Bad News for Detroit Homeowners; Georgia’s Colorado Marijuana Field Trip
Detroit, Michigan James R. Martin / Shutterstock.com
Also: Oklahoma’s Capitol building management challenges and a framework for the big Hudson River tunnel project?
Here’s some of what we’ve been reading today …
DETROIT, Michigan: Homeowners in Michigan’s largest city are facing higher insurance premiums due to a recent downward change in fire protection ratings. As The Detroit News reports, the city is trying to improve its fire protection rating. “Clearly, Detroit was hurt by the downgrading of the status,” Eric Jones, Detroit’s new fire commissioner, told The News. “The mayor made it one of my highest priorities. ... It’s huge.” [The Detroit News]
ATLANTA, Georgia: The Peach State lawmaker leading the charge to bring a medical marijuana program to the state is leading a field trip to Colorado this week. State Rep. Allen Peake, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, says that he’s not interested in Georgia legalizing recreational marijuana sales. “The biggest question may be what do we make sure that we don’t do,” he said, according to the newspaper. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]
NEW YORK CITY, New York: Who will take the lead on the massive project to build new Amtrak rail tunnels under the Hudson River in and out of New York City’s Penn Station? As Politico New York reported on Friday, representatives from the states of New York and New Jersey, the bi-state Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the federal government are sorting out a framework for a separate authority to manage the critical infrastructure project. A separate authority has been something U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York has been pressing for.
Here’s how New York City transportation blogger Benjamin Kabak of Second Avenue Sagas views the intergovernmental complexities and how pursuing a separate authority might be good move:
While the Port Authority’s reputation is a factor in this debate, another driving factor motivating Schumer involves political control. The New York Senator has long stated his preference for a new entity that better access federal funding sources while both New York and New Jersey governors have pushed the Port Authority as the entity responsible for building out the tunnel. As we’ve seen over the years, Andrew Cuomo and Chris Christie have turned the Port Authority into fiefdoms of patronage, and Schumer knows maintaining federal control over this project involves removing decision-making capabilities from the states.
Negotiations are continuing on what the framework looks like, according to Politico, but one source said that it’d include one representative from Amtrak, one from the U.S. Department of Transportation and two Port Authority representatives. [Politico New York; Second Avenue Sagas]
SIOUX FALLS, South Dakota: Plenty of U.S. cities are facing challenges involving homeless populations and medium-sized cities are not immune. In Sioux Falls, the Argus Leader chatted with a South Sudanese refugee who has been sleeping in an abandoned building, risking a trespassing arrest. As the Argus Leader reports:
It's a confession of desperation and defiance that seems to repeat itself frequently these days in the aftermath of the city's 5-year-old decision to emphasize the arrests of loiterers, vagrants and a growing population of the untreated mentally ill who show up in places where they're not welcome. The numbers are staggering. Since 2010, arrests for trespassing in Sioux Falls are up 1,264 percent – from 31 in 2010 to 423 in 2014. Failure to vacate has risen 121 percent; disorderly conduct, 63.5 percent.
It’s a difficult problem with no easy solutions since you simply can’t wish the homelessness problem away. But one thing is clear: "Arresting trespassers is a temporary solution, and that's where it gets frustrating," Stacey Tieszen, coordinator of the Sioux Falls Homeless Advisory Board, told the newspaper. [Argus Leader]
OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma: At the Sooner State’s Capitol, there’s a problem with shared responsibility for building management spread out among 20 different governmental stakeholders, including the House, Senate and the governor’s office. As The Oklahoman reports “fire alarm systems don't communicate properly with each other, there are multiple styles of doors and different offices use different kinds of light bulbs.” What’s the solution? As the Capitol is being rehabbed, there’s an opportunity to sort out the jurisdictional complications with some “sort of a holistic management structure where you have more of a partnership or strategy of how every operation in the state Capitol is managed,” Trait Thompson, the project manager for the Capitol renovations, told the newspaper. [The Oklahoman]
(Photo by James R. Martin / Shutterstock.com)
Michael Grass is Executive Editor of Government Executive’s Route Fifty.
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