District 41 Senator Lydia Chassaniol was honored this week by the Mississippi Tourism Association as the 2008 MTA Legislative Friend of Tourism recipient for her aggressive support of the industry.
Chassaniol, of Winona, is Chairwoman of the Senate Tourism Committee, and has promoted tourism at every turn, seeking venues all across the state to which Mississippi can draw travelers who can learn some aspect of its unique history and art forms.
Chassaniol’s leadership has been well recognized throughout the state and she continues to push forward, exposing Mississippi’s best to the outside world.
With the qualifying deadline for Mississippi municipal elections approaching, some potential candidates might be interested in knowing what the pay would be to serve in a local government position. Also, citizens might want to know how much department heads and elected officials in their local government earn. And then there are some people who just want to know the range of salaries for aldermen/city council members in local governments around Mississippi.
These and many more answers can be found in the 2008 Municipal Salary and Benefits Survey, which is prepared by the John C. Stennis Institute of Government for the Mississippi Municipal League. Click here for the online report.
Persons interested in running for municipal office will surely want to check out the Municipal Elections 2009 Candidate Qualifying Guide published by the Secretary of State’s Office.
By nature of my day job and general interest in communication techniques I read a lot of e-mails, press releases and blogs by public officials. These communiques range from sanitized, politically correct, meaningless press releases that say nothing to freewritten, meaningless greetings that also say nothing. Somewhere in the middle of the continuum is the personal message from a public official who communicates WHY he or she is doing something, along with some personal information that makes me feel that I know and understand the communicator.
One such person is a state representative from Mississippi named John Mayo. (Click here for his home page.) There are political positions that he and I probably would not agree on, but his communication style and methods make me feel that he knows his job, he cares about his constituents and he is open about his stands on issues. Not only does he tell why he introduced a piece of legislation, he mentions things he is concerned about in his community and he even offers up movie reviews. Public officials who are considering starting a blog would be well-advised to check out his communications. Now for the warning: do not attempt to copy Mayo’s style; be yourself.
Smoking bans in public places may be becoming less controversial as the studies about secondhand smoke come in. CBS News reported today on a study regarding a workplace ban on smoking in Pueblo, Colorado. Reportedly, there was a 41 percent reduction in heart attack hospitalizations three years after a workplace ban went into effect.
I’ve concluded that anyone who smokes is either stupid or addicted to tobacco - and for the record I was stupid for about 15 years of my life. The reason that I say that is that no (non-stupid) person would choose to smoke given the overwhelming evidence of its harmful effects. The only other reason for smoking is that the person is addicted. I know that sounds harsh, but can anyone give a sound reason for smoking? Having said that, as long as smoking is legal and does not harm others, who can argue with another’s “right” to smoke? Certainly not me.
Here’s a list of cities in Mississippi and their smoking ban status:
- Gulfport, May 1, 2008.
- Grenada, May, 2008.
- Corinth, November 2007 Board of Aldermen adopted a public smoking ban that encompasses city-owned facilities, enclosed public places, employment places and some outdoor areas.
- Greenville, banned in all indoor public places, including restaurants and bars
- Greenwood, August 23, 2007 banned in all workplaces, restaurants, and bars.
- Hattiesburg, January 1, 2007 banned in all indoor public places, including bars, restaurants, and city buildings.
- Lucedale, December, 2007, rejected a ban on smoking in all enclosed workplaces
- Oxford, banned in all indoor public places, including bars, restaurants, and city buildings. Smoking is also prohibited in certain outdoor areas.
- Ridgeland, July 20, 2007 banned in all workplaces, restaurants, and bars.
- Starkville, May 20, 2006 banned in all indoor public places, including bars, restaurants, and city buildings. Smoking is also prohibited in certain outdoor areas.
- Tupelo, October 2006 banned in all indoor public places, including restaurants and bars.
Source: Wikipedia list of Smoking Bans in United States.
All the publicity has gone to the major party politics and the election of President-elect Obama. But social politics — mostly ignored by journalists and tv talking heads — were busy topics in state elections on November 4. For example:
South Dakota rejected a measure which would have banned most abortions in the state; Colorado voted down a measure which would have defined life as “beginning at conception”. California’s measure requiring parental notification when performing abortions on minors (Proposition 4) was narrowly defeated.
