1. Plague of abuse - Arizona Republic - Phoenix, AZ, USA

 

A woman is murdered by her husband or boyfriend every four days in Arizona. A police officer responds every five minutes to a domestic-violence call in the state.

 

And this is progress.

 

Maricopa County has had a regional push to end domestic violence since 1999. With the leadership of the Maricopa Association of Governments' Regional Domestic Violence Council, we've boosted education efforts, sources and collaboration.

 

But the appalling plague continues. October is Domestic Violence Awareness month, and this is the time to put new muscle into stopping the bloody and costly toll.

 

On Thursday, the Regional Domestic Violence Council released a report card on the 41 initiatives it planned to take five years ago. More than 150 volunteers deserve credit for their work in turning these into reality.

...

 

 2. Going nowhere fast - Tacoma News Tribune - Tacoma, WA, USA

 

As housing developments sprawled across Pierce County in the 1990s, workers' average commute times increased by 17 percent, to 28 minutes, according to 2002 U.S. Census Bureau data. That's expected to worsen, since Pierce County's population is projected to increase by more than 200,000 - to 912,700 people - by 2020.

 

One regional planning agency says Pierce County's roads will be 70 percent congested during afternoon rush hours by 2030.

 

Under the landmark Growth Management Act of 1990, local governments were supposed to make sure their transportation systems kept pace with growth - or they were to reject the growth.

 

But Pierce County didn't get the message:

 

•It has never rejected a development to prevent traffic from overwhelming a road.

 

•Until last year, it used a traffic-measuring system that masked congestion problems by averaging traffic counts over multiple roadways.

 

•It assumed "ample funds" would be available to improve roads later.

 

The whole mess is playing out on 42 roadways that have exceeded or are close to exceeding their county-imposed limits on traffic congestion - ...

 

At issue is a one-word concept only a traffic engineer could love: "concurrency."

...
A 2002 survey by the Puget Sound Regional Council, which coordinates growth planning in King, Pierce, Snohomish and Kitsap counties, found that only 21 of 68 local governments reported that concurrency requirements had affected development in any way. ...

 

I think it is worse than nothing. It's much like passing the TOT increase (in San Diego). It gives them more money to continue doing the wrong thing. ...

 3. National transit ridership hits all time high - Public services across Canada need billions now, report warns - Toronto Star - Toronto, Ontario, Canada

 

Canadians took buses, subways, streetcars and trains in record numbers in 2003, the Canadian Urban Transit Association said yesterday.

 

The association has been using the national figures to pressure Prime Minister Paul Martin and his Liberal government to live up to their promise of delivering a share of the gas tax to cities to help transit.

...

 

 

 4. Different views on road to the future - San Diego Union Tribune - San Diego, CA, USA

 

I'm on record saying I'll vote for Proposition A – aka TransNet II, the 40-year half-cent sales tax extension on next month's ballot.

 

I'm also on record saying one would require near-lethal doses of opiates to believe the San Diego Association of Governments' program is a utopian solution to the region's transportation challenges.

 

Still, TransNet II's laundry list of projects is better than nothing.

 

On Thursday, I met with Supervisor Pam Slater-Price, a moderate Republican with a green bent. The Del Mar resident explained why she thinks TransNet II is worse than nothing.

 

Here, condensed from a taped conversation, is why the supervisor thinks I'm dead wrong to hold my nose and vote "yes."

SANDAG was poll-driven and interest-group-driven, not driven by real needs. I felt from the outset SANDAG asked the wrong question: How can we get something that will pass by two-thirds? It's like a jigsaw puzzle, a piece here and here, and getting everyone to say "yes." The real question is: What are we going to do about increasing immobility? They did the opposite. They started with a bunch of pieces so they could get to yes at the ballot box.

TransNet is not going to change what's happening here. There are no significant transit projects that are going to be built. More than 70 percent goes to funding operations. I think they're at capacity for the current strategy.

 

 5. Area's mixed politics color public policy - Sacramento Bee - Sacramento, CA, USA

 

Increasing clashes of values can also affect officials in nonpartisan positions.

 

The liberal Davis City Council once declared the city a nuclear-free zone and built a tunnel under the highway to save toads.

The all-Republican Rocklin City Council became the region's first municipality to outlaw rather than regulate the commercial sale of medicinal marijuana.

 

At the same time, a school board in equally conservative Roseville spent a year pondering the teaching of creationism as an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution, but rejected the proposal on a 3-2 vote.

 

Sacramento's overwhelmingly Democratic City Council last year passed the region's first living wage ordinance, setting minimum pay standards for city-subsidized projects.

 

Throughout the four-county Sacramento region, the political bent of local governments often drives public policy.

 

City, county and school officials in California are supposed to be nonpartisan in theory. But in reality, the people elected to solve local problems reflect the community's liberal or conservative political profile.

