ARKANSAS
The HEMPSTEAD COUNTY Health Unit recently returned from a two-day training session by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and got a chance, on Dec. 13, to put its knowledge to good use. The unit, along with the Hempstead County Office of Emergency Services, held a “tabletop exercise” to test its ability to respond to bioterror threats and the prospect of inoculating county residents.
The Hope Star reported that a statewide post-event plan will be released in January. At the tabletop exercise, county health officials discussed the state’s pre-event planning, which requires inoculation of health professionals within 30 days of any order from President George W. Bush.
The next phase would include vaccination of all emergency responders and remaining health professionals. The third phase of shots would be for the general public. Vaccinations in Hempstead County would occur at hospitals, schools and the Hope Migrant Shelter.
CALIFORNIA
Supervisors in KERN COUNTY are fighting a battle to keep their farms safe. The county has won a court decision to keep in place its restrictions to treated human waste for farmland use.
Kern County was sued by sludge users and some Southern California sewage agencies who claimed a county ordinance is environmentally unsound and violates interstate laws.
The ordinance requires sludge spreaders to test and report on their use of lower quality – or class B – sludge. Meanwhile, the ordinance placed no restrictions on higher quality sludge.
A judge ruled in favor of the county’s ordinance and, afterwards, Kern County supervisors unanimously revised the ordinance to require testing and reporting on higher quality sludge as well. The supervisors argue there needs to be more scientific research on the safety of spreading treated human waste on farmland, but they acknowledge there may be more court battles ahead.
Supervisor Jon McQuiston dismissed sludge-industry statements that a recent national study showed sludge poses no threat, telling the Bakersfield Californian, “I don’t buy that, maybe a court will.” McQuiston noted that the ban was phased in, giving spreaders and generators time to adjust. Another problem for the county: the cleaner sludge, ironically, smells worse. So now the county is working with sludge-treatment companies to find a solution.
GEORGIA
COBB COUNTY and several other counties throughout Georgia are attempting to thwart a power company. But a Cobb Superior Court judge thwarted the county right back by ruling to stop the county’s temporary ban on the installation of a high-power transmission line near the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park.
Georgia Transmission Corp., (GTC) which installs lines throughout the state, filed suit against Cobb County in October, has now successfully petitioned to get two bans overturned (the other ban was in Rabun County).
“We will be appealing this decision,” Cobb spokesman Robert Quigley told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. A hearing on the appeal is not expected until early next year, Quigley said. Rabun County’s case is currently being reviewed by the Georgia Supreme Court.
The Cobb ban was enacted in August, but GTC officials argued that power outages could occur in the area unless the new line was in place by mid-2003. Even before the judge’s decision, while the county ban was in place, GTC had continued land-purchase negotiations and notified some disagreeing landowners that it would condemn their properties.
Opposition to GTC’s tactics has spurred creation of property owner groups in at least eight counties to seek new legislation mandating state oversight of the process. Similar organizations in another seven counties are expected to join the state coalition, according to organizers of Homeowners Opposing Power-line Encroachment.
MARYLAND
The sniper attacks are still not over for the MONTGOMERY COUNTY Sheriff’s Department. Sure, suspects John Muhammad and John Lee Malvo are in custody, but the department is in charge of the $500,000 in reward money due to go to people whose information led to their arrests. County officials have said they would like to distribute all the reward money at once, but prosecutors in Virginia note that some of those potential winners are likely to be called as witnesses at the trials, scheduled to be held in their state.
Montgomery County police chief Charles Moose understands Virginia’s concerns. He told the Washington Post, “Once you give someone reward money, they move into the category of paid witness.”
More than 60,000 people called police with information, and police have whittled those in the running for the money down to about six.
NORTH CAROLINA
• ALEXANDER COUNTY Commissioner Joel Harbinson gave up his last day in office as a commissioner to his 15-year-old son Jarrett.
Harbinson, who did not win his bid for re-election, stepped down at 11:59 p.m. Saturday Nov. 30 and Jarrett served in his place until the new commissioner was sworn in on Monday. Jarrett served on the commission for 36 hours.
