CALIFORNIA
Take your noise and pollution elsewhere. That’s essentially what the California Supreme Court has told Jet Skiers in MARIN COUNTY. An appellate court had earlier agreed that a 1999 county ordinance to ban Jet Skis, also known as personal watercrafts, was constitutional. The state Supreme Court also agreed, rejecting pleas in mid-October by Jet Ski riders and dealers to lift the ban.
The ordinance was the first of its kind in California, and bans the speedy and loud watercrafts from all of Marin County’s waterways, including the coastline of the Pacific Ocean and the Petaluma River. Jet Skis are still legal in waterways controlled by towns, cities and the National Park Service within Marin.
Those supporting the ban applauded the Supreme Court’s decision, claiming pollution and threats to birds and aquatic life in the area would be decreased in the long term. The ban had been suspended since September 2000, when a Superior Court judge had claimed the boundaries were poorly defined. The recent court ruling noted boundaries are well defined by information easily accessible from the county and cities, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
FLORIDA
BROWARD COUNTY commissioners were excited to have recently accepted a $1.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The monies will provide subsidized housing for 32 people in the county’s program for recovering drug and alcohol abusers.
“This is not a halfway house,’” Marlene Wilson, director of Broward County’s human services department, told the Miami Herald. “This is permanent, supported housing.”
Those eligible for the housing will have been substance-free for the past six months and must be at least18 years old. The funding, to be distributed to the county over the next three years, will drive construction of housing in Pembroke Pines and assist residents in finding jobs, securing transportation to and from jobs, medical and dental assistance, and other essentials such as food and clothing.
“All of these residents will be working or going to school in order to get gainful employment,” said County Commission Chairwoman Lori Parrish. “The people with alcohol or drug addiction are our neighbors.”
Some of the residents of Pembroke Pines were unhappy with the county’s unanimous decision to bring subsidized housing to their town. Some said they feared sex offenders and hardened criminals would be introduced to their community.
But county commissioners are trying to ease the minds of nearby residents of the housing. They stand firm that only law-abiding, rehabilitated citizens will occupy the subsidized apartments.
“There seems to be a misperception that there’s pedophiles and hardened criminals living here,” Commissioner Ben Graber said.
GEORGIA
There’s a newfound silence in the air of DEKALB COUNTY. The County Board of Commissioners recently approved an overhaul of the noise ordinance by a 6-0 vote. The primary target for the new regulations in the ordinance is “boom cars” — those pesky vehicles that cruise around with the stereo bass pumping so loudly that nearby windows shake.
“It was aiming at loud parties at night and boom cars. Apparently the [county] CEO’s office had gotten lots of complaints,” said Janet Ward, assistant public information officer of DeKalb County, east of Atlanta.
The ordinance basically strengthens the public’s ability to fight intrusive sounds, and can only be invoked through citizen complaints.
“If the police see a car on the street, they can’t stop it. There has to be a complaint. That’s the difference from other noise ordinances. It mandates that the police have to stop the car, but only if there’s been a complaint,” Ward said.
The noise ordinance is in effect every night from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. A judge can slap first-time violators with a minimum $100 fine and second-time violators with a minimum $500 fine. There is no possibility of jail time mandated in the ordinance, which has yet to receive much public feedback.
“There’s a fine line when you do a quality-of-life ordinance before it becomes a constitutional issue. But there were no controversies or problems in the county meetings leading up to the passing of the ordinance. I guess we’ll just have to wait until the first time someone gets fined $500 for having a party,” Ward added.
MARYLAND
County leadership is speaking volumes during the Washington D.C. metropolitan region’s sniper tragedies.
MONTGOMERY COUNTY Executive Douglas Duncan took front-center stage, much in the way Rudy Giuliani did after the Sept. 11 attacks in New York City, to unite the area behind the dual causes of remembering the victims and catching the killer.
Duncan attended six victims’ funerals over the course of 10 days in mid-October and was told each time by the victims’ families to catch the sniper. In his other public appearances, on TV shows such as Nightline and Today, Duncan urged residents to continue cautiously with their daily routines.
Calling the situation “the toughest challenge” ever faced by Montgomery County, Duncan told The Washington Post, “We’ve never had anything like this in Montgomery County and perhaps in the nation.”
All remnants of his schedule for campaign appearances have disappeared, as Duncan has worked a minimum of 16 hours per day since the sniper began the attacks, which had resulted in 10 deaths as of Oct. 22. Duncan cancelled many political events and had no time to focus on the upcoming County Council elections.
