TABLE of CONTENTS June 2009
Cover StoryDesert Storm
BY John Buntin
From the front yard of her house in Redlands, California, Sherli Leonard looks out over the foothills of nearby mountains to San Timoteo Canyon.
In...
Features
Get Smart
Mention smart-grid technology to Frederick Butler, a utility regulator in New Jersey, and he'll immediately remind you of two recent crises. The first is the...
Laura Chick Is Watching
It took Laura Chick barely a month in Sacramento to start making waves. As California's new inspector general charged with overseeing how the state spends...
Shortfall Shock
Given a climate of national recession, Maine's budget process went pretty smoothly in 2009. Despite some scary revenue shortfalls, the legislature passed a $5.8 billion budget bill...
The Costliest Ride
In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, a city of just over 150,000 people, almost half of the annual public transit budget doesn't go for buses, or trolleys,...
Departments
Politics + Policy
Energy & Environment
Coal-Fired Compromise
No one expected Mark Parkinson to pursue an aggressive agenda as governor of Kansas. When he took over on an interim basis in April, after...
Finance
Too Broke to Fix?
Fiscal shortfalls in the tens of billions of dollars are virtually an annual occurrence in California. But this year, the state's voters seem even more...
Finance
Stalled Trains
Transportation might seem like the one issue best suited for local, state and federal cooperation. No transit system is built without affecting the planning process...
Potomac Chronicle
Devolution? What's That?
Right now, federalism means the feds are running the show.
Economic Development
Franchise Frustration
The recent bankruptcies of Chrysler and General Motors are halting, for now, a furious burst of state legislative lobbying by the nation's car dealers.
As...
Politics
Vive Le Roy?
When Roy Barnes lost his reelection bid as Georgia's Democratic governor in 2002, it was the surprise of the year. Now, the man his opponents once...
Politics
Vacuum in Oakland
Ron Dellums never really wanted to be mayor of Oakland. He expressed doubts when civic leaders recruited him to run in 2006, and ever since then,...
Health & Human Services
The End-of-Life Imperative
The president brought it up himself. He talked seriously to a New York Times reporter in May about end-of-life health care choices--the tremendous drain they...
Energy & Environment
The Superbarrel Solution
As an engineer with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, John Chang is always on the lookout for ways to save water. Recently,...
Problem Solver
Management & Labor
Hold That Hire
"It's not an easy job being a jailer," says Captain Hunter Petray, who works in the sheriff's office in Benton County, Arkansas. Few would dispute...
Smart Management
Performance Rules
Managing for results is making a bigger difference during this downturn.
Public Money
Breaking Bonds
A subsection of the federal recovery act may kill off the muni bond as we know it.