Gay marriage was on the ballot in California and Arizona. California voters approved a constitutional ban on gay marriage (Proposition 8); Arizona defined marriage as a contract between a man and a woman (Proposition 102). Arkansas voters determined unmarried cohabiting couples (including same sex couples) as unable to serve as adoptive or foster parents.
Embryonic stem-cell research was approved in Michigan.
Washington joined Oregon in legalizing physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill.
Marijuana, anyone? Massachusetts voted to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana. Michigan approved medical marijuana for people with debilitating illness. (California, on the other hand, rejected a proposal similar to the Massachusetts decriminalization action.)
Again, our national quilt is a patchwork — particularly on social politics.
Yesterday was not only election day in the U.S. It was the day that the U. S. Supreme Court heard arguments on whether to ban the “f” word and the “s” word in live television broadcasts in prime time.
Prior to 2004, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) only sanctioned the use of indecent language in a broadcast if it was repetitive and intentional. In 2004, however, the FCC began cracking down on even the occasional use of foul language between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m., when more children watch T.V. This policy change caused a shift in the delicate balance between the broadcasters right to free speech and the parents’ desire to protect their children from indecency in radio and T.V. programming.
When the FCC policy change was challenged (by Fox and NBC, among others) the Federal Court of Appeals for the District of New York ruled that the policy was “arbitrary and capricious”, thus affording victory to the networks.
Where will the Supreme Court draw the line on “bad words”? Who knows, but the election of Obama and the new Dems in Congress will certainly impact the Court — although undoubtedly not so soon as to impact this particular decision.
E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century, The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture, was authored by Robert Putnam, Harvard University professor and author of Bowling Alone (plus six other books). The paper is very lengthy, but a summary and link to the article appears below. For those who work in community development it is must reading.
The more diverse the community, he finds, the less its members trust each other or the government, and the less they participate in collective life or believe in their own power to change their communities and politics. He notes that there are exceptions, but ultimately, more diverse communities are less trusting, less cohesive and less participatory places to live as people tend to “hunker down” and withdraw. More…
Oliver Diaz and Randy ‘Bubba’ Pierce, Mississippi Supreme Court candidates from the Southern District, will speak to the Stennis-Capitol Press Luncheon on Monday, October 6, 2008. The event is open to the public, however registration is required. Registration details are on the luncheon’s Web site.
Lots of states and cities have enacted laws in the past few years to bring in more movie and television film crews to their localities. Most have been successful, but I wonder if there is a point where so many incentives are offered by so many states and cities that we in effect go back to square one. At any rate, New York has done just fine this year.
According to a New York Times article, “The tax incentives have also been a financial boon to the city: the mayor’s office estimated that city-based shoots contributed $957 million in spending between April 23 and Sept. 23 of this year, an increase from $452 million during the same period last year.”
Also, the local film office expects 19 prime-time shows to be filmed in the Big Apple this year, versus 12 last year.
Two years ago, the Mississippi Supreme Court adopted one of the most strict pro hac vice rules in the nation. Pro hace vice (pronounced proh hock vee-chay) is Latin meaning “this time only”; the term applies to an out-of-state lawyer appearing in a court of a jurisdiction where a trial is being held, even though the lawyer is not licensed to practice law in that state. Generally speaking, an application for for pro hac vice, if meeting the requirements set forth by the rule, is usually granted; often jurisdictions require association of a local attorney who is admitted to the bar in the jurisdiction.
In Mitchell v. Progressive Insurance Company, 965 So. 2d 679 (MS 2007), the Mississippi Supreme Court demonstrated that it meant business when it established such a strict rule. In Mitchell, a claim against an insured’s insurance company was barred by the statute of limitations because the pleading initiating the litigation was not validly filed in a Mississippi court prior to the expiration of the statute of limitations. It was not validly filed, the Court said, because the Louisiana attorney who filed the claim, had not been properly admitted under Mississippi Rule of Appellate Procedure 46 (b).
Not only did the Mitchell’s lose their cause of action, but the Mississippi Supreme Court found that the Louisiana attorney had engaged in the unauthorized practice of law in the State of Mississippi and remanded the case to the Circuit Court in which it had been filed and dismissed, instructing the Circuit Court to notify the Louisiana State Bar and impose sanctions.
The moral to the story for state and local governments: if suit is filed by out-of-state counsel, look carefully at the requirements of Rule 46 (b) to ensure that they are complied with before going further with the litigation.
