Missouri County’s Big Spending on Birthday Cards; No Pay Raise for N.C. State Workers

CLAY COUNTY, MISSOURI
BIRTHDAY CARDS | There’s no harm in public officials wishing seniors in their community a happy birthday. But if they mail registered voters that are 62 or older birthday cards or, say, free museum passes, using taxpayer money, that can lead to trouble. A lawsuit filed by a Gladstone man alleges that two county commissioners did just that, spending at least $10,000 on the birthday cards and postage over the past three years. “If a public official wants to send birthday cards out to their constituents, then by gosh they should use their own money to do it or send them emails, it’s free,” the man who filed the suit said. [The Kansas City Star]

RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA
PAY RAISES | A one-time 3 percent bonus is nice, but it’s no pay raise. And some state workers in North Carolina want to know why Gov. Pat McCrory’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year includes the bonus, but no bump to their salaries. Critics point out that the national economy has been growing for seven years and that tax cuts were recently enacted in the state. "If the governor does not value employees, taxpayers will receive substandard service from unmotivated workers," said an official with the State Employees Association of North Carolina. [Asheville Citizen-Times]

WICHITA, KANSAS
SEWAGE INFRASTRUCTURE | If a three-mile long pipe that carries 60 percent of the city’s sewage to a treatment plant fails, there’s no backup. And there’s a looming problem: The city thinks the pipe is vulnerable to failure. “We could be close to that point if we don’t move soon,” according to the city engineer. A replacement could cost $45 million. [The Wichita Eagle]

JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI
LGBT RIGHTS | The Magnolia State’s prohibition on same-sex couples adopting children is no more. In late March, a U.S. district court judge found Mississippi’s ban in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. The state did not appeal the ruling so the state’s adoption rule discriminating against gay couples is no longer valid. [The Clarion Ledger]

LOS ANGELES COUNTY, CALIFORNIA
PARKS AND RECREATION | Members of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has officially released plans for a potential parcel tax that officials envision will fund $190 million, or more, annually for parks development. The county also released a parks assessment which found that 51 percent of the county’s population does not live within a 10-minute walk of a park space and laid out a list of 1,800 priority parks projects, with an estimated cost of $21.5 billion. [MyNewsLA.com]

DECATUR, ILLINOIS
RESIDENCY RULES | City officials are considering a proposal that would require municipal employees live inside Decatur’s city limits. While labor contracts with police, fire and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees would exempt workers represented by unions, it would apply to non-represented city personnel and could be expanded to the unionized workforce in future negotiations. The City Council could vote on the residency proposal on May 16. [Herald & Review]

SANFORD, MAINESOLAR ENERGY | Members of the City Council in this Southern Maine municipality approved a lease for what will be the Pine Tree State’s largest solar power facility, to be built on city land at the airport. The city manager is now authorized to sign a lease with Yarmouth-based Ranger Solar, which will build a 50-megawatt solar array on 200 acres. It’s expected the facility will generate enough power for upwards of 8,000 homes. [Portland Press-Herald]

HARTFORD, SOUTH DAKOTA
RESIGNATIONS | Municipal consternation continues in this city near Sioux Falls. The mayor and a City Council member resigned on Tuesday, bringing the number of departures from the city government since November to five. Mayor Bill Campbell had been the target of an ultimately unsuccessful recall campaign, which created an atmosphere of dysfunction in the city. "I think worst of it all, something that hurt me personally, was seeing Hartford on the news every night," the mayor said Tuesday, discussing his decision to leave office. [Associated Press via Argus-Press]

CASPER, WYOMING
RISK MITIGATION | The city of Casper is looking for funding help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help clear some overgrown city-owned properties along Garden Creek that have prompted worries over sparking a future wildfire. The FEMA grant Casper is applying for would steer more than $220,000 in federal dollars to the land-clearing effort, assuming the city could find local matching funds of just under $75,000. [Wyoming Star-Tribune]

WEST OKOBOJI LAKE, IOWA
WILDLIFE DISCOVERIES | Iowa Department of Natural Resources announced that its personnel caught a 25-year-old muskie fish in this lake near the Minnesota border during gill netting season last week. Muskies have an annual mortality rate of 25 percent so “[t]his one just happened to avoid all of those potential harms over time and made it to a fairly substantial age, considering most fish,” according to Jonathan Meerbeek, who works for the department as a fisheries research biologist. [Radio Iowa]