City Unknowingly Destroys Seismic ‘Holy Grail’; Honolulu Mayor's Outside Compensation
This curb at Rose and Prospect streets in Hayward, California is no more. Kai Schreiber / Flickr via CC-BY-SA-2.0
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Also in our State and Local Daily Digest: Alabama vs. the feds over immigration order; Philly mayor reverses parks ban on feeding the homeless.
HAYWARD, CALIFORNIA
EARTHQUAKES | A public works team has inadvertently destroyed the “Holy Grail” tool for visualizing the seismic movement under the Bay Area. Pulled apart by geological forces, the humble curb at the corners of Rose and Prospect streets had been photographed by scientists since at least the 1970s as a way of illustrating the position of the Hayward Fault—which the U.S. Geological Survey calls a “tectonic time bomb.” The fault runs through densely populated East Bay cities like Berkeley, Oakland and Hayward. Then, in early June, a city crew “fixed” the misaligned curb, shocking the scientific community. Reacting to the news of the work on the curb, David Schwartz, a USGS geologist said, “They really took it out. Wow,” and called the curb “an iconic location on the Hayward Fault.” Kelly McAdoo, the assistant city manager for Hayward says the city wasn’t aware of the curb’s significance. McAdoo says the curb was replaced to install a wheelchair-accessible ramp. [Los Angeles Times]
HONOLULU, HAWAII
MAYORAL COMPENSATION | Kirk Caldwell, the mayor of the City and County of Honolulu, has a base salary of $164,928 in his post as chief executive of Hawaii’s most populous island. But as a director on the board of the Territorial Savings Bank, Caldwell, according to disclosure forms, takes in at least $200,000 in additional compensation. When Caldwell was a mayoral candidate, he said he asked the city’s Ethics Commission director whether there would be a possible conflict of interest, but was told there was no conflict due since the bank didn’t hold city funds or had current business. [Honolulu Civil Beat]
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
POLICE | Two days of alderman hearings considering changes to oversight of the Chicago Police Department begin Wednesday. One month ago, the chair of the Police Accountability Task Force, Lori Lightfoot, criticized Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who appointed her, of not soliciting enough community feedback before crafting a new oversight ordinance. The early hearings will make it hard for the public to attend and weigh in on the Independent Police Review Authority, which has come under fire for failing to discipline officers after dragging out investigations of misconduct. Emanuel has said he’d like to see a civilian oversight agency instead. [Chicago Tribune]
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
HOMELESSNESS | Mayor Jim Kenney has reversed a four year-old ban on feeding the homeless in the City of Brotherly Love’s parks. According to a Lauren Hitt, a spokeswoman for the mayor, Kenney “doesn’t want Philadelphia to be a city with this ban on the books. He doesn’t like the signal it sends and how it stigmatizes the poor.” Critics of the ban, which was issued by Mayor Michael Nutter, have argued that the motivation behind the measure was more about appeasing tourists than it was about serving the city’s most vulnerable residents. The ban took effect just two weeks after the Barnes Foundation, a world-renowned art museum, opened the doors of its $200 million building on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway–the site of previous group efforts to feed the poor. [Philly.com]
MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA
REFUGEES | The federal government wants Alabama’s lawsuit over refugee placement dismissed, after a similar lawsuit filed by Texas was thrown out in June. A federal judge ruled states have no authority over resettlements in that case. Alabama’s lawyers contend the circumstances are different and that federal officials are obligated to consult with states prior to placement. [The Associated Press via TimesDaily]
Top photo by Kai Schreiber / Flickr via CC BY-SA-2.0
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