An ordinance to allow all-terrain vehicles on public roads, which got national attention when introduced in Wayne County, Kentucky, last month, died at this week's meeting of the county Fiscal Court when even the member who introduced it declined to vote for it on second reading. ATVs are highly popular in the county, where the rugged western edge of the Cumberland Plateau meets the Tennessee border.
"District Two Magistrate Darrell Dishman, who originally brought the petition to the court asking that ATV's be allowed to travel on county roads in order to reach off-road trails, said he was opposed to the ordinance because he did not want to burden riders with purchasing liability insurance," Melodie Jewell Phelps reports in this week's Wayne County Outlook. "District Three Magistrate Dale Vaughn said he was opposed to this ordinance from the first day he learned about it. But he said he wanted to keep and open mind and listen to those who voiced an opinion [at a recent public hearing]. With Kentucky leading the nation in ATV deaths right now, Vaughn said he was afraid the numbers would skyrocket." (Read more)
About those names: As non-Kentuckians may have guessed, a fiscal court is the state's version of a county commission. The name goes back to the days when magistrates (still "justices of the peace" in the state constitution) had both budgetary and judicial powers. But it's more accurate nomenclature than in Louisiana, where the county legislative body is the Police Court. Still, when it comes to such names, we like a little color and thus don't care for a recent change in Tennessee, where the official name is Legislative Body. Ugh. And a persnal note on newspaper nomenclature: I've always liked the name of the Outlook, against which I competed briefly 32 years ago. A newspaper ought to give readers an idea, at least implicit, of the outlook for their community. The name is most popular among papers in Kentucky, site of three of the 13 weekly Outlooks in the United States. Washington and Ohio each have two. Only one U.S. daily bears the name, the Alexander City (La.) Outlook. --Al Cross, director, Institute for Rural Journalism & Community Issues
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