This particular story comes from Atlantic Beach, FL.

But, it could be practically anywhere.

Tom and Julie Weber  love keeping chickens at their house.

They say they’re great pets, they provide eggs and their daughter, Wren,  loves playing with them.

But on Feb. 11, an animal control officer warned the Webers they were violating a city ordinance that forbids chickens at residences. The officer gave them 72 hours to part ways with the plucky poultry.

The Webers are pushing back.

This week,  Julie Weber took their fight to City Hall, armed with a 100-name petition supporting them.

“It’s a bit archaic that you can’t keep chickens,” she said Wednesday.  “Now, as we are moving toward understanding locally grown food, it’s an important piece of that.”

Next month my city will be considering an ordinance which would allow up to six chickens (no rooster). I honestly don’t know what to think about it.

Any thoughts anyone?

On Monday President Obama held a “fiscal sustainability summit.”

Some critics dismissed the half-day gathering as a public relations stunt in the midst of galloping budget deficits. Last week saw the signing of the $787bn fiscal stimulus package, while this year’s budget deficit is expected to exceed $1,500bn

Although Lawrence Summers, head of the National Economic Council, fell asleep on the podium, most attendees, including Republicans, appear to have appreciated the exercise. 

Yes, at the Fiscal Sustainability Summit the head of President Obama’s National Economic Council fell asleep.

There is so much money coming out of Washington DC these days it is hard to keep up.

You know … you just know that much of it is being wasted.

The state of Washington sent out $1 checks to the 250,000 food stamp recipients in the state.

The director of the Community Services Division for the Department of Social and Health Services, Leo Ribas, says the checks mailed Feb. 17 trigger an additional $43 million in federal food benefits. They also connect recipients to an energy assistance program.

Ribas says the $1 check is a one-time move to leverage the federal money. He says next year the state will be able to trigger the federal assistance through a routine deposit in food stamp accounts.

Thank goodness this option was available to trigger the extra money this year.

Yes, I’m being cynical.

Some local governments talk about transparency. An honest attempt to open lines of communication with the public.

Then there is Macomb, County, MI who not only talk the talk, but walk the walk.

Even as Macomb County officials write a new constitution, consider a property tax increase and wrestle with a deficit that threatens jobs and services, only a few residents are attending public meetings.

Advocates of open government say the turnouts aren’t a sign of apathy but rather that residents are too busy.

Now, county commissioners are responding with technology that soon will allow residents to listen to every county meeting at home from their Internet-connected computers.

No other county in southeast Michigan offers such a service.

“We’re very excited about it,” county Clerk Carmella Sabaugh said. “Getting these meetings to the public makes governments more accountable.”

Earlier this month, the Clerk’s Office began streaming live Web audio from meetings of the Charter Commission, a group charged with revamping county government.

Can’t listen live? Every meeting has been recorded and archived so you can listen at the click of a mouse. The audio is available at www.macombcountymi.gov/clerksoffice.

County officials soon plan to offer audio of every board and committee meeting on the county’s Web site, www.macombcountymi.gov.

Costs are minimal, officials say, because the technology already is in place.

“We need to inform the public about how their tax dollars are being spent,” said Commissioner Jim Carabelli, R-Shelby Township.

My local public channel has just started to experiment with live streaming on the web. There can’t be too much of this kind of technology used for me.

Different states have different laws. Naturally, I am more aware of Wisconsin law than any other state.

Indiana is considering changing a law that is quite different from Wisconsin.

Police, firefighters and other local government workers could no longer be elected to simultaneously serve on their own governing bodies under a bill that passed the Indiana Senate on Monday.

The commission had called for the end of government employees in essence being their own bosses, calling the practice an obvious conflict of interest.

A review by The Indianapolis Star in December found numerous examples across the state of such conflicts, including one Hammond streets superintendent who, as a Hammond City Council member, proposed and voted for a raise for the streets post.

Even if there wasn’t a legal conflict of interest the ethical conflict of interest should be avoided.

Let’s hope Indiana, and any other state that may still allow this practice, will change those laws.

I had never heard of a Municipal Management District.

 Wikipedia doesn’t even have anything about them. 

