Algae ‘Should Scare People’ in Fla.; Another Arrest in Boston City Hall Corruption Probe
Connecting state and local government leaders
Also from our State and Local Daily Digest: Dangerous dams in Pennsylvania; sluggish software projects in Portland; and homelessness takes center stage in San Francisco.
STUART, FLORIDA
ALGAE | Martin County officials want state and federal authorities to declare a disaster over blue-green algae closing beaches along Florida’s Atlantic coast. More specifically, they want the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to close the locks between Lake Okeechobee and the St. Lucie River. The locks keep the lake’s water levels high but also pollute the local ecosystem. But suspending the flow would be detrimental to local jobs. “This is the first time we have had to close beaches due to algae in Martin County. This should scare people,” said Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch, a Sewall’s Point town commissioner. "We've had rashes on our hands. We're losing thousands of dollars. I want this fixed," said the owner of Billy Bones Bait & Tackle at an emergency county commission meeting. [Palm Beach Post; The Associated Press via Naples Daily News]
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
INDICTMENTS | A second high-level member of Boston Mayor Marty J. Walsh’s administration was arrested by federal authorities early Wednesday amid a corruption probe. Timothy Sullivan, the city’s acting director of Intergovernmental Relations, faces allegations that he, along with the city’s tourism director, Kenneth Brissette, were involved in a scheme to withhold permits from a music festival if the organizers did not hire union stage hands. Brissette was indicted in May. Walsh has strong ties to organized labor and is said to be personally close to Sullivan, who previously worked for the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. [The Boston Globe]
CHESTER COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
DAMS | One local county official called this the toughest call he had ever made in his three decades in government. The decision in question: whether or not to breach the county’s two dams that had been deemed dangerous by the state. The assessment from the state’s Department of Environmental Protection had found that a major rainfall could cause the dams to fail—an event that would threaten 39 homes and five business. A campaign to protect the dams had earned more than 1,000 signatures, however supporters were unable to raise the money needed to save one of the dams. [Philly.com]
PORTLAND, OREGON
CITY TECH | Portland officials severed ties earlier this month with Georgia-based Sierra-Cedar Inc., the lead contractor on a troubled software project. The city has run up a tab for the permitting a software project totalling $3.9 million, but the software itself is not even close to complete. Almost half of the money spent so far went to travel costs and management fees. City officials had initially hoped to have the software finished by 2015, but now they say it will likely take at least another 2½ years to complete. "I can't deny that technology projects and government are sort of like oil and water," said Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who oversees the Bureau of Development Services leading the project. "But then again, there are a lot of screw-ups in the private sector that you just never hear about." [The Oregonian]
COLUMBUS, NEBRASKA
ROADS | Platte County is considering replacing hard-surface roads with gravel as a cost-saving measure. Roads with cold-mix overlays aren’t withstanding heavy truck traffic, and some supervisors want to identify the most important county roads and put hot mix on those while returning the rest to gravel. “If it comes out that in the long run [that] Platte County should turn all these roads to gravel, that’s not going to fly,” said one. [The Columbus Telegram]
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
HOMELESSNESS | A coalition of more than 70 media organizations have come together for a 24 hour period to flood their corners of the internet with coverage of homelessness in the Bay Area. The initiative is being spearheaded by the San Francisco Chronicle. As one might expect, much of the reporting centers around city and state government efforts to address this issue that some estimates claim impacts up to 13,000 people in the region. One story takes an in-depth look at how the past five mayors of San Francisco worked to tackle homelessness. Another examines an algorithm that might be able to predict which members of the homeless community are most likely to be able to access public services. [San Francisco Homeless Project]
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