Archive
Some subway lines are now featuring ads that give a whole new meaning
to the idea of tunnel vision. In Atlanta and several large cities
overseas, subway tunnels have become the home of flickering product
advertisements.
By order of a Florida appeals court, a Martin County developer must
tear down $3.3 million worth of apartment buildings that were recently
built.
Politics may make strange bedfellows. But it's rare for bona fide
bedfellows to be the top elected officials in overlapping local
governments.
T horny elaeagnus has long been a popular shrub with highway
landscapers, who planted the hardy, drought-resistant bushes in
medians across the South to shield nighttime drivers from the glare of
headlights. Now, however, it is falling out of favor as evidence
emerges that the shrub (pronounced el-e-AG-nus) is luring thousands of
birds to their demise.
The present recession, compounded by the war on terrorism, could
fundamentally transform the economy.
Missouri’s Riverview Gardens School District is testing a program that suspends misbehaving students, but keeps them in school.
A new initiative looks to revive some of the nation's most challenged urban areas.
There's been a lot of hand wringing in my hometown. Our second largest
private employer is leaving.
A structure developed to deploy emergency workers when fires, floods
or earthquakes hit can be adapted to terrorist attacks, too.
As the federal grants for 100,000 new police officers expire,
localities struggle with how to pay for the positions.
The report's findings and recommendations were predictable. Indeed,
you could have written the report yourself. If you ask a bunch of
outsiders to look for inefficiencies in Zenith City's government, they
will inevitably discover them--lots of them. After all, city
government is full of inefficiencies. As director of the city's
Department of Administration, you've known that for years.
In fighting the nation's most insidious disease, states have long
deferred to the feds. Georgia is changing that.
Since crises aren't predictable, we can only hope to have the right
leader at the right moment.
Frustrations over small salary increases and big boosts in health
costs are fueling a surge in union activities.
In a term-limited legislature, there isn't much time available for
learning the ropes.
The auctioneer's cry can still be heard as state and local governments
periodically put surplus goods on the block. But governments are
finding that selling surplus goods online can be more efficient--and
can bring in a lot more money than a traditional auction.
This is a time for every level of government to remember the things it
does best.
Kent Willever has taken on a job whose very title sounds to some like
an oxymoron: He is the executive director of the Rhode Island Ethics
Commission. Not only does the state have a long history of corruption
in its politics but the agency itself has suffered from apparent
conflicts of interest in recent years.
Deciding how to run a newly incorporated city inevitably ignites
debate over the role and responsibilities of government.
When revenues dry up, states and localities tend to make cuts that
leave them less able to deliver services effectively.
September 11 showed us that our complex communications infrastructure
is vulnerable to disruption--yet able to recover rapidly.
A fictional tornado ripped through Ames, Iowa, in the 1996 movie
"Twister," but the damage that was done was contained to the world of
special effects within the film. Now Littleport, another Iowa town
that really was destroyed by a natural disaster, is going to have the
starring role in a television program about special effects in movies.
Two years ago, the town was devastated when the Volga River overran
its banks and flooded the area with 10 feet of water.
In a state known for rodeos and livestock, it's hard to imagine that a
dispute would arise over one additional cow. But that's just what has
happened in Texas since Fort Worth, fondly known as "Cowtown,"
unveiled its new logo.
Fifty dollars went a long way in the era of the horse and buggy. But
issuing a $50 fine in the 21st century, as a penalty for potentially
dangerous municipal code infractions, doesn't seem like much of a
deterrent. Yet, under a Tennessee constitutional provision set in
1796, that is the maximum amount the Metropolitan government of
Nashville and Davidson County can impose as punishment, according to a
ruling issued by the state Supreme Court in September.
What flirts these mortals be! Humans have tried for millennia to lure
ducks closer to them for hunting purposes. But today's high-tech
devices are making the task so easy that the state of Washington
recently banned the use of electronic decoys.
After years of benign neglect, the municipal bond market is back in
the spotlight. Falling interest rates, a volatile stock market and a
weakening economy created a resurgence of interest in both issuing and
buying muni bonds in the first three quarters of the year.
The September 11 terrorist assault hit state and local budgets hard,
but the fiscal impact will vary widely from place to place.
Where have all the CIOs gone? Gone to the private sector, almost every one. In the past year, nine top state technology managers have left their jobs.
There's no easy way for a small community to fight monster retailers.
But there's a right time to do it: before they show up.
After years of inaction, governments are starting to crack down on
blighted property again.