But, then I read about Dallas,TX …

Dallas City Hall took a little-publicized step Wednesday toward creating districts that would give private developers the power to tax and issue public debt. They want to turn three areas into Municipal Management Districts, similar to those already seen in Houston.

In the resolution passed Wednesday by City Hall, taxation can only be levied with the approval of a majority of voters within the district.

I’m still not sure exactly how these work. I assume they would be similar to Business Improvement Districts.

But, when I read that private developers would be able to tax and  issue public debt I shudder.

I like private developers. Private developers are my friends.

I love concrete and fresh blacktop.

But, developers tax and issue public debt?

We have all heard Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity … ” doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

Local government insanity is protecting your our turf at all costs.

This comes from from Minnesota but it could be from almost anywhere.

About 30 years ago, twinkle-eyed state Rep. James Pehler drafted a bill that, had he introduced it, would have caused a stir in his district. It would have planted a compass point on a map of downtown St. Cloud, drawn a circle with a 30-mile radius and made it the boundary of a new jurisdiction, to be aptly named “Round County.” 

 Within Pehler’s “Round County,” 47 local governmental bodies coexist, not always in harmony.

Damn right, not always in harmony. Do your local governments coexist in harmony? Is there overlap in services? Waste? Petty bickering?

Political Insanity?

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?

Protecting your own turf at all costs?

Over the past year I have corresponded with a colleague in Canada who insists that local government consolidation in Canada has not produced the savings that were expected. He advises against the idea.

I gotta believe there is a better way than having 47 jurisdictions within a 30 mile circle.

I think James Pehler was way ahead of his time.

I have a friend who claims all elected officials are crooks.

They aren’t…  but lets run some numbers.

According to the latest statistics I can find there are 511,039 elected officials in the USA.

Statistics also show that 1 in every 15 (6.6%) people serve time in state or federal prison.

Since elected officials are representative of the general public that means of every 511,039 serving in elected office at any one time … 33,728 of them will also serve prison time.

So, while they aren’t all crooks, with that many of them making the news for all the wrong reasons it can seem that way at times.

I am often asked … Why did they do THAT?

Whatever THAT may be.

I have found there are basically three reasons  local elected officials make dumb decisions.

1) Local elected officials are novices. In their “real life” they are professionals but once they start serving on a local government body they start as novices. They have no idea at all what kind of decisions they will be asked to make. But, they will be required to make decisions on issues they have no experience. Good judgement comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgement. Add to the fact the average length of time a local official serves (4-5 years) there is a constant turnover of novices. Mistakes are inevitable.

2) Local elected officials many times deal with problems. A problem is an issue which has no good solution. If it did have a good solution it would be an opportunity, not a problem. Since there is no good solution no matter what decision they make could be considered dumb.

3) Many times local elected officials are accused of keeping secrets from the citizens. Quite often it is just the opposite. Citizens who have knowledge on an issue do not give that input in a timely fashion. They keep their knowledge a secret. Without timely and knowledgeable input on issues, bad decisions can be reached.

So, there you have it.

Every time a dumb decision is made by a local governing body the reason “why” can be found in one of those reasons.

The Daily Journal of International Falls, MN has a concern.

Red flags should wave anytime government attempts to limit access by the public.

And red flags should be waving all over St. Louis County, as the county board there seeks a legal opinion about whether the board can ban private residents from recording its meetings.

Even asking for a legal opinion on the issue goes against the grain of open government.

Commissioner Keith Nelson of Eveleth says he’s concerned that small portions of the board discussions are being edited and taking out of context “to make people look bad,” according to a newspaper report.

Asking for a legal opinion to restrict recording of its meetings makes them look bad enough all by itself.

They don’ t need any help looking bad.

Is this government run amok or is there a resonable explanation for this situation?

The University of Wisconsin has fired a professor from Florida who mysteriously failed to show up to teach at UW-Eau Claire last fall, according to documents made public Tuesday.

The UW System Board of Regents voted during a closed meeting last week to fire Philip Siegel. A copy of its six-page decision was released Tuesday.

D’Arcy Becker, chair of the accounting and finance department, said Siegel never showed up two weeks before classes for meetings as required in his contract and never explained why.

