Feds Charge N.Y. Town Supervisor Over Ballpark Financing; Too Many Empty Hotel Rooms in Texas

RAMAPO, NEW YORK
INDICTMENTS | An elected town supervisor and the executive director of the local economic development authority in this Rockland County municipality are facing federal charges connected to the financing of a controversial minor league baseball stadium. According to the indictment, released Thursday, the two attempted “to defraud investors in all bonds issued by the town” and made “materially false and misleading statements.” [The New York Times; U.S. Department of Justice]

COTULLA, TEXAS
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT | During the Eagle Ford shale oil boom from 2009 to 2014, 20 new hotels were built in this tiny South Texas town of 4,000 residents. Now that the boom has gone bust, many of the hotel rooms in town are empty. “They don’t have enough rooms when it’s booming,” according to one hotel industry consultant. “Then they build a bunch of rooms, and they’ve got too many rooms.” [Texas Tribune]

PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND
UNEMPLOYMENT | Although Rhode Island added 2,700 new jobs from February to March, the state’s unemployment remains stuck at 5.4 percent, according to new state labor data released Thursday. Looking at the first quarter, the Ocean State lost jobs in January and added only 300 jobs in February. So with the job growth in March, there was only a net gain of 2,400 jobs over the first three months of the year. [Providence Journal]

TRENTON, NEW JERSEY
STATE AND CITY RELATIONS | Lawmakers offered up a new option for allowing Atlantic City to deal with its financial problems, and it may be the distressed city’s final chance to turn its fiscal affairs around. With the seaside city set to run out of money in weeks, a compromise proposed would give the city through the end of the summer to figure out a recovery plan. If local leaders go along with the plan, state lawmakers would ask Gov. Chris Christie to offer a bridge loan to cover the city’s most immediate bills. [NJ.com]

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
PARKING | The owner of a car that’s been parked at San Diego International Airport since last June faces a hefty parking fee of $7,300. The airport’s $24 per day fee increased in April to $30 per day. The car was ticketed last September for having expired registration tags. ACE Parking, which operates the airport lot, uses a license-plate scanner which should have flagged the car as unmoved after 60 days, but “[w]e’ve been having problems with that system for the last six months,” the head of airport parking said. [San Diego Reader]

PHOENIX, ARIZONA
EDUCATION | Arizona voters will vote in May on Proposition 123, a ballot measure aimed at boosting education funding and resolve a lawsuit the state is facing for underfunding public schools during the last recession. But four of Arizona’s former state treasurers, all Republicans, are urging voters to reject the measure and want the state to go back to the drawing table to figure out a way to settle the education underfunding problem. [The Arizona Republic]

FRANKFORT, KENTUCKY
BUDGET | Kentucky lawmakers passed a budget on Thursday that cuts university and college budgets by 4.5 percent over the next two years and provides more than $1 billion to cash-strapped public pension programs. Most state agencies will see their budgets slashed by 9 percent over the next two years. [Lexington Herald-Leader]

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
INFRASTRUCTURE | Keep your fingers crossed: Bertha, the troubled tunnel boring machine digging a new underground route along Seattle’s waterfront to replace the State Route 99 / Alaskan Way Viaduct, will be passing under the seismically vulnerable double-decker highway within the next few weeks. The soft soils along the waterfront made tunneling difficult, and a sinkhole that previously developed on the surface along Bertha’s route has many worried about what would happen if a sinkhole opens up underneath the viaduct itself. [Crosscut]

HELENA, MONTANA
WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT | State wildlife officials are recommending that the Montana Fish and and Wildlife Commission reject proposed restrictions on commercial floating operations that some fishing advocates want to protect the Boulder River’s ecosystem. An increase in commercial fishing trips is straining the habitat for fish in the river, argue the advocates, something state wildlife officials say isn’t the case. [The Associated Press via Missoulian]

DENVER, COLORADO
RESTAURANT INSPECTIONS | Colorado’s legislature may be poised to change the state’s system for restaurant inspection reports. A deal with the restaurant industry would increase the licensing fees paid by local food establishments every year through 2019. And, in the new plan, restaurants would not receive a publicly available score, letter, or number grade. Not everyone is a fan of this plan. Dr. Richard Raymond, the retired Under Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture for Food Safety who now lives in Northern Colorado, wrote, “If our restaurants go to a pass/fail scoring system, I am guessing there will be many who do just the minimum to get by and pass, which would cover current grading from excellent to marginal and no one will be the wiser. At least not until 2-3 days later, that is…” [Food Safety News]