State & Local Daily Digest: Recession Risk From Soo Locks Closure; Maine Marijuana Defeat
The Soo Locks in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. ehrlif / Shutterstock.com
Also in our news roundup: Colorado’s Amazon sales tax conundrum and Harrisburg livability gets big boost.
SAULT STE. MARIE, MICHIGAN
INFRASTRUCTURE | What would happen if the Soo Locks along the St. Mary’s River, a major shipping channel that connects Lake Superior with Lake Huron, somehow failed and couldn’t restart operations for six months? A Department of Homeland Security report paints a less-than-pleasant economic picture, which includes a U.S. recession, major disruptions in the auto and mining industries and 11 million jobs lost nationwide. [Detroit Free Press]
AUGUSTA, MAINE
MARIJUANA | Proponents of a ballot initiative that would legalize marijuana in the state of Maine vow to appeal a decision by the Secretary of State’s office that invalidated 17,000 signatures because of a handwriting technicality involving one notary. The office of Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap says it could only validate 51,543 signatures, which fell short of the state’s 61,123 signature requirement. [Bangor Daily News]
DENVER, COLORADO
TAXES | After many years, the state government has pressed Amazon to collect Colorado’s 2.9 percent sales tax for online purchases that originated within the Centennial State. But there’s a problem. Without changes to the state’s tax structure, much of the money collected will be returned to Coloradans through the state’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which limits state and local governments in what they can tax and spend. [The Denver Post]
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
CRIME | A Baltimore Department of Public Works employee was fatally shot inside a municipal building’s locker room on Thursday morning. Police are searching for the suspect, who is reportedly a city employee. [WJZ]
JEFFERSON CITY, MISSOURI
TRANSPARENCY | Members of a Missouri House committee have given the thumbs up to legislation under consideration that would restrict public access to certain information from police reports for certain types of situations, including suicide attempts and sex crimes. [St. Louis Post Dispatch]
DES MOINES, IOWA
TRANSPORTATION | A new Des Moines Register / Mediacom poll of Iowa residents shows very strong support—71 percent—for shifting long-haul truck traffic along Interstate 80 to specially built truck lanes in the 306-mile cross-state highway corridor. [Des Moines Register]
WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
LAW ENFORCEMENT TECH | The District of Columbia’s $220 million state-of-the-art crime lab has restarted some limited DNA testing operations after they were shut down in April following an accrediting organization found that lab analysts were “not competent and were using inadequate procedures.” [The Washington Post]
TIPTON, INDIANA
STATE AND CITY RELATIONS | The mayor of this community an hour’s drive north of Indianapolis thinks state lawmakers have made leading municipal governments far too difficult, with new local control restrictions on issues like elections, sewers, annexations, housing and taxes, among others. [The Indianapolis Star]
HOMEWOOD, ALABAMA
COMMUNITY RELATIONS | Joseph P. Riley Jr., the former mayor of Charleston, South Carolina, who retired in January, had a message about racial reconciliation during a conference at Samford University. While discussing last year’s racially motivated massacre at a historically African-American church in Charleston, Riley said: "The seeds of race war fell on rocky soil. It wouldn't work in our city." [AL.com]
HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA
PLACEMAKING | The capital of Pennsylvania has often been the butt of jokes and a place that hasn’t always instilled adoration. But here’s a feather that Harrisburg can put in its cap: U.S. News & World Report has ranked the Harrisburg-Carlisle region in the top 25 “Best Places to Live” in 2016 because it has “an urban atmosphere with a manageable price tag” though a place with “limited options for eating out and nightlife in general.” Congrats? [PennLive.com]
Michael Grass is Executive Editor of Government Executive’s Route Fifty. (Photo by ehrlif / Shutterstock.com)
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