Midway through his first year in the California Assembly, Jim Brulte decided the place wasn't for him. It was 1991.
Verifying the accuracy of statistics generated by performance measures
seems to be the last step in the process.
Chicago leads the pack of American cities that are rediscovering the
power of urban lighting.
Advocates for poor and minority city residents make the case that
existing transportation policies are unfair and illegal.
Water levels in the Great Lakes are at historic lows. Local
communities are feeling the impact.
Apparently tea trays aren't used every day in the Illinois governor's residence. That may be why no one noticed that a silver salver valued at $150, as well as dozens of other items, were missing from the Executive Mansion until the release of a recent state audit.
As if living in homes built on stilts isn't precarious enough, residents of Stiltsville, Florida, are faced with the prospect of having the land they live on (or over) yanked out from under them.
A year ago, Denver's central business district looked like something out of a war movie. But the enemy in the sky wasn't dive-bombers--it was pigeons, whose droppings rained down on city buildings and pedestrians.
Libraries are used to receiving donations of books--many of which they can't use--and old editions of National Geographic that people can't bear to throw away.
A North Carolina nonprofit corporation set up to foster economic development hit the jackpot in April. A company that it launched was purchased by a Silicon Valley supplier of fiber-optics equipment, yielding $230 million for the nonprofit, MCNC, and assuring its financial security for many years to come.
If you've been to Fitch for a credit rating, you may find your bonds experiencing grade inflation.
So far, Kansas is the only state to have outsourced child welfare on a
large scale. It is still grappling with the consequences.
Millions will be spent in this year's battle for the Wisconsin
legislature. But the candidates won't know where most of the money is
coming from. They'll be bystanders in their own campaigns.
Which outside group is the biggest spender this election? Sunlight's Bill Allison explains why this is so difficult to determine.
With this analysis, most of the races stay as is, but two contests shift a notch toward the Republican candidate and one moves from lean Republican to tossup.
While local factors have played a role in certain cases, the major reason for the continuing shift to the Republicans has been the national GOP wave. Be sure to check null for live election coverage.
It tends to come in two forms: a centralized model and a federated approach.
States and localities should prioritize top goals and revamp the budgeting process.
Plunging real estate values have devastating consequences for government finance.
As problems cry out for solutions, we need more Richard Daleys.
Governors and other state leaders are launching major reorganization
plans. They're achieving minor successes.
Renting and returning to urban living -- where energy costs are
lower -- could be in the offing.
There are infrastructure projects, and then there are infrastructure projects that transform.
Ever hear of 'prescribing psychologists'? One state thinks they can
fill gaps in mental health care. Psychiatrists doubt it.
Congress promised to stop imposing mandates on states and localities
without paying for them. But the temptation is irresistible.
Despite polarization, politics is still the way to get things done.
Want to drive in Manhattan at rush hour? You'll have to pay for it if
Sam Schwartz gets his way.
Laws, arbitrary rulings and contracts keep employees locked in an unrewarding work environment.
Ray Nagin is taking a businesslike approach to changing New Orleans'
image. But much also depends on how well he masters the art of
politics.
Bergen County, New Jersey, is a great place to retire if you're a public servant. Retirement benefits are so generous, in fact, that they've become the subject of both state legislation and a lawsuit.
A new effort is under way to encourage young adults to start voting and keep voting.
Arizona has enacted a comprehensive jury reform law, one that makes it easier for citizens to fulfill their duty and fairer for those on trial.
Maine is on its way to becoming the first state to offer its citizens universal health care. Governor John Baldacci, who made health care the top priority in his campaign for office last year, signed the bill creating the plan into law in June.
A lot has changed, and is still changing, in Cuyahoga County since the county was slammed with corruption charges.
While most people were steering clear of SARS-infected Toronto this spring, a delegation of U.S. city leaders went there to find out how that city was responding to the deadly biological phenomenon.
California's Chelsea's Law rethinks the way the state manages sex offenders who will return to society.
In a referendum they passed last November, Floridians gave counties the option of offering residents tax breaks if they built new additions to house their aging parents or grandparents.
State legislatures are putting up less resistance than expected to streamlining sales taxes. So far, 20 states have passed laws aimed at harmonizing their sales tax laws with each other, a key step toward taxing e-commerce. Several more are expected to take up sales tax bills later this year.
As states implement health benefit exchanges, they’ll likely look west for guidance.
Bringing truth, light and perhaps even fairness to redistricting.