UW-Eau Claire Chancellor Brian Levin-Stankevich moved to fire Siegel in September. The process of firing a professor is a lengthy one, and the final step was last week’s action by the regents. Siegel was never paid by the UW.

It took FIVE MONTHS to fire a professor who never showed up for work!

FIVE MONTHS!!!

Can anyone help me make sense of this?

A very important ordinance vote is pending the City Council of Connellsville, PA  next week.

It’s a new rental housing code. Among the good ideas is this …

The ordinance states that “the owner shall be directly responsible for the behavior of occupants and guests in the common areas as if the owner were an occupant. The failure of the owner to regulate behavior of occupants and guests in the common areas that results in (fighting, threatening or other violent behavior, making unreasonable noise or creating a hazard or physically offensive condition) shall be in violation of this ordinance.”

Also…

Tenants who caused problems could be forbidden to rent within Connellsville for a year.

They actually want to force people to leave town.

I can hear the police (or the Mayor or whoever) say … “You have until sunrise to get out of  town.”

Do you think the ACLU might get involved in this one?

We all read them or watch them. The “Watchdogs” of the media. Got a problem…give it to them to investigate.

In Cambridge, MA they have a problem. They have a policy of allowing only one hour of free parking when parking meters are broken, instead of the two-hour paid maximum. Why? Why can’t you park for two hours?

The Boston Globe was put on the case.

The city responded …

Despite their old-fashioned look, the city just completed replacing the inner mechanisms in all 6,159 single-space meters last week, said Thomas Tinlin, commissioner of the Boston Transportation Department. The new workings will make the meters “a little harder to put out of order,” said James Mansfield, a department spokesman.

The vast majority of broken meters – nearly 98 percent – are the result of people damaging them to avoid paying meter fees and side-stepping a ticket for an expired meter, he said. Though maintenance crews follow regular routes to inspect meters, enforcement officers and collection agents visit meters every day and often report broken ones.

Once identified, there’s about a 24-hour turnaround for most repairs, said Tinlin. The city is considering taking out some of the coin-operated single-space meters and installing multi-space meters like those on Newbury and Boylston streets and the Back Bay cross streets between them, said Mansfield, but that idea is still in the early planning stages. The city now has about 60 such meters in operation, including 30 that were installed in the Charlestown Navy Yard last November that are “much improved” in terms of breakdowns, said Tinlin. But they are expensive and require extra sidewalk space, so they may not work in every district that wants them, said Mansfield.

That’s it. They never answer the question why only one hour to park when the meter is broken instead of the two hour maximum. And, this tough investigative reporter files the story.

Local elected officials take their lumps …  but the bozos reporting on them are even worse.

There’s a big story in Dodge County right now about a local supervisor who poleaxed his political career by noting that it’s unconstitutional for the 37-member board on which he sits to make a habit of publicly praying to Jesus before meetings.

Here’s what I pray for: some insight into why a place with far more cows than people needs 37 county supervisors in the first place.

But, that is not all to this story…

Fuller, come to find, was elected last April as a write-in candidate with one vote. One.

Only in Wisconsin, I figure – where there are more unnecessary boards than you’d find in a bankrupt lumber mill – can a guy, if he is so inclined, single-handedly elect himself to office. Not that Fuller didn’t have a little competition. Three other people also received one write-in vote. Well, two people, actually, and Papa Smurf.

Yep, “Papa Smurf was one,” Fuller said. “But they had to eliminate him. That’s how sad the situation is.”

Neither Papa nor the other write-ins showed up for a drawing from a hat after the election. So Fuller – who won’t confirm he was the guy who wrote in his own name but clearly didn’t put much thought into a campaign either way – got the job by default.

 Dodge County also has 24 Towns,  11 Villages, and 8 Cities.

They can have an elected official in every home!

How could something like this get so out of hand?

In a Jan. 22 memo, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa ordered all city departments to terminate the gasoline credit cards — good for up to $1,500 per month — routinely issued to elected officials, their staff and general managers.

But a memo six days later from Tony Royster, the head of the General Services Department, (with a cc: to the mayor’s office) suggested that there might be some wiggle room for employees who aren’t ready to hand over the plastic.

