Clark County’s legislators will be busy during this session of the state legislature.

As The Sun reported, both Sen. Ralph Alvarado and Rep. Les Yates are either proposing or co-sponsoring bills for consideration.

I urge you to review the news article in the Tuesday, Jan. 7, issue of The Sun in order to understand the following references to the bills.

When commenting on proposed legislation, it is somewhat hazardous to venture too form an opinion without reading the entire piece of legislation, but based on the synopsis of the bills in the news article, one might venture some thoughts on them, subject to further examination.

Alvarado and Yates are to be congratulated for having their names attached to bills which appear to be beneficial to all Kentuckians.

Alvarado’s Bill Request 98, BR141, BR433, BR909 and BR910 all appear to have beneficial effects that would aid many people. BR474 and BR957 are fairly innocuous and don’t really affect the everyday lives of the people.

BR47, co-sponsored by Yates, extends the deadline for filing for public office in limited circumstances, a reasonable way to allow more individuals to seek office.

As with all legislation, some proposals deserve additional scrutiny.

Two of the aforementioned proposed bills appear to be repeats of bills which have been brought up in the past.

BR907 seeks to establish an additional level of governmental control over “special purpose governmental entities” by requiring those entities submit proposed tax increases to local government review. It is interesting the bill only wants review if the entity proposes a tax increase, not a tax decrease. This legislation would impose additional burdens on taxing districts which have been approved by the voters and whose boards are selected from the general population, such as the public library, the extension service and the health department.

It should also be noted HB44, enacted in 1979 has been quite effective in controlling escalating tax rates of these districts, limiting their ability to increase the rate above 4 percent of the compensating rate.

In Clark County, an examination of the tax proposals of these special entities will show a declining rate among some of them and very modest increases among the others.

BR906 is another proposal that has been before the legislature before, a bill which, in effect, removes the discretion of the courts and juries to establish proper compensation for the malfeasance of medical practitioners, once those practitioners have been found culpable for damage to a patient. This legislation would undoubtedly be terribly complicated because it would be virtually impossible for the state government to establish a suitable level of compensatory or punitive recompense for every degree of damage, for every individual damaged.

Further, it removes some of the power of the courts and transfers that power to the state government.

Since the court system still maintains a higher level of prestige among the electorate than does the government, this piece of legislation would seem to be counter-intuitive.

BR240 promulgates unnecessary intrusion into the affairs of Kentucky cities by prohibiting the establishment of “sanctuary cities.” The bill proposes several other factors relating to denying services to “illegal aliens,” and these issues deserve additional conversation and examination.

However, there are now no sanctuary cities in the state nor are there, apparently, any such cities being proposed.

But should any city determine it wishes to establish such a status, it would seem appropriate for the state to provide proof doing so would detrimentally affect the state itself.

Absent such proof, legislation prohibiting sanctuary cities seems, at the very least, moot.

Chuck Witt is a retired architect and a lifelong resident of Winchester. He can be reached at chuck740@bellsouth.net.