News From the Nations Counties

DELAWARE

After four recounts, there was still no winner in the race for KENT COUNTY Recorder of Deeds. A recent court-ordered hand tally of absentee votes left incumbent Betty Lou McKenna and challenger La Mar Gunn in a dead heat: 19,248 votes each.

Gunn has mounted a legal challenge over one absentee ballot on which he contends the voter's intent was unclear.

In the meantime, Gov. Jack Markell (D) has appointed McKenna to the position, until the state Supreme Court rules on Gunn's appeal.

FLORIDA

MANATEE COUNTY officials are reconsidering whether to build a satellite facility for the county tax collector's office now that a business property owner says he has a better deal.

County officials said it would cost $3 million to build the 8,500-square-foot adjunct facility. The owner of a solar-powered building near where the county wants to build is offering his 23,500-square-foot professional building for $2.65 million, according to the Bradenton Herald.

"We've been looking at it," said Ken Burton Jr., county tax collector. "We can make this building work."

County Administrator Ed Hunzeker said the county has been working with the tax collector to "jointly explore" acquiring the building.

Several county clerk's offices are now issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples but say they're getting out of the business of performing ceremonies for any couples, gay or straight.

Those counties, mostly in northern Florida and its conservative Panhandle area, have cited various reasons for discontinuing officiating weddings from inadequate staffing and budgets to ideological grounds, the Tampa Bay Times reported. Among the counties that will not perform marriages are SANTA ROSA, OKALOOSA, HOLMES, WASHINGTON, JACKSON, CALHOUN, LIBERTY, FRANKLIN, WAKULLA, BAKER, CLAY, DUVAL and PASCO.

"I do not want to have members of our team put in a situation which presents a conflict between their personal religious beliefs and the implementation of a contentious societal philosophy change," Okaloosa County Clerk J.D. Peacock II wrote in a memo to his staff.

Several northern counties ES CAMBIA, LEON, JEFFERSON and MADISON will perform weddings.

ILLINOIS

More than 25,000 cell phones have been collected for a program that gives COOK COUNTY senior citizens a lifeline in case of an emergency.

Phones donated to the Sheriff's Cell Phones for Seniors Program are sent to a company in Florida that strips them of personal information. The phones aren't activated, but when charged they are capable of calling 911, Sheriff Thomas Dart's office said.

Recipients have used these phones to help themselves in emergencies. However, they have also used them to report vehicle accidents and medical emergencies they have witnessed.

The phones have been collected at various sites throughout the county since 2006.

IOWA

The JOHNSON COUNTY Board of Supervisors says it will approach neighboring local governments about forming a commission to address climate change at the local level.

This comes in response to calls by local environmental activists for the county to develop a climate mitigation and adaptation plan, the Iowa City Press Citizen reported.

In a five-page letter to environmentalists, board members said that any such plan should include input from county leaders, elected officials, employees and citizens from the five cities that comprise the Iowa City metro area and the University of Iowa.

MAINE

Commissioners in SOMERSET COUNTY have approved the creation of a tax increment financing (TIF) district in the county's unorganized territory surrounding a proposed wind farm.

TIF agreements, established through the state Department of Economic and Community Development, capture tax revenues from new development to benefit town or county economic development, according to centralmaine.com.

First Wind, the company proposing the wind farm, is expected to generate between $100 million and $128 million in new assessed value in Mayfield Township, which would allow the county to keep about $11 million in new tax dollars.

The company would also benefit, saving about $10 million over the next 30 years that would otherwise be collected as tax.

Photo courtesy of Mirror Dog Productions

Macomb County, Mich. County Executive Mark Hackel has makeup applied during the filming of an independent movie.

MICHIGAN

Former MACOMB COUNTY sheriff now county executive Mark Hackel has been back in uniform lately. This time, he's portraying a sheriff in an independent film, Urban Myths. It's being produced by a former Macomb Township resident and shot in Michigan.

While Hackel has no previous acting experience, he said he's been "very engaged" with the media since his Sheriff's Office days "way back when." So it was easy to say "yes" when he was asked to participate. "I just needed to know what the script was and make sure it wasn't something that was over the top," he said, "meaning something that would conflict with my own personal views of what a police officer should or should not be doing in a movie or in real life."

The movie is about a group of high school seniors on a spring break camping trip to check out a series of myths. They happen upon a haunted Indian burial ground when eerie, paranormal events start to occur.

The film could be released by the end of this year or in early 2016.

MINNESOTA

It's official. The human services departments of WASECA, STEELE and DODGE counties are now consolidated, effective Jan. 1. The three-county collaboration is called Minnesota Prairie County Alliance, or MNPrairie, the Waseca County News reported.

"The goal is to become more efficient and effective in what we do," said Charity Floen, director of Steele and Waseca County Human Services. Clients will still be served at the same local sites, with most of the efficiencies being realized on the back end.

For example, Steele County will be the IT and human relations host for MNPrairie. Dodge County will be the fiscal host, responsible for payroll and providing support to accounting staff. Waseca isn't currently slated to host any operational areas, owing to its lack of capacity to do so, according to an MNPrairie official.

NEVADA

The CLARK COUNTY Commission's denial of 58 applications to open medical marijuana dispensaries signaled that the county isn't backing down from a tug of war with the state over which entity gets the final say on dispensary licensing.

