A Plan to Ship Water From Alaska to California; In Montana, No Sodium Pentathol, No Executions
Blue Lake in Alaska. Chad Zuber / Shutterstock.com
Connecting state and local government leaders
Also: Colorado forms an Indian mascot commission and Miami-Dade inching into the open-data era.
Here’s some of what we’ve been reading today…
LOS ANGELES, California: U.S. Rep. Janice Hahn is intrigued by a proposal to ship billions of gallons of Alaska lake water to drought-plagued California, reports the Daily Breeze. On Monday, she organized a meeting of representatives from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to consider a pitch from Alaska Bulk Water, a company that owns the rights to Blue Lake water located in Sitka, Alaska. “Nobody said it wasn’t going to work,” Hahn told the paper, but she acknowledged that shipping water from Alaska to Southern California poses challenges: It’s a long way to cart water and the ports would have to build pipelines and storage facilities. “Nobody signed up for it,” Hahn said after the meeting. “But it’s a very interesting concept… We’re considering a lot of this as conceptual at this point with a lot of details to be worked out.” The congresswoman is preparing to run for an open seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors next year. She suggested Catalina Island could make use of the Alaska water plan. [Daily Breeze]
HELENA, Montana: There will be no executions in Big Sky Country for the foreseeable future, reports The Associated Press. It’s a now-familiar story but with a twist. Like many other death penalty states, Montana has run out of lethal-injection drugs. Unlike other states, Montana laws dictating which drugs can be used to carry out lethal injections are strict and particular, as District Judge Jeffrey Sherlock pointed out this week in a ruling staying executions. Statutes specifically require the use of “rapidly acting” sedatives, like sodium pentothal. But that drug is no longer manufactured in the United States, and foreign makers won’t import it for use in executions. Other states have used substitute drugs, but Sherlock ruled that those drugs “do not meet the ‘ultra-fast’ [acting] classification required by the Montana legislature.” The decision is not about whether the death penalty is constitutional, according to the AP, but only whether the drug being used satisfies Montana law. [Associated Press via the Billings Gazette]
DENVER, Colorado: American Indian tribes in the Centennial State long ago grew tired of stereotypical “warrior,” “brave,” “savage,” “redskin” mascots and the like parading through the halls and across the fields of the state’s high schools. Democratic members of the legislature tried to pass a bill last spring that would have required schools to win tribal approval to continue using the mascots. The bill was about creating dialogue, said the sponsors. Republican lawmakers thought the bill was an unnecessary overreach. The bill drew a lot of press and colorful support and protest before failing to pass. But Gov. John Hickenlooper wasn’t prepared to let the proposal die, reports The Denver Post. This week he signed an executive order creating a high school mascot commission that will include members of local tribes like the Meskwaki, Ojibwe, Laguna and Isleta Pueblo. [The Denver Post ]
MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Florida: Can public data be considered “open data” if it is incomplete and buried in an interface that is cumbersome and confusing to use. Miami-Dade County’s online data is incomplete and its interfaces confusing to use, reports local station WLRN, so commissioners are weighing a resolution to change that, spurred in part by the area’s growing tech industry. The move is not just about serving tech entrepreneurs, say supporters. It’s also about joining the increasing numbers of municipal governments around the country that are tapping the public for help running things—to find stolen bikes, redraw parking plans, map potholes, and so on. [WLRN]
AUSTIN, Texas: Metal shackles and, more recently, wrist-and-ankle zip ties are staples of U.S. law enforcement. But Cedar Park police thought they could do better. They’ve turned to a new restraining technology, something called a “Wrap,” which is a kind of velcro seat belt, reports the American-Statesman. The device “allows officers to address the threat of physical harm more quickly and using less force than may have traditionally been required,” said Cedar Park Police Chief Sean Mannix. Each wrap costs about $1,000. The device was invented by two Walnut Creek, California, sergeants. “Once people are placed into it, they tend to calm down, said a Cedar Park officer. “Our last guy fell asleep in it.” [American-Statesman]
John Tomasic is a journalist who lives in Boulder, Colorado.
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