News from Across the Nation - Aug. 22, 2016

CALIFORNIA

• There’s a new sheriff town in SANTA CRUZ COUNTY…or at least a deputy, if only for a day. Eight-year-old Nicky Clark Kent Draper was sworn in as an honorary deputy by the county Sheriff’s Office on Aug. 6.

Nicky has suffered from an undisclosed serious illness since the age of 3 that requires him to undergo regular chemotherapy, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reported.

When a sheriff’s office employee learned of Nicky’s interest in law enforcement, the agency invited his family and him to visit without providing details of what the day would entail.

Deputy Draper received a custom-made pint-sized deputy’s uniform, sunglasses and his own badge. A highlight of the day had Nicky arresting a “perp” for a motor vehicle infraction. Deputy Mike Pruger played the role during a staged traffic stop.

A woman who identified herself on Facebook as Nicky’s mother posted to the Sheriff’s Office page: “…I’d like to thank you all from the bottom of my heart. This was an incredibly [special] day for him and we talk about it daily!! He will always remember how special you made him feel.”

Photo courtesy of Santa Cruz County, Calif. Sheriff’s Office

• It’ll be up to LAKE COUNTY voters to decide in November if the county should tax commercial medical marijuana growers. If the tax passes, growers in unincorporated areas of the county would be billed from $1 per square foot for outdoor cultivation to $3 for indoor growers.

Individuals who grow medicinal pot for personal use and caregivers growing for up to five people would be exempt.

According to The Press Democrat, the tax could generate about $8 million per year for the county.

 

COLORADO

In other cannabis news, DOUGLAS COUNTY commissioners have passed one of the state’s toughest laws on medical marijuana growers. The ordinance, which applies to unincorporated parts of the county, restricts the number of plants at one’s primary residence to a dozen, bans outdoor “grows” and prohibits renters cultivating the drug without the property owner’s permission.

Additionally, growing or processing areas will need to be fully enclosed and locked. Common areas of multifamily or attached housing developmenst are not permitted as grow areas, the Denver Post reported.

FLORIDA

NACo President Bryan Desloge isn’t the only LEON COUNTY official who stepped into a national leadership position this year. County Attorney Herb Thiele is now president of the International Association of Municipal Attorneys.

At the state level, Commissioner Nick Maddox was elected second vice president of the Florida Association of Counties last month, according to County Board Chairman Bill Proctor, and County Administrator Vince Long serves as president of the Florida Association of County Administrators.

GEORGIA

There’s a whole lot of squawking — and maybe even talking — going on in DEKALB COUNTY, where county officials are looking for volunteers to take care for more than 300 parrots seized in an animal hoarding case. The birds were removed from a local man’s home last month, according to the Associated Press.

DeKalb’s animal services officials said they needed help with feeding, watering, cleaning and other tasks. No experience necessary, but volunteers can’t already have pet birds in their homes.

ILLINOIS

Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) has signed a bill that would allow the MCHENRY and LAKE COUNTY Boards to eliminate a handful of small governmental units. The bill authorizes the County Board to do away with any taxing body for which they appoint a majority of trustees, the Northwest Herald reported, if its boundaries are completely inside the taxing district.

Under the new law, county boards must give a legitimate reason why the body to be eliminated provides duplicative or unnecessary services. Voters within the body’s boundaries can petition the county clerk to call a referendum on the proposed elimination.

Illinois has almost 7,000 units of local government.

KANSAS

WYANDOTTE and JOHNSON counties will have to find another source to fund their sex education programs — or end them after next year — now that health officials declined to renew federal grants.

Since 2010, the counties received nearly $500,000 annually to provide sex education courses in local schools to prevent teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, according to The Kansas City Star.

The federal government makes similar grants available to local agencies whose states don’t apply, but those are competitive, rather than formula, grants.

Kansas is one of seven states that decided not to apply for grants from the federal Personal Responsibility Education Program this year. The others are Florida, Texas, Virginia, Indiana, North Dakota and South Dakota.

MARYLAND

• MONTGOMERY COUNTY will exceed its commitment to install 6 megawatts of solar power on county facilities by adding a new project at a former landfill. The county’s departments of Environmental Protection and General Services recently signed a contract to add 5 megawatts of solar power. That would nearly double the amount of clean energy generated on county property.