The commission chose its 18 preferred dispensary operators in June, the maximum allowed in unincorporated parts of the county under state law. But when the state conducted its own separate licensing process last fall, it agreed with only 10 of the county's picks.

The discrepancy has created a legal gray area in which eight applicants have county approval but lack a state license while eight other applicants have approval from the state but not the county.

Without approval from both the state and the county, the dispensaries can't open, which prompted a lawsuit and has led to the likelihood that nearly half of the county's dispensaries won't open for the foreseeable future.

The County Commission is attempting to force the state to reopen its licensing process and reconsider the county-backed applicants, the Las Vegas Sun reported.

NEW JERSEY

ATLANTIC COUNTY officials want to be sure any state tax aid for their casinos also helps their taxpayers.

The Board of Freeholders passed a resolution calling on the Legislature to give taxpayers equal consideration in relief bills.

The Associated Press reported a series of proposed bills would let casinos make reduced payments in lieu of taxes, but the county tax board predicts that plan would raise taxes on the county's home and business owners.

BERGEN COUNTY's 103-member police department may become a bureau of the sheriff's office, bringing the total capacity to 255 officers.

An agreement to that end was one of new County Executive James Tedesco's first acts, and will be voted on by the Board of Freeholders, The Record reported.

NEW YORK

Counties in New York that operate or operated nursing homes are getting a late Christmas present worth millions of dollars, courtesy of a settlement with the state over reimbursement, according to PostStar.com. WARREN COUNTY is among those that will receive a portion of the estimated $850 million settlement.

Since the 1990s, counties have filed more than 5,000 appeals questioning the state's reimbursement rate for Medicaid-eligible patients.

OHIO

Private investors could benefit from efficient social service work in CUYAHOGA COUNTY's new plan to help homeless families.

The "Pay for Success" program aims to reunite homeless parents with their children who have been in foster care more quickly by providing them with temporary housing and social services. The county solicits private investors to underwrite its efforts, and if the program succeeds in saving money on foster care, the investors can get their money back, plus up to a 2 percent profit.

Officials billed the program as the first of its kind in the nation to be run by a county government, according to The Plain Dealer.

The new program will target 135 randomly selected homeless families with children who are in the foster care system. The county will compare the results of the 135 families alongside another 135 families that will be referred to other existing services. Researchers at Case Western Reserve University will analyze the results to see if the new program has a better outcome.

OREGON

The number of homeless people camping illegally on DESCHUTES COUNTY property is driving county officials to consider a new ordinance.

It would allow the county to clear sites with 24-hours notice, The Bulletin reported. Under current regulations, the county has to go through a longer process of declaring an illegal encampment a health hazard, said County Administrator Tom Anderson.

The goal is not to shut down all homeless camps on county land but rather to create tools for use when an encampment causes problems, he added.

TEXAS

DALLAS COUNTY may soon change its family medical leave rules to allow gay employees and others with nontraditional families to take time off to care for a sick loved one.

The proposed change would sidestep Texas' ban on gay marriage by allowing any worker gay or straight to designate one nonrelative as a designated care recipient. If that person gets sick, the employee could take an unpaid leave of absence to provide care.

Counties in the southern part of the state are having trouble funding repairs to their roads damaged by heavy oil equipment trucks because of a 54-year-old legal opinion.

A 1960 opinion by then-Attorney General Will Wilson gives leasing rights to the ground under county-owned roads and the resulting oil revenue, to the state. Counties can already negotiate leases for mineral rights under buildings they own, such as courthouses.

The 30 counties atop the Eagle Ford Shale are missing out on, potentially, millions of dollars, and DEWITT COUNTY Judge Daryl Fowler and representatives from other counties will ask the next Legislature to allow counties to negotiate leases, or at least receive some of the money the state gets from leasing mineral rights around roads.

"We still have to maintain the roads, and in many cases we're rebuilding the roads," Fowler said. "The state is actually benefiting from the revenue stream. We're paying for the maintenance, but we're not getting any benefit from the production. Somebody is eating a free lunch."

It would cost more than $400 million to repair and upgrade more than 300 miles of roads in DeWitt County, according to a 2012 report by an engineering firm hired by the county, the Texas Tribune reported.

A woman pleaded guilty to helping her husband plot and carry out the assassinations of the KAUFMAN COUNTY district attorney, his wife and a top assistant in 2014.

Kim Williams, 48, testified against her husband in December at his capital murder trial, saying that she was in the car during the slayings and served as the getaway driver at one of the crime scenes.

Eric Lyle Williams, 47, was sentenced to death Dec. 17 in connection with killing Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland, 63; his wife, Cynthia McLelland, 65; and a top prosecutor, Mark Hasse, 57.

Williams' now-estranged wife's testimony helped prosecutors send him to death row in Livingston.

WASHINGTON

YAKIMA COUNTY commissioners are considering creating a county business license system to keep marijuana businesses from opening in unincorporated parts of the county.

The state attorney general said that the initiative that legalized recreational marijuana use doesn't prevent local governments from banning marijuana operations, the Yakima Herald reported. The proposed measure would also alert the county to other authorized businesses that begin operating in violation of zoning ordinances.

State law specifies some businesses that counties can require licenses for, such as dog kennels, massage parlors, liquor stores and trading stamp businesses, but then goes on to say "there may be others."

(News From the Nation's Counties is compiled by Charles Taylor and Charlie Ban, senior staff writers. If you have an item for News From, please email ctaylor@naco.org or cban@naco.org.)