At least one Carroll County Commissioner is keeping a concerned eye on a senate bill that would strip powers from local governments. The powers involved deal with deciding what businesses can set up shop and what products can be sold in a city or county. Senate Bill 418 calls for prohibiting county and municipal governments from banning the sales of goods, products or items regulated by the Department of Agriculture or the Food and Drug Administration.
 
District 5 Commissioner, Lee Powers, said this takes away too much local control, ” What bothers me about the bill more than anything is that the state can come here and tell us what we can do with our agricultural land and what we can’t.”
 
Powers continued with an example,” If the state decides they want to legalize to grow marijuana and a guy come to Carroll County and bought 250 acres and wanted to grow marijuana, we could not tell them that they cannot grow marijuana. It takes all the power away from the local government and that’s the reason it is a bad bill.”
 
SB 418 received its second reading on Wednesday.