Jarrett has autism and Harbinson said he wanted his son to experience a major achievement.
“It’s symbolic not only for my son, but everybody else who has a child with disabilities,” Harbinson told The Charlotte Observer.
VIRGINIA
• Chesterfield County is encountering something of a bad spell in its relations with one local resident. Wiccan practitioner Cynthia Simpson is suing the county because it refuses to allow her to offer an invocation at the opening of the county’s board meeting, as is now the case for clergy of other religions. Wicca is a pagan religion rooted in witchcraft.
The American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed the lawsuit Dec. 6 in U.S. District Court on behalf of Simpson.
The lawsuit claims that the board discriminated against Simpson based on her religion by inviting Christian clergy to deliver invocations while refusing to allow her to do so.
Chesterfield County Administrator Lane Ramsey said the board can invite whomever it wishes to give the invocation.
• Could NACo be losing a member? At a recent meeting, the FAIRFAX COUNTY Board of Supervisors directed the board’s legal staff to look into how the county could incorporate as a city.
According to The Washington Post, becoming Virginia’s 40th city could be a lengthy, costly effort requiring approval from county voters and the state’s general assembly. And while the effort is designed so that the county could raise new taxes, it would also come with new fiscal responsibilities because cities and towns must maintain, and in some cases, build, their own roads.
Proposed by Supervisor Elaine N. McConnell, the plan would allow Fairfax to raise taxes and keep more of the money in its own treasury. Right now, for every dollar in income taxes Fairfax sends to the state capital, only 19 cents comes back.
“I want to look at all opportunities that would allow us to keep more of our money at home for our people and break away from Richmond,” McConnell told the Post.
State law allows cities and towns to raise taxes on cigarettes, meals, movie and theatre tickets, and hotel and motel rooms. Cities can keep the money. Counties are not afforded the same luxury. The county’s predicament stems from powers granted to cities and towns that were not given to then-rural counties as Virginia grew. Today, even though counties in the state often have more people, the law is still on the books.
The county has studied the concept twice before, but the only result was in the early 1990s when the Board of Supervisors chairman was given more power to appoint boards and commissions.
“This is always out there for public discussion,” Board Chairman Katherine Hanley told the Post. Hanley also told the paper that one possibility would be a compromise county charter giving Fairfax taxing authority without changing its form of government.
• Some of the first bills for the investigation of the Washington, D.C.-area sniper case are in and PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY is hoping for some federal help.
Officials said the county spent $426,000 in police overtime while the suspects were on the loose. County Police Chief Charlie Deane told the Board of Supervisors he’s hoping the U.S. Department of Justice will kick in, and has already applied for partial reimbursement.
The money spent so far does not include costs associated with the upcoming trial of John Allen Muhammad.
WASHINGTON
Or perhaps NACo is gaining a county! Some citizens in the rural northeast portion of SNOHOMISH COUNTY have taken their fight to create a new county, Freedom County, to the Washington Court of Appeals.
The court is currently considering whether the more than 8,000 signatures on a petition are enough to fulfill a state constitutional requirement. Unlike many other state constitutions, Washington’s allows citizens to create new counties with a majority of signatures on petitions.
The fight to create the new county, which, if officially declared, would encompass about 50 percent of the land that currently makes up Snohomish, but only about 9.5 percent of the population, began back in the early 1990s. The residents who spearheaded the initiative felt that county policies were skewing too much towards the urban areas.
“The county developed a large urban population and began passing policy that was more friendly to urban areas than rural areas,” explained Thom Satterlee, chairman of the interim Freedom County Council.
In 1998, the state Supreme Court ruled that the constitution requires signatures from half of an area’s registered voters. In their appeal, the Freedom County proponents argue that the law says they need the signatures of half the number of people who voted in the previous election.
A spokesman for Snohomish County said the county considers this a resolved issue.
The last new county in Washington was Pend Oreille County in 1911.
