Shooting Tragedy Shines Light on La. City-Court Budget Fight; Some Good News for Wis. ‘Dead Zones’
What went wrong in the small Louisiana community of Marksville? Joseph Sohm / Shutterstock.com
Also: Uber’s next target is Big Sky Country and Tulsa’s surplus fish tanks.
MARKSVILLE, Louisiana: The shooting death of a six-year-old child with autism at the hands of two city marshals—who were arrested on Friday—has led to a lot of soul searching in this tiny town near Alexandria and questions about what led to the tragedy. Among the concerns: Why were two city marshals, whose jobs are to serve arrest warrants, chasing the boy’s father, who was not armed and not the target of being served a warrant.
As The Washington Post notes, marshals in Marksville have taken on additional duties due to a conflict between the city government and the local judiciary. And it involves money:
The primary role of the marshals is to serve arrest warrants. A city judge has given them an expanded role in policing Marksville because of a financial dispute with the mayor. With their stepped-up role, the marshals are also collecting fines and fees for the city judge’s budget that otherwise were going to the city’s general budget.
The budgetary dispute involving the city and the local courts is not a new issue and has led to a litigation and additional questions about the jurisdiction of marshals inside city limits, as The Advocate reports:
Marksville Mayor John Lemoine said [Marksville Ward 2 Marshal Floyd] Voinche had hired deputies and acquired the patrol cars “about three months ago” and had started issuing citations — including traffic tickets — within the city limits, something Lemoine said went far beyond the marshal’s normal role, adding that city officials had been unable to get an explanation from Voinche.
Stay tuned … [The Washington Post; Baton Rouge Advocate]
GREEN BAY, Wisconsin: Some good news: A “dead zone” of oxygen deprivation in Lake Michigan’s Green Bay did not materialize at the level of intensity that had been predicted for 2015. There were just three days of low oxygen levels at the southern end of the bay, as the Journal Sentinel reports. While the amount of agricultural runoff into the bay hasn’t declined, weather conditions in 2015 and a variety of other factors have kept dead zones in the bay to a minimum. [Journal Sentinel]
FARGO, North Dakota: The Cass County Electric Cooperative’s Prairie Sun solar farm project just south of Fargo “has been slow to get off the ground,” The Forum reports, in part because of high costs. Only 86 of the 250 solar panels needed have been “fully subscribed” and the electric cooperative wants all 250 subscribed before building the solar panel array, which would be the largest in the Peace Garden State. [The Forum]
TULSA, Oklahoma: The Sooner State’s second-largest city should take in about $470,000 from this weekend’s surplus auction, where, the Tulsa World reports, “the city peddled everything from old patrol cruisers and city computers to a 1940s-edition military Jeep and other items either unused by the city or confiscated by police.” Among the curious items: A lot of fish tanks, including the 120-gallon tank bought by a local auto-repair shop owner, Wendell Sharpton, who asked: “Why would the city have so many fish tanks?” [Tulsa World]
HELENA, Montana: The popular ride-booking service Uber has an operational presence in all but a few of the 50 states—Montana, South Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming. But the San Francisco-based company intends to cross off Big Sky Country from that list. As The Associated Press reports, Uber’s Montana subsidiary has filed an application with the state’s Public Service Commission to jumpstart operations, though there is no target date to start operations. [The Associated Press via Spokesman Review]
Michael Grass is Executive Editor of Government Executive’s Route Fifty.
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