State and Local Daily Digest: Texas Gets OK to Join BLM Lawsuit; West Virginia Insect Swarm
Texas' Red River. Scott Sanders / Shutterstock.com
Also in our news roundup: Working to fix medical response in Memphis; low morale for New York City cops; and a Minnesota Vikings street-naming controversy.
RED RIVER, TEXAS
FEDERAL AND STATE RELATIONS | The state of Texas has gotten the OK to jump into a lawsuit challenging federal control of land along the Red River, which forms much of the Lone Star State’s border with Oklahoma. Seven landowners along the Red River are suing the Bureau of Land Management, which claims that some of the land falls under federal jurisdiction, not private ownership. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and other state officials are siding with the private landowners, and a U.S. District Court judge ruled that the state can officially join the lawsuit against the federal government. [Dallas Morning News]
CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA
SCIENCE | If you don’t like insects emerging from the ground en masse, don’t go to northern West Virginia in May. That’s when the periodic Brood V cicada swarm will dig out from their underground lairs after a 17-year slumber to head to the surface to mate and die. [Charleston Gazette-Mail]
ESCAMBIA COUNTY, ALABAMA
CORRECTIONS | Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley visited the site of a recent prison riot and told reporters Tuesday that considering current conditions in the state’s correctional facilities, he didn’t have confidence that the violence at the Holman Prison would be the last such incident. The governor has proposed that the state borrow $800 million to build four new prisons. [AL.com]
MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE
EMERGENCY RESPONSE | While improvements will take many years—and involve a lot of hard work—the city of Memphis is looking to totally revamp the delivery of emergency medical services, currently hampered by a big problem: there aren’t enough ambulances. The city has been working with IBM Smart Cities to study the challenges with medical dispatch and offer recommendations. [LocalMemphis.com]
ANCHORAGE, Alaska
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT | Civic boosters in many places like to trumpet lists where their city ranks high—as long as that ranking represents a good trait and characteristic to be proud of. What about a list of the nation’s “hardest working” cities. A high ranking on that list could be a sign of high productivity levels that are conducive for economic growth. Or it could represent a beleaguered, tired workforce that’s spread thin. In Alaska, where the state’s economy is facing extreme pressure from global energy prices, Anchorage comes out as the nation’s hardest working city, which factors in labor participation rate, average weekly hours and number of workers with multiple jobs. [WalletHub]
NEW YORK CITY
LAW ENFORCEMENT | “The city is less safe and police morale is low.” That’s the message coming from a survey of 6,000 members of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, a New York Police Department union. In the online survey, 87 percent said that in the past two years, the nation’s largest city has become “less safe.” [Politico New York]
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA
SPORTS | The Minnesota Vikings are less than pleased with planning officials in Minneapolis, who have denied the team’s request to rename Chicago Avenue outside its new stadium “Vikings Way.” The renaming request runs afoul of the city’s policies for street names, which include guidelines that disfavor naming streets for businesses. The City Council will get the final say in the matter, and there are moves to get additional concessions out of the Vikings before granting the team’s request. [Star Tribune]
TYRRELL COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA
CLIMATE CHANGE | This tiny, low-lying county on Albemarle Sound is projected to be the hardest-hit U.S. coastal county by rising sea levels. A new study on the possible impact scenarios for climate change shows 94 percent of Tyrrell County’s 3,600 residents are at risk from rising sea levels. [Bloomberg via Insurance Journal]
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT | A new kind of micro-manufacturing is coming to Steel City—spearheaded by Etsy. Working out of the Energy Innovation Center in the Hill District, the Brooklyn, New York-based online marketplace will pair small-scale manufacturers with its jewelry and apparel designers. “We want to help people create and get back to being a baseline manufacturing community,” said Bob Hurley, Allegheny County’s economic development director. [NEXTpittsburgh]
WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
URBAN PLANNING | When modeling a 19,000-seat soccer stadium, you can’t please everyone. But Populous and Marshall Moya Design will need the D.C. Zoning Commission’s approval on a new Major League Soccer stadium at Buzzard Point well before its 2018 season debut. While the panel supports the project, the initial reception to mockups of the D.C. United’s future home was less than favorable. "I actually looked at it and I thought, this reminds me of a prison, the facade," Commissioner Marcie Cohen said at Monday’s initial review. [Washington Business Journal]
Michael Grass is Executive Editor of Government Executive’s Route Fifty.
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