A bricks-and-mortar version of Sim City is going up in New Mexico, where a technology development firm will spend $1 billion to build a full-scale city just for scientists and engineers to tinker with.

 

Construction of The Center for Innovation, Testing and Evaluation (CITE) will begin next month, says Pegasus Global Holdings LLC, the company behind the idea. Located on 15 square miles near the town of Hobbs, CITE will include a downtown, suburban neighborhoods and outlying rural areas.

 

No residents will live at CITE, which will include both new and aging structures. The only people seen moving around it will be experts and staff testing out new technologies for advances in energy, telecommunications and transportation “without the complication and safety issues arising from having residents.”

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Pegasus Breaking Ground In June On $1B Technology Testing ‘City’ (by Kevin Robinson-Avila, New Mexico Business Weekly)

It’s been 20 years since California politics witnessed so many lawmakers getting arrested.

 

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was Shrimpscam that got so many legislators into trouble, after federal agents conducted a sting operation to root out influence peddling at the state capitol.

 

More recently, half a dozen assemblymen and senators have made the news for getting busted for a variety of reasons.

 

State Senator Roderick Wright, a Democrat from the Los Angeles area, faces eight felony counts, including voter fraud and perjury, for allegedly lying when he said he lived in his Senate district representing Inglewood.

 

Former state senator and assemblyman and current City Councilman Richard Alarcon, another Democrat from Los Angeles, has been charged with 18 counts for lying about where he lived and voting fraudulently.

 

Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, a Republican from San Bernardino, pled no contest last month to two misdemeanor charges for attempting to take a loaded handgun onto a commercial airliner.

 

Democratic Assemblyman Roger Hernandez of West Covina was charged last week with drunk driving. Another assemblyman, Republican Martin Garrick of Carlsbad, was charged with a DUI last summer.

 

Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi (D-Hayward) pled no contest in January to shoplifting clothes worth $2,500 from Neiman Marcus in San Francisco.

 

Wright, Alarcon, Donnelly and Hernandez are all running for office this year. Garrick and Hayashi are not because of California’s term limit law, but both have said they plan to run again in 2014.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Some California Legislators Bring Arrest Records To Their Campaigns (by Patrick McGreevy, Los Angeles Times)

Cooley Refiles Charges After Judge Rejects Alarcon Case (by Catherine Saillant, Los Angeles Times)

A gruesome murder case in Burlington, Massachusetts, may open the way for online video to serve as evidence in convicting a man accused of stabbing his ex-girlfriend to death while a young boy watched from his home computer.

 

Christopher Piantedosi faces a murder trial for killing Kristen Pulisciano in her home. After chasing Pulisciano into their 15-year-old daughter’s bedroom, Piantedosi repeatedly stabbed Pulisciano, an act that was witnessed remotely because the daughter had her iPad’s video chat in operation. This allowed the daughter’s friend to observe the killing as it took place even though the daughter had left the room because of the argument.

 

“This is a very, very difficult case. And it wouldn’t surprise me if we see more of them. In this day and age of video chatting and Skyping, this is the next logical step,” attorney William Korman told the Boston Herald.

 

Korman said it was unclear if the footage of the killing was saved. If not, the prosecution would have to rely on the testimony of the daughter’s friend to tell the court what she witnessed, as opposed to showing the jury firsthand how Pulisciano died.

 

Piantedosi had been released from a mental health treatment facility the day before the murder after attempting suicide on April 29.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Experts Foresee Web of Horror (by Matt Stout and Laurel J. Sweet, Boston Herald)

Burlington Killing Was Caught on iPad, DA Says (by Brian Ballou, Boston Globe)

One of Your Facebook Friends is a Murder Suspect. (by Robert Mills, Lowell Sun) 

At 4 feet, 8 inches tall and 82 pounds, Keeling Pilaro is by no means the biggest player on Southampton High School’s field hockey team. But the Long Island, New York, 13-year-old is the only boy on the all-girls squad, and quite good. Too good, apparently.