Some older cities are playing with an idea that would encourage
landowners to develop or sell their 'fallow' lots.
I remember being taught in the fourth grade that one of the few really noble elements of human nature was the willingness to put aside differences in time of crisis. It's no fairy tale, either; we've all seen it dozens of times. A river floods, or a city is devastated by an earthquake or terrorists strike without warning--and all of a sudden there's a feeling of common purpose and a suspension of petty bickering.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is not the only person who has gone from running a news organization to running a city. Paul Osborne, the new mayor of Decatur, Illinois, has been editor and publisher of the weekly Decatur Tribune for the past 33 years. But unlike Bloomberg, Osborne hasn't quit his job at the paper just because he's taken public office.
You've got to wonder why men would be clamoring to join a fitness center called "Curves for Women." Then again, maybe you don't.
Even where there wasn't smoke, there were fire watchers in the public schools of Orange County, Florida. During the final weeks of the school year, the district put some 30 fire watchers on duty after fire officials found some schools in violation of state safety regulations.
Redistricting is not likely to be kind to the political clout of rural areas.
A new incinerator was supposed to earn Harrisburg, Pa., $1 billion. Instead, it’s a cautionary tale for what happens when an infrastructure project goes bad.
On a wall at my neighborhood community house, in Arlington County, Virginia, there are two gold plaques with 43 names on them.
For governments, the hiring crunch for IT positions is far from over
and is probably going to get much worse.
Dozens of states and localities have adopted selective purchasing
laws. But their future hangs in the balance.
Reinventing government from the bottom up is excruciatingly hard. But
in the long run, it may be the best way.
For more than a century, bridges across the Ohio River have connected residents of Cincinnati to their neighbors in Kentucky. People on the Ohio side have long been accustomed to driving into Kentucky to fly in and out of the region's only international airport.
When critical mistakes are made in government agencies, the response is often predictable: Someone down the chain of command takes the fall, and the department moves on.
Taking its cue from federal legislation that recommended managing transportation intermodally, Iowa's Department of Transportation merged its departments and set up teams of staffers to work on proj- ects for all modes of transportation.
America's most fragmented urban government is getting a new charter.
It has to work--or the city itself may not have much of a future.
As state transportation departments nationwide race to put up enough noise walls to quell the complaints of highway-side residents, Minnesota officials are entertaining a novel idea: tear some walls down.
When Virginia recently opened 1.7 miles of highway in the southwestern part of the state, it killed several birds with one piece of asphalt.
Two-thirds of managed care companies are losing money. When they get
in trouble, states often get in trouble as well.
States go to great lengths to reunite unclaimed property with its rightful--sometimes unappreciative--owner.
To the people of Belgium, Manneken Pis is a whimsical fountain statue portraying a little boy urinating. To the people of Ohio, however, Manneken Pis is a brand of Belgian beer that can no longer be sold in- state.
It's a little known fact that the smallest state in the union has the longest name: the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
If you've ever watched the frenzied final days of a legislative session, then you know that rank-and-file lawmakers don't always know what's in the bills they vote on. Sometimes, it's unavoidable.
Now that gas prices at the pump are stabilizing, there's time to
reflect on where the fuel tax fits in the fiscal mix.
The charming but non-functioning Erie Canal could be the foundation
for economic revival in Upstate New York.
Several large transit systems are successfully using `smart'
farecards. Others are clamoring to get on board.
Borrowing a lesson from corporate America, state and local IT agencies
are using metrics to quantify how they're doing.
We've told this story in Governing before, but it makes the point so well that I hope you'll indulge my telling it one more time:
There's a common pesticide called Atrazine that's used by farmers in many of the grain fields of the Midwest.
Popular with his state's voters and fascinating to the national media,
Jesse Ventura girds for battle with his only real enemy: Jesse
Ventura.
Southern politics is settling into a pattern of two parties--one black
and one white. Republicans are reaping the benefits.
An auditing team looking into the Chicago school system's technology operations had an interesting experience last summer: They were able to walk right into a new data center during normal business hours, without an escort and without being questioned, and were even able to get their hands on equipment and data.
Lobbying Washington for state and local budget aid isn't the gentlest
game in the world.
John Hickenlooper revived one of Denver's oldest neighborhoods. Can he
do it again citywide?
The New Urbanist dream goes something like this: People will give up their sprawling, inefficient suburban homes on half-acres of land and embrace the joys of compact living in places served by public transit and convenient walkways to schools, parks and stores.
