Directorate of Cartography Act 3955

[Erik Mortis]

To be Added to the Lawbook Chapter X

LB: X.

C. Land Management.
1. Directorate of Cartography
a. There shall exist within the Ministry of Information a Directorate of Cartography.
b. The Director of Cartography shall be appointed by the Minister of Information.
c. The Directorate of Cartography shall be responsible with notifying the MSC of any land changes within or concerning Shireroth.
d. The Directorate shall be authorized to modify, merge, and divide lands as needed.
e. An expansion, reduction or other modification to the national borders of Shireroth are outside the authority of the Directorate of Cartography.
d The Director shall be responsible with the maintenance of a map for the entire empire.

2. Counties
a. There shall exist a total of 64 regular counties within the Imperial Republic.
b. The Directorate of Cartography is responsible with maintaining the proper number of counties.
c. Counties created by special agreement or treaty shall not be counted as regular counties for purposes of the total number of regular counties.

Section C shall be removed

C. Territory

1. The territory of Shireroth is the claim that from time to time is filed with the Micronational Cartography Society.
2. An expansion, reduction or other modifications to the national borders of Shireroth may only be decided by the Kaiser or the Landsraad.
3. Modifications that do not affect the national borders of Shireroth and is completely within one Duchy, may be decided and communicated to the MCS by the Duke.
a. The Duke may delegate this authority to any subordinate.
4. Modifications that affect two or more Duchies but do not affect the national borders, may be decided on by the Dukes of the involved Duchies and communicated to the MCS.
5. All territorial modifications must be notified to the ministry in charge of cartography.

Just organizing who deals with lands, maps and the like. I think 64 counties is a good number. Places like Hawshire would be cases of non-regular counties. We had a ministry of Cartography once, but it's defunct, this would create it as a sub-structure of MiniInfo.

I wouldn't mind some discussion before voting.

[Kaiseress Anandja II]

I disagree with 1 b and 2 a.

First, it seems rather pointless to have Landsraad approval for what is essentially an Assistant Minister. Seems like too much red tape.

Second, I strongly disagree with fixing the number of counties at 64. First of all, we don't really have that many counties since the Straylightian ones can't really be counted. Second, we need to amend this law every time there is a merger or a split. If I do something by Imperial Order for instance, this section would be obsolete.

[Kaiseress Anandja II]

If I'm not mistaken, we have 43 counties, roughly, not counting the currently unorganized Straylightian sancts.

[Erik Mortis]

No, the Director would just have to modifier borders to keep the number constant.

But I think we should fix the number of Counties, and that we shouldn't be merging or splitting them anymore. While we can't bind the Kaiser, perhaps she/he should stop merging and splitting them.

If we end up with just 12 counties...then we are back where we started and will have to start dividing them up. As it stands I think we might have some counties missing. ie, they are on a map, but have no forum. And the Sancts do pose a special problem. We treated them like Counties, but they clearly are not.

I wanted 64 cause it's a holy number.. but I could settle for 48 or some other power of 2. Like 56.

I'll agree on the appointment bit. I just figured we might like SOME Landsraad oversight.

[Erik Mortis]

If I'm not mistaken, we have 43 counties, roughly, not counting the currently unorganized Straylightian sancts.

Then let us figure out what to do with the sacts, or set 5 of them as counties and bring the number of counties to 48. Then we can cap it at that. If we make new counties, we have to merge some to keep our counts (haha) good.

[Daniel Farewell]

While I agree with Her Majesty, I think that making counties fewer should be something we should strive for. Perhaps 24 counties is a good number.

[Kaiseress Anandja II]

Erik, I merged TWO counties, not all of them. Don't overreact. I recommend language that the Director shall maintain the counties or a list or something. I will veto a fixed number though.

The Landsraad can oversee by firing the minister in case of maladministration.

[Erik Mortis]

I think that is to few personally. Maybe 32. (another holy number).

[Erik Mortis]

Why are you so opposed to a fixed number?

[Kaiseress Anandja II]

Because if I or a future Kaiser decides to form a new county or merge some of them, you have to amend the LawBook. I see it as very unnecessary. Let it be handled on the administrative level, by the Minister in charge. He does have complete authority within his field of responsibility, and it allows more flexibility.

[Erik Mortis]

Like I said, no amendment would be needed. (not that the Landsraad couldn't use the work), the Director of Cartography (DirCart) could just merge/split other counties as needed to maintain the numbers.

[Kaiseress Anandja II]

Yes, an amendment would be needed if no other counties were merged or split. I'm talking about Kaiseral action here, not by the Director. If you want to paint the Landsraad into a forced amendment corner, you are most welcome. I might test it though.

[Erik Mortis]

Step one. Kaiser makes the County of Blah by splitting Blah and Narf.
Step two. To maintain the number the DirCart merges Point and Zort into the County of Troz.

No amendment made. now, if Point and Zort are assigned, we get some issues politically. But assuming they aren't, no problems.

[Daniel Farewell]

*confused*

[Kaiseress Anandja II]

And if the Kaiser says that no counties are to be merged or split to "maintain" the number?

Why is this amendment needed? Because I merged two counties?

[Daniel Farewell]

This bill seems... strange.

NAY FOR KALIR.

[Erik Mortis]

No, it had nothing to do with what you did. I just thought it would make sense to actual had a job for dealing with borders, and managing land. Considering how important it is. We've not had a clear law on how to deal with it for some time.

If I remove the part on a fixed number, would this be palatable?

[Kaiseress Anandja II]

Remove the fixed number part and you have my full support.

[Daniel Farewell]

Actually, remove section (2) completly.

[Erik Mortis]

Done.

Now this act only creates a Directorate of Cartography to specifically deal with maps, lands, borders, etc.

[Daniel Farewell]

Thanks.

KALIR casts the vote 'aye'

[Andreas the Wise]

I am the only person in Shireroth who thinks the reason chunks of pixels are divided into different counties is so that each county has it's own forum and can be developed in a different manner from every other county?

And I liked the old part, but I guess Dukes don't have the land anymore to be able to modify it as they like. And I'm not sure about new C.1.d. Surely the Directorate is just there to administrate what happens; not to make decisions themself.

[Kaiseress Anandja II]

You put in that afterwards. I don't think I want an assistant minister to have that much power.

[Erik Mortis]

Everything there, was there from the get go.

[Kaiseress Anandja II]

d. The Directorate shall be authorized to modify, merge, and divide lands as needed.

Was this there as well? Probably was, just didn't notice it that much. Isn't this a bit much power to put in the hands of an assistant minister?

[Daniel Farewell]

Kalir changes its vote to 'nay'.

[Kaiseress Anandja II]

Nah, I'll just Say that d. is vetoed.

[Erik Mortis]

I killed e to since it made no sense without d. and f became d.

Would Kalir like to re-revote on this completely castrated bill.

[Kaiseress Anandja II]

If you don't want it to be castrated, don't put thing in that should be reserved for the Kaiser and Landsraad.

[Erik Mortis]

Thus the original Landsraad approval on the appointment. And it was needed when I had a fixed number of Counties... So yeah.. completely castrated. I'm still gonna push on since it's still not a bad idea to have a personal to deal with this.