 

Clashes in political values are becoming increasingly apparent in a region once dominated by Democrats but now consisting of a Democratic urban core surrounded by fast-growing GOP strongholds.

...

"When people move to (rural areas), they want to have an acre of land, they want their own home and some space," Cox said. "They didn't move to Northern California, to this region, to live in an apartment."

 

Discord and ideological differences between the Sacramento area's urban and suburban communities have for years hampered efforts to solve regional problems ranging from low-income housing to crowded freeways, officials said.

 

But West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon, a Democrat who chairs the Sacramento Area Council of Governments, or SACOG, said it's too simplistic to lay all the blame for disputes in regional problem-solving on partisan politics.

 

"There are differences in perspective and, to some extent, philosophy, across the region," Cabaldon said. "But it's not as simple as just looking at partisan breakdowns."

 

Development needs and community priorities can differ greatly from city to city, based on growth rates, tax bases, social service needs, redevelopment desires, and whether a community is small or large, rich or poor, rural or urban, officials said.

 

SACOG has played a leading role in bringing local officials together in an effort to solve regional problems - such as smog and traffic gridlock - that do not respect boundary lines.

...

 

 6. a) 'Infrastructure should not inhibit growth' - News Today – India

...

To assure international business that India is a safe and secure place for outsourcing, Nasscom is organising a joint Indo-US summit on cyber security on 12-13 October in Delhi. 'We want to assure US, UK and others that India is a place for trustworthy sourcing where quality standards are much higher and information security and data privacy are ensured,' he said.

 

The Departments of Commerce and Homeland Security of the US government are major participants at the two day workshop, among other American companies, in which 'we will share best practices, the kind of steps taken and legal framework in existence here to ensure data security and explain how safe the country is for outsourcing work here,' Karnik explained.

...
     b) Study: Indian diaspora helped outsourcing movement - IT World – USA

 

 7. Work force hot topic in discussion - Texarkana Gazette - Texarkana, TX, USA

 

The work force in Northeast Texas was the prime topic in a small roundtable discussion held Thursday between prominent local employers and Ron Lehman of the Texas Workforce Commission.

 

Lehman, commissioner for employers, was in town to celebrate the new fiscal year with the North East Texas Workforce Board. He touted the employer-driven philosophy the state's work force boards have implemented.

 

"The best message I can leave you with is the notion of an employer-driven system," Lehman said.

...

Jerry Sparks, economic development manager for the Ark-Tex Council of Governments, raised concerns about the poor literacy level in some Northeast Texas counties. As he put it, you can't have a work force if they can't read.

...

 

 8. IN New England, a city revival built on creativity - Christian Science Monitor - Boston, MA, USA

...

While New England was one of the slowest-growing regions in the US in the 1990s, Portland stood out as an exception. The city was the only metropolis in the region to make the list of the 20 top receivers of young, single, college-educated adults from 1995 to 2000.

...

According to the US census, each of the six New England states lost more young, single, college-educated adults than it gained from 1995 to 2000. But Portland has emerged as a model that can reverse that trend. It has gained recognition for everything from distinctiveness - its working waterfront and converted warehouses - to world-class eateries.

 

"In many respects Portland can be somewhat of a test study in terms of some of the things we can do in this area," says Daryl Fort, director of community development in Gov. John Baldacci's office. "Other [communities] are poised to do the same."

 

Indeed, urban planners and politicians throughout the region have been hammering out initiatives - from tax incentives to folk festivals - to help attract young professionals.

 

And it's a particular type of young worker being wooed: those, like May, who make up the "creative workforce," which can include not only artists but also technology workers, entrepreneurs, and even lawyers.

 

Increasingly, cities in this region and elsewhere are following the theory that this demographic attracts upscale restaurateurs, organic grocers, theater groups, and galleries. These businesses and organizations then create a quality of life and "vibe" that prompts others to relocate.

 

"Cities are embracing arts and artists [because they see] a creative environment as a cutting edge in the 21st century," says Ann Galligan, a professor in the Department of Cooperative Education at Northeastern University in Boston. She says cities can no longer depend on a single factory or company for municipal success. "A city has to rethink how it attracts and maintains workers ... without alienating its traditional [working-class] base."

...

The downside

 

But not everyone is dubbing these efforts a success. Housing prices have soared in many towns, traffic has become more congested, and the character is different.

...

RC Link: Greater Portland Council of Governments

 

  9. Art’s patron saint - The St. Louis Post-Dispatch - St. Louis, MO, USA

 

Heading into its 20th year, the Regional Arts Commission has served as a leading benefactor and cheerleader for the arts. ...

...

In the 1970s, mayors across the country started to recognize that the arts helped fuel local economies. St. Louis Mayor James Conway created the Arts & Humanities Commission in 1979 and allocated it $250,000. A few years later, Mayor Vince Schoemehl and County Executive Gene McNary floated the idea of a regional commission supported by tax dollars. McGuire, then Schoemehl's executive assistant, spearheaded the campaign, which narrowly failed in the county. In 1984, the two leaders proposed a hotel tax to create the Convention and Visitors Commission and RAC.