 

Athletic league officials told Pilaro recently that he was having an “adverse effect” on the sport and would not be eligible to play field hockey next season. Pilaro’s supporters contend by “adverse effect,” the league meant the boy was too talented.

 

His father, Andrew Pilaro, told the local media his son “feels like he’s being punished for getting better.”

 

Growing up in Ireland, Pilaro played with boys, but no boys’ teams exist in his region in the United States.

 

He was his Southampton High School’s  top scorer this season, while playing against girls several years older than him. He earned all-conference honors after scoring ten goals and eight assists.

 

The Pilaro family has hired an attorney, Frank Scagluso, who says he is confident the boy will be reinstated to play once the courts realize his client is being discriminated against for being male.

 

Although men’s field hockey is almost unheard of in the U.S., it is considered normal in other parts of the world. and has been part of the Olympic program since 1908. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the medals were won by Germany, Spain and Australia.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Keeling Pilaro, L.I.’s Only Male Field Hockey Player, Banned For Being Too Good (CBS New York)

Boy Field Hockey Star Kicked Off Girls' Team for Being 'Too Good' (by Edmund DeMarche, FOX News)

The partisan battle over Michigan’s year-old law that empowers the Governor to appoint emergency “czars” with sweeping authority to overrule elected officials in financially troubled cities or school districts, including the ability to overturn local laws and nullify collective bargaining agreements, will land in the state’s courts soon, thanks to a tie vote last week by the Board of State Canvassers. The issue before the Board was the validity of a citizen petition, signed by more than 200,000 Michiganders, to put a measure repealing Public Act 4 of 2011 (PA 4) on the November ballot.

 

No one doubted that the group Stand Up for Democracy had collected enough petition signatures, as only 161,000 were needed, but the group Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility challenged the form of the petitions, saying the font size on the heading was smaller than 14-point type, which it argued is required by state law.

 

Although Bureau of Elections Director Chris Thomas told the Board that their task was to determine whether the petition format was in “substantial compliance” with state law, John Pirich, an attorney for Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility, contended that strict conformity was required. After hours of testimony, including by expert printers on both sides, Democrats Julie Matuzak and James Waters voted to approve the petitions, while Republicans Norm Shinkle and Jeffrey Timmer voted against, and failing to get a majority, the petitions were invalidated.

 

Herb Sanders, a Detroit lawyer who testified in favor of the substantial compliance standard on behalf of Stand Up for Democracy, said the decision will be appealed to the Michigan Court of Appeals. “I'm confident that the law is favorable for us,” he said. Republican Shinkle, however, blamed Stand Up for Democracy for not getting pre-approval of the document: “The petition was defective.”

- Matt Bewig

 

Emergency Manager Ballot Issue Rejected, now it’s Headed for the Courts (by Dawson Bell, Detroit Free Press)

Bid to Put Emergency Manager Law before Voters Fails as State Board Deadlocks (by Nancy Kaffer and Mike Turner, Crain’s Detroit Business)

Local leaders in Scotland and the state of Oregon are genuinely excited about the pairing of Dull and Boring.

 

Dull refers to the small village (population: 84) in the Highland part of Scotland’s Perth and Kinross county, while Boring is an unincorporated logging town of about 8,000 residents in Clackamas County, Oregon.

 

Together, the two communities want to form a partnership that plays off of their unfortunate names.

 

The idea came from Elizabeth Leighton, a resident of Dull who learned of Boring during a visit to the U.S.

 

Majorie Keddie, a Dull community council member, told STV the partnership “might seem like a joke, but this could have real benefits for Dull. Everyone has been smiling at the prospect of the very eye-catching road sign this will inevitably require.”

 

Boring is named after homesteader and Civil War veteran William H. Boring. Dull is thought to derive its name from the old Scottish Gaelic word for “meadow.”

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Scots Village Dull To Officially Twin with US Town Boring (STV)

Police in Scotland have arrested a 63-year-old woman for entering a mannequin as a city council candidate in Aberdeen.

