Al's Morning Meeting

The Washington Post picked up on this story as a "snow day" piece, but as you will see in the story it is not just on snow days that parents leave their kids at the library in lieu of taking them to day care. The Post says:

To librarians, a problem day is one filled with the unscheduled duties of a blindsided babysitter, as they keep an eye on young children who are left at public libraries to fend for themselves — sometimes for an entire day.

The parents, many of whom can't afford day care, said it's the safest, most responsible alternative to leaving kids on their own. Librarians said they're sympathetic — to a point.

"The issue of unattended children is a huge one not only in Fairfax but across the country," said Kathryn L. Rzasa, branch manager at Fairfax County's Woodrow Wilson Library, which serves a large immigrant population and is host to many young children after school. "Child care is a big issue right now for a lot of families. They're working hard at lots of jobs, and they don't have a lot of options ... We do what we can to help out, but we are not equipped to provide day care and the kind of supervision parents want for their children."

Carla Hayden, president of the Chicago-based American Library Association, said: "A lot of times, it's a safety issue. Libraries are open to everyone. We're concerned when we see children five or under who are not accompanied by an adult."

The rule is pretty clear. If your state allows people to have an open container (beer can, wine bottle, and so on) in a moving vehicle, then the federal government will force that state to spend a certain amount on "safety projects," not on road improvements or bridges, as the states may want. The feds clearly want states to ban open containers.

The Associated Press said:

The federal mandate to ban open containers has been in effect for four years. For the first two years, states without the bans were ordered to divert 1.5 percent of their federal highway construction funds to safety projects. The level rose to 3 percent two years ago.

For Missouri, the diversions amounted to slightly more than $5 million in each of the first two years, and about $12 million in each of the two latest years.

Other states that still allow open containers in vehicles are Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

"Last year," the AP said, "Tennessee diverted about $11.9 million in federal road construction money, Indiana about $13.5 million, Arkansas about $7.3 million, and Alaska about $5.2 million."

Who funds the opposition in those states that still allow open containers? What, if any evidence is there that these states have more DUIs than states that ban open containers? In 2002, the Federal Department of Transportation tried to answer that question, saying:

Comparisons of crash data showed that states that lacked Open Container laws had significantly greater percentages of alcohol-involved fatal and single-vehicle crashes than the states with partially or fully-conforming laws. Although the differences cannot be attributed with certainty to the presence or absence of Open Container laws, the results of the analyses suggest that conformance with some or all of the six elements of the Federal requirements contributes measurably to traffic safety.

Further, states that enacted conforming laws in 1999 and 2000 experienced the lowest proportion of alcohol-involved fatal crashes of the four categories of states, suggesting that public consideration and subsequent adoption of proposed laws may increase awareness of the issues and lead to safety benefits. Perhaps equally important when considering whether such laws should be enacted, the national survey found that a substantial majority of the driving-age public support Open Container laws, and thus, appears to recognize their value in contributing to traffic safety.

Here is a story from the Ventura County (Calif.) Star about one county where 200 county employees made more than $100,000 each in one year. In this one county last year, 98 percent of firefighters, engineers, and captains earned more than the established top wage for their positions. Nearly half made 50 percent more.

It makes you wonder what is happening in your own town.

The Ventura County Star went trolling through payroll records and found:

Firefighters and sheriff's deputies are among the highest paid county employees, with hundreds commanding six-figure salaries and some taking home more money than their bosses.

The top moneymaker in 2003 was a fire captain who made $181,677 -- more than double the top pay scale for the position and more than his boss, Fire Chief Bob Roper. No. 2 was a sheriff's sergeant who made $175,788, doubling the top scale and topping everyone in his department except Sheriff Bob Brooks.

The high wages appear to be a pattern within both departments. In 2002, roughly 200 fire and sheriff's rank-and-file employees made more than $100,000. Last year, the number rose to 318. Officials said a small part of the 2003 increase was due to the Simi Valley and Piru fires.

Department officials say the inflated salaries are driven by overtime — a huge expense for both departments at roughly $12 million a year apiece. Overtime is inevitable in police and fire departments, said Undersheriff Craig Husband, but other officials acknowledge there is a culture within the departments that makes it easy for personnel to rack up extra hours and pay.

