News Recap 07-09

It's been a quiet couple weeks since the last news recap, with lots of little local city and school board issues passing through my news filter. I got a peek at a new open source project repository for web mapmaking, but I don't think they're ready to be linked to yet. Mostly I'm posting today to link to the big news out of Florida yesterday.

FL
2010-07-06 Orlando Sentinel covers the story so far and the state of things.

2010-07-08 Jacksonville Observer "A Tallahassee judge on Thursday knocked the Legislature's proposed constitutional amendment ..." - so, 7 is out - "... saying he couldn't easily understand what it would do so it was unreasonable to expect voters could." Ouch. Also tampabay.com has this nice quote from the judge:

"I can hardly think that the average voter going in the voting booth would be able to make an informed decision," Shelfer said. "It took me three days — in reading all of these cases, reading all of these briefings, hearing all of your arguments — to get a handle on what this amendment did and its effect on the existing laws and the Constitution."

CA
2010-07-06 Rose Report notes the independent commission by which the city of San Diego will draw it's city council plan. The commission is appointed by judges from applicants.

DE
2010-07-07 Delaware will count prison populations at their prior homes.