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The article discusses issues related to regulation of Cary Plantation min Maine, as of January 2016. It states lack infrastructure like school and police department in the area, and mentions that despite the conditions the residents of Cary Plantation have to pay property taxes. It notes strategies of local governments for controlling rising tax bills which include privatization and mergers, and cites laws on dismantling a local governments.

Discusses community resistance against cellphone companies and cellular transmission towers in the U.S. Reasons for opposition to construction of towers in residential areas; Views of suburbanites; How, as carriers expand their networks to cover more residential areas, they are invoking the federal telecommunications law; Implications of the law, which prohibits towns from rejecting a transmission tower on the grounds that it poses health concerns; Observation that the carriers are winning the legal skirmishes; Background on a contested tower in Mendham Township, New Jersey.

Several state legislatures are passing laws that prohibit municipalities and other local governments from adopting regulations aimed at curbing rising obesity and improving public health, such as requiring restaurants to provide nutritional information on menus or to eliminate trans fats from the foods they serve. In some cases, lawmakers are responding to complaints from business owners who are weary of playing whack-a-mole with varying regulations from one city to the next. Legislators have decided to sponsor state laws to designate authority for the rules that individual restaurants have to live by. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PHOENIX -- Arizona used to be a knife carrier's nightmare, with a patchwork of local laws that forced those inclined to strap Buck knives or other sharp objects to their belts to tread carefully as they moved from Phoenix (no knives except pocketknives) to Tempe (no knives at all) to Tucson (no knives on library grounds). But that changed earlier this year when Arizona made its Legislature the sole arbiter of knife regulations. And because of loose restrictions on weapons here, Arizona is now considered a knife carrier's dream, a place where everything from a samurai sword to a switchblade can be carried without a quibble. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the political reforms initiated by state legislators in New York.

Comments on parking privileges in New York city. Mention of changes in days when the City Council suspends alternate-site parking regulations; Number of days in 2004 when normal parking rules will be suspended; How, year round, those who benefit are the wealthy and uniformed; Resentment over police officers' questionable parking habits; How one public schoolyard became a parking lot.

Discusses the role of small town mayors in the struggle over same-sex marriage in New York. Involvement of mayors in places like New Paltz and Nyack; Range of views, not necessarily reflecting party stereotypes, on whether gay marriage should be legalized in New York; Charges of misdemeanor against New Paltz mayor Jason West for solemnizing the marriages of 25 same-sex couples.

Reports on the plan of New York State comptroller Alan G. Hevesi to call on the U.S. Legislature in January 2004 to improve the state system of public authorities. Determination whether or not the state's authorities still have a valid reason to exist or should be folded into the general state government; Views of some government officials regarding the proposal; Establishment of a merit selection system for hiring at the authorities.

Looks at an ordinance against predatory lending proposed by Chicago, Illinois Mayor Richard M. Daley. Challenge to banks and financial institutions; Concern about predatory lending; Information on the ordinance.