When video games were ‘a novel phenomenon’
County Executive Jim Smith’s veto yesterday of a bill that would have created a do-not-deliver flier list got me wondering about when the last time was that a bill was vetoed in the county.
Most of the current County Council members have at least four terms under their belts and have never seen any of their bills vetoed (though a few were allowed to pass into law unsigned, I am told). Some longtime council watchers told me the last veto could have been more than 20 years ago but no one could say for sure.
Well, wonder no more.
The crack staff at the County Council dug deep this morning and came up with what they say is the last time a council bill was vetoed by a county executive … 27 years ago.
Three bills passed in 1981 got the thumbs down from then-County Executive Donald Hutchinson.
That year, Hutchinson vetoed a bill involving a length of service award program for volunteer firefighters in the county, and another bill that tinkered with the county Revenue Authority.
The third and final bill is the only one that has a message from Hutchinson explaining his veto.
That bill, passed in December 1981, attempted to establish condition under which a video game arcade would be permitted in certain business zones.
The explanation is enlightening in terms of why the bill was killed. It also serves as a fun look back at a time when now-ubiquitous video games were the new, hot thing.
“Indeed, video games are a novel phenomenon throughout the country, generated by advances in electronics which have moved out of the realm of science and into the world of commerce and entertainment,” Hutchinson wrote in his two-page veto message dated Jan. 14, 1982. “I have concluded that this commendable effort by the county, however, is seriously flawed.”