Alabama legislation looks to rein in police and planning jurisdictions
Updated Mar 04, 2021;
Posted Feb 21, 2021
The signs outside McKenzie Farm Market on U.S. 98 south of Fairhope, Ala., generated a stir in recent years because it ran afoul with the city s sign ordinance. The market is located outside the city s corporate limits, but regulations are allowed because the business is within Fairhope s planning jurisdiction. Alabama is one of a few states with police and planning jurisdictions that extend beyond the city limits. (John Sharp/jsharp@al.com)
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But for Mike McKenzie, the phrase represents a modern-day frustration that affects his business. The owner of a mom-and-pop produce market south of Fairhope, McKenzie cannot vote in city elections even though he is assessed permit fees and must abide by zoning ordinances issued out of Fairhope City Hall. Not long ago, a city employee told him to remove a sign because it was in violation of a city ordinance.
Etowah County Commissioner Craig Inzer got a text message Tuesday from the Whorton Bend fire chief, telling him the department had just received an automated basic life support device an automated CPR machine.
Over the last couple of years, some fire departments in Etowah County have added those devices to their equipment, and have found them to be literal life savers. The devices allow emergency medical service personnel to start chest compressions with the portable machine, and continue consistent compressions from the time they treat a patient on the scene, through transport to a hospital and until hospital personnel can take over treatment.
Alabama inmates sleep on floors as jails overcrowded: ‘It’s inhumane.’
Updated Dec 18, 2020;
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Each night for six weeks Dylan Garrard fell asleep beside a toilet on the concrete floor of a jail cell in northeast Alabama.
“The mats are so thin you can feel the concrete through them,” Garrard said in a phone interview a couple of hours after he was released on Tuesday. “They’re about as thick as a kindergarten mat, but some of the foam is missing.”
Garrard, who is 25, said he was one of three men in his cell in the Jackson County Jail. But there were only two beds, so jail staff gave him a mat. There were dozens more like him.