Free-market think tanks are working hard to convince Americans that
Smart Growth is a stupid idea.
The balanced scorecard is the latest private-sector managment trend to
hit governments. What's it all about?
State merit-scholarship programs are growing in popularity. That also
makes them increasingly expensive.
A rich county comes back from the poorhouse, but its politics could
undo its gains.
Selling off assets. Farming out operations. That used to be the definition of privatization.
Catching every bit of fraud in government can result in what a county
official calls 'spending a dime to chase a nickel.'
The assault on certificates of need, put in place decades ago to
control health costs, couldn't come at a worse time.
No amount of casino gambling, Sunday liquor sales or sky-high taxes on
tobacco and booze will close state budget gaps.
A growing number of municipalities are losing their zoning insurance, the result, in part, of property owners going to court to claim governments have lowered the value of their land through zoning decisions.
For most people, motor vehicle offices are the face of government.
It's not a pretty face.
Property rights activists want local land-use cases thrown into
federal court. Judges are starting to do it.
Long before John Street took over as Philadelphia's mayor this year, he understood that the city's Department of Human Services would be at the top of his list of problems.
Whether it's renegotiating, renewing or rebidding, state and local
governments are looking for IT savings.
Democrats won a big victory in Nassau County after years of defeat.
Now they have to find a way to keep the county from going broke.
States and local governments have been swinging like a pendulum
between powerful and weak central controls.
A new jersey call center has moved back to the United States from India, settling the fate of 11 jobs that became a symbolic Ping-Pong ball in an emotional globalization game being watched closely on both sides.
California is using its clout to fill what officials there view as a
national policy void on key issues. Is the state overstepping its
boundaries?
A 52-pound "mountain of miscellaneous used hand tools" sold for about $150. A lot of 200 Swiss-style (but Chinese-made) knives went for a bit more--at slightly over $1 per knife. Bidding was just getting underway on a pile of 30 pounds of scissors (22 scissors per pound).
Projects such as Boston's Big Dig have the potential to sow the seeds
of a new public cynicism about infrastructure.
Anyone who thinks the education standards movement has gone overboard may be interested in what Ohio has in store for its preschoolers.
Archaic zoning laws lock cities into growth patterns that hardly
anybody wants. Changing the rules can help set them free.
Cities that tap private companies to run water systems often are
hiring overseas firms. Some find that hard to swallow.
Federal transportation authorities in May approved the use of a transparent sound barrier along part of the rebuilt Woodrow Wilson Bridge, a major section of the Interstate 95 system south of Washington, D.C.
States could take steps to curb their revenue losses from the
aggressive use of corporate tax planning. They haven't.
Thirty years ago, we wanted to control 'new source' air pollution in
the worst way. That's about what we did.
Life is tough in city halls across the country, with tax revenues declining and expenses rising. And, as it turns out, death isn't much better. In Danville, Virginia, the city council recently was struggling with how to hold down costs at the city's cemeteries when one council member made an interesting suggestion: Why not bury people five feet deep rather than six feet?
Two major drug companies agreed to pay $345 million in fines in the largest Medicaid fraud settlement ever. The federal government, 49 states and Washington, D.C., will split most of the settlement, with the states divvying up $147 million in amounts per state that will range from tens of milions to a few thousand. California, for instance, will receive $32.2 million; Maine, $2.5 million, and South Dakota, $260,000.
SARS, West Nile virus and bioterrorism are the big scares. But the
greater threat is the gradual erosion of public health services.
Momentum has shifted in a hot area of insurance regulation. State approval of the conversion of Blue Cross and Blue Shield health plans to for-profit status is no longer a foregone conclusion. Although a dozen or so states have approved such sales since 1995, regulators in two states recently said no.
A new study suggests that state and local tax incentives for existing
businesses don't create new jobs.
The role of chief information officer is now about politics and
relationships as much as it is about computer systems.
Sixteen states are on Moody's Investors Service negative outlook and four on negative watch, with "future credit deterioration likely," according to Robert Kurtter, senior vice president of state ratings for the credit-rating agency. Moody's had already downgraded eight states in the past two years.
A few weeks ago, the Vermont Senate discussed a proposal to require that all state judges step down from office upon reaching the age of 110. This may sound like the mootest of moot points, given that no jurist in Vermont--or anywhere in the world, I imagine--has ever lived that long. But it had a purpose.
The office of lieutenant governor is an easy target--especially in
tough budget times.
