Alaska’s Distressing Murder Ranking; NYC Council Speaker’s Retribution?
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Also in our weekend State & Local news roundup: Virginia’s toll-billing glitch, Las Vegas’ new car-washing regs.
Here are some state and local stories from around the nation that you may have missed this weekend ...
NEW YORK CITY, New York: A “young City Council policy wonk” who told reporters that Police Commissioner Bill Bratton was not being truthful to city lawmakers about how frequently police officers use force when making arrests was fired and says his termination was an act of retribution by Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, who apparently “wanted to punish him for blowing the whistle on Mayor de Blasio’s police chief,” Celeste Katz of the Daily News reports.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska: An annual study by the Violence Policy Center confirms that the Last Frontier again leads the nation in the rate of women murdered by men. “A few deaths either way could swing the rate,” Marty Langley, senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center tells Casey Grove of the News Miner. “I’d be more careful looking at Alaska over a one-year period, but the fact that you look at it over time, that it’s consistently in the top 10 or top two would lead you to believe that there is sort of an ongoing problem there.”
TALLAHASSEE, Florida: The city’s newly created chief ethics officer position has been attracting a lot of applicants. More than 125 applicants, in fact. Jeff Berlew of the Tallahassee Democrat reports: “Most of the eligible candidates — more than 80 percent — have law degrees, and many of them are either serving in state-government posts or have in the past. Several are current or former law enforcement.”
NORFOLK, Virginia: State law in Virginia apparently doesn’t impose a time limit of when toll operators can bill motorists using tolled bridges and tunnels, David Forster of the Virginian-Pilot reports:
In Hampton Roads, some motorists received invoices in August for trips in February.
The phenomenon is not exclusive to the tunnels. A Virginia Beach man has been trying since May to get his bill for a trip in March across the South Norfolk Jordan Bridge. By September, he had only an exasperating email exchange to show for his efforts.
What’s to blame? Inconsistent address matching and license-plate scanning glitches where zeros were being read as the letter "O."
LAS VEGAS, Nevada: New city regulations and a $250 license fee on mobile car-washing could push Las Vegas’ independent roadside operators outside city limits. James DeHaven of the Review Journal reports that many of the “mobile carwashers and detailers, many of whom were caught flat-footed by the ordinances, say the new rules are nothing more than a money grab.”