The Town of Apple Valley’s mission promises “a better way of life through local control of public safety, development, services and amenities.” This leaves unanswered what the town should leave to someone else. That omission can become expensive for the residents, even in the absence of corruption or spectacular incompetence. In three decades in municipal...

AI—The Gamechanger For decades, cities and counties operated on an understanding rarely discussed: municipal codes would never be fully enforced. I watched city councils adopt multi-family rental smoking bans and plastic utensil bans in response to zero public outcry, while staff confirmed there was no compelling local justification for the ordinance and no capacity to...

This past summer, the National Civic League published an article entitled “Is It None of Our Business?” The purpose of the article was to evaluate whether local government agencies should be undertaking national issues, which the League characterizes as “the ‘nationalization’ of local government matters.” The League concludes that such nationalization constitutes a “positive phenomenon.”...