I'm guessing someone might have "syntax-checked" the file with perl -c filename,
and added the local as a way (not a good way, though) to suppress the "Name "Foo::bar" used only once: possible typo at foo.pl line 3." warning. (The
warning isn't given when the file is invoked via do $filename because
a file used that way is likely to use variables set elsewhere and set variables
used elsewhere.)