"It's a huge problem," said Deputy Fire Chief David Festerling. "We call them overtime prostitutes — they're the guys who make a career out of overtime."

Ticket Fixing — 20,000 Tickets Fixed in One State in One Year

From Bill Dedman at The Boston Globe, another story that you could clearly localize.

This is a story about how tickets are written, then quietly die, because nobody is matching up "tickets paid" with ticket books turned in to be audited.

Bill found:

Since 1962, (Massachusetts) has had a "no fix" law, intended to discourage corruption and favoritism by making police officers account for every traffic ticket, even the voided ones. But a Boston Globe review of records of thousands of traffic violations indicates that this system is in tatters, ignored by most police departments, including Boston's, and not enforced by the state. Although traffic citations are voided or disappear from the system at a rate of about 20,000 a year, based on an analysis by the Globe, there is no evidence that tickets are being fixed for corrupt reasons — favoritism or payoffs. But there is also little effort by state officials or police chiefs to ensure that the system is honest and accountable.

Here is where the system falls apart. The Globe found:

The law requires each police chief to return audit sheets to the Registry of Motor Vehicles, listing every citation -- which were written out, voided, destroyed, or lost. All voided citations are supposed to be returned to the Registry and explained. Failing to follow the no-fix law is official misconduct, a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $500, and imprisonment up to a year.

In practice, most of the state's police departments provide only a sketchy accounting for their tickets. Others don't provide even that much. Boston, Cambridge, and Lowell police departments are among about 200 that do not send in the audit forms. Even when police departments file their lists of tickets, voided ones are almost never returned or explained. The Registry carefully stores the audit sheets in a warehouse in Randolph, but never looks at them. A recent visit to the warehouse found about 80 boxes of unopened or unexamined filings by police departments from the last three years.

Ticket fixing is a favorite topic for investigations. In Philly last year, for example, the issue arose over parking tickets.

In South Carolina, a liquor store operator is accused of being in partnership with a state cop to fix tickets.

I wonder if you have seen this pop up in your town. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says the school system there has restricted overseas field trips and is discouraging field trips to New York and Washington, D.C.

Now (not after the election) is the time for you to be asking questions about how, when, and why people get purged from voting rolls. Four years ago, people nationwide showed up at polls only to learn they were no longer eligible to vote.

How do cities and counties know when you have moved or died and no longer are eligible to vote?

A New York Times editorial said this weekend:

After a federal lawsuit that followed the infamous 2000 election, Florida restored some voters to the rolls, and agreed to start using more precise identification methods. But there is still no reliable system, and Florida voting rights advocates are bracing for a rerun of the mistakes of 2000.

In Missouri, St. Louis election officials kept an "inactive voters list" of people they had been unable to contact by mail. Voters on the list, which ballooned to more than 54,000 names in a city where only 125,230 people voted, had a legal right to cast their ballots, but election officials put up enormous barriers. When inactive voters showed up to vote, poll workers had to confirm their registration with the board of elections downtown. Phone lines there were busy all day, and hundreds of voters traveled downtown in person, spending hours trying to vindicate their right to vote. The board admitted later that "a significant number" were not processed before the polls closed.

After the election, the St. Louis board of elections settled a lawsuit by promising to have a copy of the inactive voters list available at every voting precinct, and to upgrade its phone service. But not everyone has confidence the reforms will happen.

The editorial continues:

Florida- and Missouri-style voting roll disasters could be looming right now in any state in the nation. Voters would have no way of knowing, because of the stunning lack of transparency in election operations. Officials often do not have written procedures that explain in any detail how they decide to remove voters from the rolls.

According to the paper, a "less-than-helpful spokesman for the New York State Board of Elections said that if the public wanted to learn more than the broad guidelines laid out in the state law, 'I'm not sure there is a way.'"

Nevada, Oklahoma Lead Nation in Death Penalties

The New York Times said:

As a percentage of murders, Nevada and Oklahoma impose the most death sentences, at 6 and 5.1 percent. In Texas, the percentage is 2 percent. The rate in Virginia, another state noted for its commitment to capital punishment, is 1.3 percent. The national average is 2.5 percent; the median is 2 percent.

We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.

Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, story excerpts, and other materials from a variety of websites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed, and a link will be provided, whenever possible.