Villaraigosa’s order was spurred by City Controller Laura N. Chick’s scathing auditson the city’s fleet, its gasoline-use policies and the large increase in the number of take-home cars issued to Los Angeles police officers.

Chick had determined there was no way of telling whether the gas cards were being used only for city cars and city business — not to mention only in emergencies as they were intended. With 136 city-owned pumps scattered around Los Angeles with free gas for city officials, Chick reasoned that the cards weren’t needed. And with the city facing a budget crunch, it seemed that the mayor agreed.

Just makes you shake your head … doesn’t it?

In this day of instant gratification it is easy forget  Winston Churchill who said “Never, never, never give up.”

Bruce Edwards of Ogden, UT never gave up.

Last week, Ogden’s Landmarks Commission approved Bruce Edwards’ proposal to restore a sign on his historic C.C. Keller Building on 25th Street — a full 10 years after his original request.

“I outlasted ‘em,” Edwards chortled Thursday. “And the bottom line is, I was right.”

The original wording, dating back to about 1910 and painted on the north side of the two-story brick structure, is still barely visible: “Every hour upon the hour for about an hour Drink Becker’s Beer — Ogden’s Famous Beer.”

But in 1998, the Landmarks Commission — whose membership has now changed — gave the sign restoration a big thumbs down.

“One of the members said, ‘We can’t have beer on that sign; we want 25th Street to be family oriented,” Edwards recalled.

The article gets nasty. You get the distinct feeling that Bruce has his enemies in City Hall. There is more to this story than just a beer sign. 

However, the issue is the beer sign. 

A historic beer on a historic building.

Congratulations Bruce!

It isn’t how successful a program is … the question is how does it look?

Sounds like government at its worst?

Got a gripe? How about an idea to cut government waste?

Now you can share it with the click of your computer’s mouse.

Sussex County Administrator David B. Baker announced Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2009, that a new feature on the County’s Web site will allow the public to submit ideas on how to improve County government. The online “suggestion box” takes a simple concept long used in restaurants and businesses and puts a virtual, 21st century twist on it.

When was the last time a good idea came from Anonymous?

In a Suggestion Box?

But, it looks good doesn’t it.

Staring a natural disaster square in the eye.

How would any of us do?

How about if we were in charge of cleaning up the mess?

How would any of us do?

This is how it is going in Cedar Rapids, Iowa …

With the city’s flood-recovery effort now stretching beyond the 7-month mark, City Council members last week were dickering among themselves, with some members saying decisions are coming too slowly.

“I hear it constantly from people,” council member Justin Shields lamented to his council colleagues last week. “They say they’ve never seen a council more dysfunctional than ours.”

Council member Jerry McGrane, fresh from a lobbying trip to the Statehouse, said lawmakers, lobbyists and others in Des Moines volunteered the same assessment.

“Right to my face,” he said Friday in an interview. “They sort of said we were incompetent, non-decisive nincompoops. And I didn’t hear it from just one person. I heard if from a bunch.”

… On Friday, (Council Member Brian) Fagan said democracy isn’t always pretty. But he says the council is not dysfunctional, it is just open in its use of public dollars for all to see.

As for any kind of building public displeasure with City Hall, Fagan says something would be wrong if there wasn’t criticism.

“It’s a consequence of a huge natural disaster, and it’s a symptom of a recovery effort, and I think if you went through any community you’d see this kind of debate is going on,” he says.

How would any of us do?

For those of you who may have missed this news …

Saturday Night Live” alum Amy Poehler has hit federal government (with her hilarious take on Hillary Clinton) and state government (with her instant-classic Sarah Palin rap).

Now, she’s turning to local government:

In the show, Leslie attempts to improve her town and advance her career by helping a local nurse (Rashida Jones, “The Office”) turn a construction pit into a park. They’re opposed by defensive bureaucrats, NIMBY neighbors and developers. She’s helped and hindered by Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari, “Human Giant,” “Scrubs”), another government official.

In the process, Leslie hopes to inspire her bored college intern (Aubrey Plaza) and reach her goal of becoming the first female President

If they need someone to play a curmudgeon … I know a certain Pontificator who may be interested.