July 4 Bottle Rockets Spark County Building Fire; TLC Show’s Zoning Reality
Connecting state and local government leaders
Also in our State and Local Daily Digest: A coal ash connection in Okla. community?; Los Alamos toxic waste removal; and fixing software glitches in Michigan.
HILLSBOROUGH, NORTH CAROLINA
FIREWORKS | Fourth of July festivities got out of hand, when illegal bottle rockets sparked a fire causing $30,000 in damages to the roof of a building housing Orange County government offices. The Register of Deeds office suffered water damage as a result. Bottle rocket remains were found on the roof and in the parking lot below, and authorities suspect someone was shooting them off the roof. [The News & Observer]
MYRTLE BEACH, SOUTH CAROLINA
ZONING | A mobile home park featured in the TLC reality show “Welcome to Myrtle Manor” is seeking a zoning change from the city so it can operate a souvenir shop without getting special permission every 90 days. A fourth season of the show, which chronicles life in Patrick’s Mobile Home Park, is currently in limbo. Cecil Patrick, who owns the park, needs special permission to sells merchandise, like T-shirts, at his shop because it’s located in a residential zone. “It’s something we’ve been doing for five years,” he said. The city’s director of planning, Carol Coleman, said the city wants to allow some retail in mobile home parks without making drastic changes to zoning rules. “The concern was—are we going to be opening it up so that every mobile home park is going to open some retail or something like that?” she said. [The State]
BOKOSHE, OKLAHOMA
COAL ASH | About 130 million tons of coal ash are produced each year, and utilities often store them in unlined, unmonitored ponds—leakage from which is plaguing small towns. Many Bokoshe residents struggle with asthma, but because there’s no proven connection, and the ash is not officially designated “hazardous,” problems persist. "It starts from the top down," said one resident. "Our governor, our congressmen—all of them. They protect that." [National Public Radio]
LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO
TOXIC WASTE | To get rid of toxic material left behind by Cold War era atomic research, Department of Energy contractors will begin removing soil in Los Alamos Canyon this week. The work will involve five sites, spread across one acre and about 125 cubic yards of soil is set to be excavated. One of the sites is said to contain arsenic, the other four Plutonium 2399240. As it stands, the area is considered safe to hike in, but living there is seen as hazardous. The cleanup is one of many covered by a consent order signed last month by the the New Mexico Environment Department and the U.S. Department of Energy. [The Los Alamos Monitor]
LANSING, MICHIGAN
DIGITAL GOVERNMENT | Several costly software glitches in recent years have hindered the state government’s efforts to automate services, as well as take them mobile and into the cloud. Most recently, a Department of Health and Human Services system error notified thousands of seniors and people with disabilities their Social Security benefits would be cut. Now the Michigan Department of Technology, Management and Budget is changing the way it launches new programs, so there’s more testing and employee involvement from the start. [Lansing State Journal]
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