“My personal challenge is to make sure that nothing gets in the way of this investigation. This is our only priority,” Duncan said.
County Council President Steven Silverman, a close friend of Duncan’s, said the executive “takes it personally that tragedy is striking his county.”
NORTH CAROLINA
• DAVIE COUNTY is a friendly place, although you wouldn’t really know it from reading some of the street names in the county.
There are streets with names such as Getta Way, Outatha Way and Staya Way.
Several years ago, in order to provide better 911 services, the county mandated that all roads have an official name. Some roads in certain neighborhoods were privately owned and therefore the residents along the roads got naming rights. They could name the streets anything they wanted as long as the names weren’t offensive or didn’t duplicate existing names.
“When we named the road, we didn’t even think it was odd,” Keretha Shore, who lives on Staya Way, told CNN. “We just thought it was funny.”
• The FORSYTH COUNTY Board of Commissioners recently approved a 1.5 percent sales tax increase. County merchants will now charge 7 percent sales tax, the same found in surrounding counties. The higher tax is expected to generate $5 million.
PENNSYLVANIA
The CARBON COUNTY 911 center is running a $40,000 deficit and the County Commission wants the county’s 23 municipalities to make up some of the shortfall.
The commission has asked the municipalities to increase their per-capita 911 fee by 25 cents a year for three years. If approved, the fee would be $3 a head by 2004. The 911 center has not had a fee increase for 12 years.
Currently, the center has three funding sources: a $1.50 fee on every land telephone line, the per-capita fee from residents and a county contribution.
Funding has not kept pace with the expenses to run the dispatch center. County officials estimate it will cost $919,000 to run the center in 2003, while revenues will only bring in $877,000.
With many counties experiencing tough financial times, Carbon is looking for alternative ways to help make up the expected $42,000 difference. According to The [Allentown] Morning Call, fees aren’t assessed to wireless phones, but the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania is lobbying for such a change.
SOUTH CAROLINA
• While computers often make things easier for everyone, sometimes it’s a bumpy road.
When the South Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles recently upgraded to a new, $40 million system, county auditors throughout the state began getting reports filled with errors. The mistake-laden reports are costly for counties to correct and create long lines at DMV offices.
Charleston County Auditor Peggy Mosley told a local television station that more than 2,000 of the 17,500 renewal notices in her county had errors. Mistakes include incorrect mailing addresses, deleted names on co-owned vehicles and inaccurate county codes.
Public Safety Department officials say the state is working on the problems.
• When voters in GREENVILLE COUNTY go to the polls on Nov. 5, they will be deciding whether to approve a temporary 1-cent sales tax to pay for nine new parks across the county.
The one-year tax is a scaled-back version of the original three-year tax proposal that would have generated $150 million and paid for a plan to build more than a dozen parks and greenways in the county.
The County Council and a local taxpayers group are clashing over the proposed tax increase. The taxpayers’ group claims the new parks will create an additional tax drain on the county after the initial construction is paid for with the sales tax money.
However, Councilwoman Phyllis Henderson said it is difficult to predict how much money the maintenance will require and that the council is looking into other financial solutions. Henderson said the county is considering other sources for money, like naming rights, private donations and interest from the sales-tax money collected, if the referendum is approved.
WASHINGTON
Drivers in YAKIMA COUNTY who are faced with the unenviable task of opposing a traffic ticket don’t have to go to court any longer. Instead, the county recently became the first in the state to allow people to e-mail their excuses and explanations to a judge.
“It allows citizens to take care of their tickets when it’s convenient for them,” District Judge Dirk Marler told the Yakima-Herald.
Traffic mitigation hearings are some of the most crowded court proceedings in the county, with as many as 2,500 people each year asking a judge to cut their traffic fines.
In 2001, the court began accepting excuses in the mail and that was met with such success, the court decided to go the electronic route.
The e-mail adjudication process began in September and works the same way the “snail mail” process works, but at a much faster pace. The judges’ decision is either sent by postcard or e-mail.
According to the Yakima-Herald, the first e-mail excuse filed was the first purely electronic document ever used in a state court. The county expects to save lots of money by speeding up the notoriously slow traffic court proceedings.
“People love it,” said Judge Michael McCarthy. “Most of the [e-mails] start out with ‘Thank you for letting me respond this way.’”
