Pennsylvania’s High Cost of Bad Behavior; Montana City Wins Private Equity Water Fight
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Connecting state and local government leaders
Also in our state and local news roundup: An Arizona mayor's tasing and a Virginia county’s increasing profanity penalties.
HARRISBURG and READING, Pennsylvania: As any number of business management hardcovers will tell you, bad feelings and bad communications will sink an enterprise. Toxic work relationships present the same general problem in the public sector, of course. Writing on Pennsylvania’s Act 47 program to help cash-strapped local governments, Keystone Crossroads, a public media collaborative project on the commonwealth’s struggling cities, recently took a look at the financial cost of personal antagonisms and inter-office grudges in government. It’s hard to put a definitive price tag on bad behavior but, as Emily Previti reports, it’s probably very high, partly for compounding existing problems:
“[E]ven though distressed municipalities have no room for error and cannot afford for anything to delay or derail government initiatives… bad blood and controversy are practically universal in struggling cities.
Previti reports some key deals in Pennsylvania cities that have gone south as a result of grudges and lists bitter intergovernmental lawsuits that likely scare away investment and new revenue-creating ventures. She also rounds up examples of how other states have made better efforts to ensure public employees work like grownups for the people. [Keystone Crossroads / Newsworks]
MISSOULA, Montana: A district court judge in Montana on Monday sided with the city of Missoula in its fight to control its water system. Officials in Missoula had previously sought to purchase Mountain Water Co. from The Carlyle Group private equity firm, but when the city’s offer was denied, they moved to take control through eminent domain powers, which The Carlye Group had fought, the Missoulian reports. “Based on credible evidence at trial, the Court concludes that the object of this condemnation proceeding, the use of the water system, is a public use for which the right of eminent domain may properly be exercised" under Montana law, the judge wrote in her ruling. [Missoulian]
ARLINGTON, Virginia: You want to provoke with salty tongue? You want to shout to the high heavens foul language as a form a late-night catharsis in the land of the free? Go ahead and do it in Arlington County, but you will pay for the pleasure—now $250 per incident. Last year, police in this jurisdiction across the river from Washington, D.C., arrested 664 people for profanity and inebriation, and the county board had had enough. Members passed an ordinance on Saturday more than doubling Arlington’s $100 fine for public lewdness and intoxication. As Benjamin Freed writes in Washingtonian:
Arlington, once a frequent site of organized bar crawls, cracked down on the festivities last year after several events ended in brawls, public urination, and at least one instance of a man taking off all his clothes and jumping into a car to flee police. (He didn’t make it very far.)
In fact, as Freed points out, the new higher fines in Arlington now match fines levied across Virginia for the same offenses. [Washingtonian]
GLENDALE, Arizona: Yes, not as game changing as Bob Dylan’s 1965 appearance at the Newport Folk Festival, but Jerry Weiers, the mayor of this suburban Phoenix city, drew attention when he went electric last Wednesday. That is, he volunteered to be publicly tasered to raise money for the 100 Club of Arizona, a charity that supports families of police officers injured or killed in the line of duty. Under a canopy in the Southwest sun and in a riot of hoots and hollers, Weiers took a shot to the back and collapsed shouting onto a mattress. Officers held onto his arms to soften the landing. “I wanted to do something shocking," Weiers quipped in an interview with the Arizona Republic. It was also a chance for one angry resident to take out some aggression on city officials, who recently decided to ditch Glendale’s arrangement with the state’s NHL team, the Coyotes, which plays at an arena in the city. [Arizona Republic]
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