a new community college, making it the first new community college in Pennsylvania since 1993.

Empower Erie’s plan is to privately raise millions of additional dollars to pay for capital improvements and equipment over its first 10 years, and county government could redirect almost $4 million now earmarked for annual long-term debt payments to cover the state-required local share of the college’s funding, according to the Times-News.

A 2010 effort to organize a local community college failed for lack of a prime financial sponsor, even after a 2009 study recommended that Erie County create one.

The feasibility study concluded that the new school could offer curriculum that includes engineering, welding, computer security, accounting, journalism, fitness and nursing instruction, as well as other courses of study, with projected enrollment of 1,525 students in the school’s first year, including full-time students.

POTTER COUNTY’s Veterans Service Committee has spearheaded a countywide campaign to restore and clean the gravestones of military veterans in dozens of cemeteries spread across the county. Committee members have also established a website that displays photographs, biographical information and military service summaries for deceased veterans.

A $1,000 appropriation from the county’s veterans service fund has been used to purchase an environmentally-friendly cleaning solution, the same as that used in national cemeteries, plus brushes and buckets.

SOUTH CAROLINA

More than 160,000 curbside garbage cans in RICHLAND COUNTY are being outfitted with radio microchips, similar to those injected into pets, to keep track of them in cases of theft and severe weather.

A $1 million system will not only help keep track of county property, but will integrate into systems used by garbage haulers, county waste inspectors’ trucks and route management software, which will make sure cans aren’t skipped on collection day The Free-Times reported. Recycling bins delivered to homes between 2014 and 2016 came pre-installed with the tracking devices.

SOUTH DAKOTA

Starting July 1, booking photos are available to the public throughout the state, after previously only being released if the person was a fugitive or had escaped from jail. Though many counties are charging $8 per photo, CODDINGTON COUNTY plans to process requests for free.

“I’m looking forward to just providing them to the public for free as long as there isn’t an overabundance of requests,” Sheriff Brad Howell told The Public Opinion.