State & Local News Vol. 22, No. 2, Winter 1999 Chair's Message By Larry C. Ethridge The response to my first "Chair’s Message" was absolutely incredible.* In addition to the one congratulatory phone call from my Dad, I received the following note from the finest former mayor of our fair city of Louisville has ever known: "I am certain that with the new creative approach many more than 3.4 percent of the readers of State & Local Law News will find the ‘Chair’s Message’ very relevant and useful." With that vote of encouragement from the Honorable Frank Burke, Sr., I shall hereby announce the three topics to be addressed in this column, and further state that the humor injection this month will be an excerpt from this year’s Darwin Awards courtesy of Vice-Chair Pat Arey. This month I will once again discuss BERMUDA, then go on to our Section’s Publications Program, and conclude with a scintillating summary of the Model Procurement Code Revision Project (prior to the humor injection). 1. Bermuda - Elsewhere in this issue, you will find the application for the Spring Meeting to be held at the Sonesta Beach Resort Hotel in Bermuda from March 24 through 28. In addition to our outstanding room rate ($139 per night), we have made a special effort to ensure that all CLE sessions will end by noon each day in order for you to enjoy the afternoons on your own, with your family, with other Section members, or with any significant others you might encounter on the trip. Patty Salkin has arranged an excellent interactive ethics program for Saturday morning, and this is a good way, and a perfect place, to obtain your CLE ethics credits for the year. Above all, do not forget our pursuit of the Section’s Goal 9 ("To Have Fun!") as we embark upon yet another adventurous Section Spring Meeting. 2. Publications Program - In case you don’t know by now, we have an excellent Publications Program under the leadership of Communications Director Tom Roberts and Publications Director Patty Salkin. This program was brought to the fore by Anita Miller over a decade ago, and it has consistently provided substantial nondues revenues for the continued financial vitality and operation of the Section. The latest edition of the ABC’s of Arbitrage has been recently published, and a book on ethics (edited by Patty Salkin) and one on urban land-use growth and control by Bob Freilich are forthcoming. We are always interested in expanding the scope of these important contributions to the Section and to the profession, and if you are interested in working on a book or monograph, please contact Patty Salkin at the Government Law Center of Albany Law School (518/445-2329) for further information. Please let us have your ideas for future publications, as we strive to maintain at least a three-year "pipeline" of books in progress. 3. Model Procurement Code Revision Project - The Model Procurement Code (MPC) was a joint undertaking of this Section and the Section of Public Contract Law, resulting in the adoption of the Code by the ABA House of Delegates in 1979. When one considers the fact that we didn’t even have widespread use of fax machines at that time, you can only imagine the procedural and technological changes that have taken place in public procurement practices over the past two decades. To that end, both Sections have agreed to fund and sponsor the MPC Revision Project, which is being coordinated by John Miller and Maggie McConnell through the use of a website established at MIT. There are chat rooms for each article of the Code, and I would strongly encourage you to visit the website in order to get an update on the project and to make proposed revisions to the MPC text (e.g., accommodation of electronic commerce). The website can be accessed at <http://MPC-SERVER.mit.edu>, and we would appreciate your comments concerning any and all suggested revisions to the current version of the Code, a document that has been adopted in major portion by sixteen states and thousands of local jurisdictions. As promised at the outset, the following is an except from this year’s Darwin Awards, which by definition are given each year to "bestow upon those individuals, who through single-minded self-sacrifice, have done the most to remove undesirable elements from the human gene pool." Rural Carbon County, Pennsylvania - A group of men were drinking beer and discharging firearms from the rear deck of a home owned by Irving Michaels, age 27. The men were firing at a raccoon that was wandering by, but the beer apparently impaired their aim, and despite the estimated 35 shots the group fired, the animal escaped into a 3 foot diameter drainage pipe some 100 feet away from Mr. Michaels’ deck. Determined to terminate the animal, Mr. Michaels retrieved a can of gasoline and poured some down the pipe, intending to smoke the animal out. After several unsuccessful attempts to ignite the fuel, Michaels emptied the entire 5 gallon fuel can down the pipe and tried to ignite it again, to no avail. Not one to admit defeat by wildlife, the determined Michaels proceeded to slide feet-first approximately 15 feet down the sloping pipe to toss the match. The subsequent rapidly expanding fireball propelled Mr. Michaels back the way he had come, though at a much higher rate of speed. He exited the angled pipe "like a Polaris missile leaves a submarine," according to witness Joseph McFadden, 31. Mr. Michaels was launched directly over his own home, right over the heads of his astonished friends, onto his front lawn. In all, he traveled over 200 feet through the air. "There was a Doppler Effect to his scream as he flew over us," McFadden reported, "followed by a loud thud." Amazingly, he suffered only minor injuries. "It was actually pretty cool," Michaels said. "Like when they shoot someone out of a cannon at the circus. I’d do it again if I was sure I wouldn’t get hurt." See you in Bermuda in March! Larry C. Ethridge is Chair of the Section and practices law with Ackerson, Mosley & Yann in Louisville, Kentucky.  * See Roget’s State & Local Law News home page | Table of Contents