 

Renee Slater was charged under a 1983 law, the Representation of the People Act, for trying to pass off the dummy, named Helena Torry, as a person.

 

Slater said she never claimed Torry was an actual person and, thus, did not violate the law.

 

“There’s a long history of lampooning in British elections,” Slater told The Scottish Sun. “There’s no reason for them to stop her [Torry] from running as a candidate.”

 

Torry, who was running in the Hazlehead, Ashley and Queen’s Cross ward as “The Voice of the Silent Majority,” also was taken into custody, and her name removed from the election ballot.

 

Torry’s supporters claimed that she was a “model candidate” and that dummies often run for office.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Arrest After Mannequin Registered In Scottish Elections (ITV News)

In an attempt to show California voters he’s committed to cutting government waste, Governor Jerry Brown announced this week a plan to eliminate more than 700 bureaucratic reports.

 

Brown did not say how much money would be saved by cutting the reports. A spokesperson insisted a “significant savings in terms of employee productivity and printing and distribution costs” would be realized.

 

The Los Angeles Times found that many of the reports—more than half—are not produced regularly. And some of the reports on Brown’s list of proposed cuts are no longer printed at all.

 

However, it is difficult not to be sympathetic with Brown’s attempts to eliminate certain reports. Here is a sampling of ten of the ones facing the axe:

 

·         A report from the government of Australia to DFG [Department of Fish and Game] regarding their kangaroo harvest which is then transmitted to the legislature.

·         The diaprepes root weevil eradication effort, including an accounting of how the monies to eradicate the root weevil were expended and what, if any, additional outbreaks were detected

·         Audit plan for audit of school attendance records

·         Report regarding existing leased space in the City and County of San Francisco that shall include the projected need for future space in the San Francisco area; DGS' practices in regards to reviewing potential consolidation of space requests from multiple departments; the DGS review of alternative locations for space requests in the City or County of San Francisco; and an accounting of identified program needs, as specified

·         Report on the allocation made by the board of the one-time augmentation of $5 million for tire remediation and enforcement

·         Hydrogen Highway - Update of the report identified in subsection (f) of Section 7 of Chapter 91 of the Statutes of 2005 regarding the status of transportation-related hydrogen activities in other states

·         Report on feasibility of assessing a surcharge on state departments that allocate overhead costs currently incurred by the Department of General Services, some of which are recovered through building rental rates, to all state entities receiving a benefit from these costs

·         Effect of the Ten Dollar ($10.00) Payment - Declaration of Paternity Form.

·         Report naming fairs that are delegated approval authority for such matters as the Department of Food and Agriculture may determine

·         Duplication of effort - Report detailing overlap and duplication of current monitoring and water quality planning activities

-David Wallechinsky, Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Gov. Jerry Brown Wants To Cut 718 Unnecessary, Defunct Reports (Los Angeles Times)

Legislative Reports Proposed For Elimination or Amendment Subject to Legislative Approval (Governor Jerry Brown) (pdf)

Florida’s much-publicized law requiring welfare recipients to undergo drug testing has not saved the state money. In fact, it has turned out to be just the opposite.

 

During four months of testing last year, 2.6% of the welfare applicants failed their drug tests. Under the law, the state must reimburse those who pass the test. At about $30 per test, Florida wound up paying $118,140—which was more than it would have paid out in benefits to the people who failed the test. In fact, the state ended up paying an extra $45,780. Of those who failed the test, most tested positive for marijuana.

 

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida has sued the state to halt the testing program, arguing it is unconstitutional, an invasion of privacy and a waste of money.

 

Other states are following through with their version of the Florida law, including Georgia, which is just starting to institute its program.

-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinksy

 

No Savings Are Found From Welfare Drug Tests (by Lizette Alvarez, New York Times)

Florida Tests Show Welfare Recipients Less Likely to Use Illegal Drugs (by Noel Brinkerhoff and David Wallechinsky, AllGov)