Maryland vs. 131,000 Toll Violators; Porn Email Scandal Snags More State Workers
Toll violators who cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and other tolled roadways in Maryland should pay up. Scandium / Shutterstock.com
Also in our State & Local news roundup: A Nebraska Supreme Court ruling has hit cigar bars and tobacco shop owners hard.
Here is our State & Local news roundup for November 13, 2014 …
PORTLAND, Oregon: Officials in Oregon’s largest city may have been a bit overly prepared for a winter storm that was supposed to cripple Thursday’s morning commute but didn’t materialize into anything too impressive. As Joseph Rose of The Oregonian reports, it took roughly nine hours to put chains on TriMet’s bus fleet. And with no snowy precipitation on the pavement, those snow chains have left their marks on the streets.
HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania: Additional state workers have been fired in the state government’s ongoing pornographic email scandal. As Pete Muntean of WGAL-TV reports, four workers in the state attorney general’s office have been fired and 11 have been suspended without pay. The scandal previously forced the resignation of a state Supreme Court justice and a member of Gov. Tom Corbett’s cabinet.
BALTIMORE, Maryland: Toll violators in the Old Line State, take notice. The Maryland Transportation Authority will start sending out notices next week to 131,000 vehicle owners warning them that if they do not settle their toll bills, the state may suspend or revoke their vehicle registration, Kevin Rector of the Baltimore Sun reports.
JOHNSON CITY, Tennessee: An open-records and open-meetings advocate in Tennessee told a group of journalism students this week that “state and local agencies often broaden protections that don’t apply to them, and citizens and the media should keep them accountable,” Becky Campbell of the Johnson City Press reports. Law enforcement officials often will skirt open-records responsibilities, even though there are “no exemptions about local police being able to withhold an offense report or incident report,” Deborah Fisher of the Tennessee Open Government Coalition told the journalism students.
LINCOLN, Nebraska: The Nebraska Supreme Court denied a motion from the state to reconsider its August ruling that eliminated smoking ban exemptions for cigar bars and tobacco shops. Martha Stoddard of the Omaha World-Herald reports that those “exemptions amounted to unconstitutional special legislation.”
(Image by Scandium / Shutterstock.com)