The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Shady cash fattens towns' coffers along drug routes
On the municipal finance front, here's a creative alternative to forcing developers to build private communities so you can tax new residents like crazy while making them pay again to their HOA for the municipal services you aren't giving them:

HOGANSVILLE, Ga. — For years, this small town nestled in the pine forests off Interstate 85 has struggled to keep its police department financially afloat. But the town is riding high these days on a $2.4 million windfall, thanks to drug dealers who happened to be passing through. A police officer, aided by a drug-sniffing German shepherd named Bella, parks his cruiser on the side of the expressway three or four days a week, looking for any vehicle that seems suspicious — a broken taillight, an expired license plate or simply a car that changes lanes excessively. That is all it takes to pull over someone who might be a drug courier. If the officer is lucky, he confiscates not only drugs but bundles of money.