Next week, along with choosing who will represent them in Montgomery and Washington, D.C., voters in Baldwin County’s unincorporated areas will decide on whether to let the county commission regulate noise, pollution, litter and other nuisances.

“This is an example of, in order for us to get better, as we get bigger,” now-retired County Commissioner Joe Davis said on June 21, when the Baldwin County Commission voted to allow the Nov. 8 referendum. “This is a matter of us looking at ‘my rights stop where yours begin,’ being good neighbors and growing in a way that will enable us to all enjoy paradise.”

The Alabama State Legislature doesn’t allow home rule, so county governments cannot act as a legislative body. But in 2005, the legislature passed the Limited Self-Governance Act, which gives counties the power to enact nuisance regulations—if voters in the county agree to it. Since then, around 20 counties throughout the state have implemented it, including Mobile, Escambia, Madison and Shelby counties.

This summer, the Baldwin County Commission voted unanimously to ask the probate court judge to set up a referendum election to implement the act. Only voters in the unincorporated areas of the county will be asked to vote on it, as municipalities already have the power to implement their own laws.

The legislation was created by the Association of County Commissions of Alabama (ACCA). Under the act, unsanitary sewage, noise, litter, pollution, weeds, animals and junkyards can be regulated by county commissions if citizens agree to it. Without the act, counties have no power to regulate these nuisances, just the state legislature.