With the new solar project, the county could generate more than 13 million kilowatt-hours of electricity each year. That’s enough to power more than 1,300 homes.

• Public-private partnerships (P3) will be a part of ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY’s strategy to clean up more than 530 miles of shoreline.

The county’s FY17 budget includes $5 million for storm water projects that will be designed and built by county government and the private sector. Vendors will make proposals on a package of projects that will remove pollutants such as phosphorous and nitrogen from the Chesapeake Bay.

A request for proposals will be issued in the next few weeks for P3 projects to supplement the county’s storm water program and help it meet federal waterway cleanup deadlines, County Executive Steve Schuh said.

NEW YORK

NIAGARA COUNTY has activated a 31-acre foreign trade zone in which commercial merchandise would be exempted from customs duties and ad valorem taxes.

A 1970s-era U.S. law encouraged development of foreign trade zones. The Canadian firm Borderworx Logistics will initially operate the zone. The firm, the county and the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency must still formalize the operating agreement.

NORTH CAROLINA

DURHAM COUNTY sheriff’s deputies no longer have to wait for animals locked in cars to show signs of distress before they intervene.

The department’s new policy, adopted in early August, directs deputies to document a vehicle’s interior and exterior temperatures at least twice and use their discretion as to whether an animal should be recovered from the vehicle and if it should be returned to the owner or if criminal charges should be filed.

OHIO

Share Ohio, a heavy-equipment-sharing network among governments, got a big boost when CUYAHOGA COUNTY agreed to join.

The state auditor established the program in 2014 to allow communities to share expensive, but often sparingly used, equipment. The county will be adding an asphalt roller, backhoe, large dump trucks, a concrete mixer, backhoe and mini-excavator to the database, The Plain Dealer reported.

The county was waiting on a new state law regarding assumed potential liability before joining.

PENNSYLVANIA

• As opioid drug overdoses rose in ALLEGHENY COUNTY, the health department has crunched the numbers to help direct anti-drug efforts.

A report has identified the hardest-hit neighborhoods in the county, based on a variety of data sets, including emergency and health care information, from 2008 through 2014.

The analysis started with 1,962 accidental overdose deaths in Allegheny County over those seven years, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. Of those, 1,355 were county residents whose deaths were related to opioids including prescription drugs, heroin and fentanyl.

• Most jurors in WESTMORELAND COUNTY are paid $9, given the small number of cases that go to trial. Now President Judge Richard McCormick Jr. will ask jurors to donate those checks to charity.

The Tribune-Review reported that the county paid more than $78,000 in 2015 to jurors for daily wages and mileage expenses, and almost 3,600 of those jurors were paid for just one day of service. In addition, 301 received wages for trials that lasted for two or three days — at $25 per additional day.

Donations will benefit the Blackburn Center Against Domestic and Sexual Violence and the Court Appointed Special Advocates.

TEXAS

GRIMES COUNTY is trying to stop a bullet — a bullet train, that is, planned between Houston and Dallas.

The County Commission voted to require high-speed rail developers to acquire a permit and provide sufficient proof of eminent domain authority before building a rail line over county roads, the Texas Tribune reported.

VIRGINIA

ROANOKE, GILES AND CRAIG counties have asked the federal commission reviewing the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline to delay issuing a draft environmental impact statement that’s currently set for release in September.

The counties contend that too many questions raised by the staff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the U.S. Forest Service and pipeline opponents remain unanswered or unresolved about the proposed natural gas transmission pipeline, according to The Roanoke Times.

The proposed 301-mile, 42-inch diameter, buried pipeline would transport natural gas at high pressure from WETZEL COUNTY, W.Va., to the Transco pipeline in PITTSYLVANIA COUNTY, Va.

WASHINGTON

A majority of SNOHOMISH COUNTY voters rejected a ballot measure that would have increased sales taxes to pay for more sheriff’s deputies to crack down on heroin and opioid painkiller trafficking, and for more social service and treatment programs, the Seattle Times reported.

News From the Across the Nation 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.