The Sun Herald | 07/08/2006 | The laws sometimes stand in the way

The Sun Herald | 07/08/2006 | The laws sometimes stand in the way: "WAVELAND - State and federal laws dictate how a city is to replace a damaged backhoe or front-end loader, but when a city is faced with losing all its public works equipment at once, the law may be what is standing in the way of a quick recovery.

'When you write the law, you don't think of little cities with 15 pieces of equipment rendered useless,' said Marty Wiseman, director of the Stennis Institute, a government think tank at Mississippi State University.

That's why Wiseman arrived on the Coast this week with marching orders from the Legislature. He and his team are to determine if there are any local, state or federal laws that could be changed to make life a little easier for first responders to a disaster like Katrina."