So, two things jumped out at me here: one is the (predictable) outrage when lawmakers find the rules they tout turned against them. Two is the horrible level of info-sec by people who should absolutely know better.
Why, in this day and age, are people putting things with identifying information in the garbage? I have a literal burn box, just for this (no, actually, I don’t trust shredders).
Well, if you have somewhere to burn stuff (most apartment dwellers don’t.) But yeah, it’s not exactly recycling.
The story is from 2002?
The page claims it was updated last year but I don’t see any new information 
Yeah, I was about to say. We have a wood burning heater and a backyard fire pit, but these are privledges of home ownership in a reasonably progressive town. If I still rented, I’d have to take my burnables to a park with a communal BBQ, and bring accelerant. That takes planning, cash and wheels. People in densely populated areas generally have at most, two of those things.
The mayor mentioned in the story died. There’s no apparent mention of it, so most likely they did some kind of “load all stories about this person, search for and replace this, then resave them all” action that marked it updated even though nothing changed.