• The Kids are Alright
Those running for county office may want to peek into the minds of their youngest constituents at www.campaignyoungvoters.org, which is administered by the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at the Council for the Excellence in Government and funded through a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts.
The site is committed to setting aside the myth, apparently believed by many officials, that the 30 million citizens ages 18 to 30 who didn’t vote in 2000 don’t really matter. At the Web site, there are profiles of young adults, ways to plan campaign stops especially for young adults, do’s and don’ts to follow with them, and tools to get the demographic actually voting. There is also an amazing resource center with news articles, academic studies, data, and loads of other links.
• Working Together on the Slopes
Pitkin County, Colo. is not just home to skiing and silver mining. No. The county now features a crisp new Web site that is an interesting collaboration with the City of Aspen. The site, which will be located at www.aspenpitkin.com, is under construction until Oct. 31. However, surfers may preview the upcoming site through a link at www.aspengov.com.
The home page of the as-yet not officially launched cooperative site has a ski theme, with the area’s famed Maroon Bells and the Silver Queen Gondola pictured across the top of the home page. The site is scheduled to have a lot more information for residents than was previously offered by either the city or county’s former sites.
The decision to merge the two sites was easy because the city and county share the same information technology department. It was much more cost-effective to build a single site rather than maintain two separate ones, according to the Aspen Daily News.
An average of 343 people per day visit the city’s Web site in its current format, and the new site will allow staff to monitor which pages within the site people visit the most. County officials expect local government news, government job listings and e-government services to be popular features on the site. The staff will continually update areas of the site with the most demand.
• How to Fund Hazards
The General Accounting Office (GAO) has released a report to Congress in hopes of improving the effectiveness of hazard mitigation efforts throughout the country. The 46-page report may be viewed or downloaded at www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-02-1035.
The report, Hazard Mitigation: Proposed Changes to FEMA’s Multihazard Mitigation Programs Present Challenges, urges the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to award grants for mitigation activities on a nationwide, competitive basis, as opposed to its traditional method of post-disaster funding.
Based on extensive research and interviews with state and local emergency-management officials, the GAO determined that the massive increases over the past 12 years in federal disaster assistance costs requires a new approach. One of the many questions addressed is whether a new approach would result in less focus on natural disasters and more on terrorism-related incidents.