...

 

RC Link: East-West Gateway Coordinating Council

 

10. Regional Council approves long-term transport plan - Salt Lake Tribune - Salt Lake City, UT, United States
 

The Wasatch Front Regional Council on Thursday passed perhaps its most ambitious proposal ever to fund roads and transit for the next 30 years. Now it's up to the Legislature to determine what to do with it.

 

   The council's board, composed of elected officials from Salt Lake, Davis, Weber, Morgan and Tooele counties, voted unanimously to approve a tax package for its long-range transportation plan. If approved by lawmakers, it would raise $6 billion by 2015 to pay for such things as I-15 and I-80 improvements and expansion of and future commuter and light rail service.

 

   The Mountainland Association of Governments, which comprises Utah, Summit and Wasatch counties, is expected to vote on the proposal next week.

 

   Essentially, the plan calls for:

   l A 5-cent-per-gallon increase in the statewide gas tax, with future gas tax hikes tied to inflation, as well as applying state sales tax to gasoline.

...

 

11. A golden opportunity: Can we set the example for smart growth? - Times-Standard - Eureka, CA, USA

Could Humboldt County become the Third World of California? ...

 

T-S: Explain to us Healthy Humboldt's strategy for planning for growth.

 

Ryerson: We're hoping to respond to what most of the people in Humboldt County have indicated they want. The No. 1 thing they want is to preserve their working lands. They want to preserve their ag lands, their timber lands because this is a great place to grow timber. They like those kinds of industries and they want to restore fishing. We also support entrepreneurship, which has been doing quite well in Humboldt County and something the university is supporting as well.

 

When we look at it, what's the best way to save land? Well, city-centered growth, or more dense growth, is the best way to save land. If you look at the kind of development that occurred prior to the dominance of the automobile, say 50 or 60 years ago, buildings and houses and commercial buildings, it was mixed use. It was walkable, it was pedestrian friendly, you could walk to the grocery store, walk to the cleaners, to the movie house. It was supported by higher-density living.

...

Humboldt County Association of Governments

 

12. INVASIVE Species: The Newest Threat to Property Rights - Michnews.com - Troy, MI, USA

 

If you have foreign weeds, grass, trees, or shrubs on your property (and you most certainly do), you’re in trouble.  Under “Invasive Species” provisions currently sitting in the Senate’s version of the Federal Transportation Bill (S. 1072), your property could quickly become the target of radical environmentalists and bureaucrats.

      

Imagine the Endangered Species Act on steroids. Now multiply its devastating effect on property rights by one million. That should give you a pretty good idea of what “Invasive Species” legislation will mean for property owners in every state, county, city and suburb in the nation.

 

“Invasive Species” is the radical Greens’ and international socialists’ key to controlling every square inch of land in the United States.

...

 

13. Fears of more butts in harbour - Stuff.co.nz - New Zealand

 

From December, new legislation will ban smoking in bars and clubs, forcing people out on the street to have a cigarette. Butts dropped on the footpath and in gutters will end up in drains and eventually the sea and other waterways.

 

Auckland Regional Council urban pollution prevention team leader Campbell Sturroch says with more people outside bars smoking, the number of butts going into stormwater drains will increase.

 

Cigarette butts are already a concern for the ARC but are not a top priority compared to oil spills in waterways, Mr Sturroch says.

 

"People don't make the connection between throwing the butt down the drain and it ending up on the beach."

 

More than 25 million cigarette butts a year go down drains and wash into the sea, he says.

 

Mr Sturroch says a study conducted in the United States found cigarette butts killed many sea birds each year. They also affect fish and other birds who swallow them.

...

 

14. Hydrogen Fuel Cells

      a) Caravan of Fuel Cell Vehicles from Eight Auto Companies Cruises through Southern California - Fuel Cell Works – USA

 

... the California Fuel Cell Partnership's (CaFCP) 2004 Road Rally gave Southern Californians a chance to get a sneak preview of the clean, fuel cell vehicle technology of the future.  All CaFCP's automotive members entered vehicles and vehicle teams in the Cruisin' Southern Cal rally:  DaimlerChrysler, Ford, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Toyota and Volkswagen. ... Joe Kellijian, Solana Beach council member and representative of the San Diego Association of Governments, joined ... in kicking off the public event by taking the first fuel cell tests rides along the waterfront. ...

 

      b) Hydrogen-Why Bother? Expert Justifies The Transition - Fuel Cell Works – USA

...

"Since hydrogen cannot compete with gasoline on a cost-per-unit of energy basis, and better fuel efficiency not likely to make up the difference, it's not obvious how mass introduction can happen soon. As a result, there's no clear model for private investor return on investment."

 

But development does occur in the face of technical and financial obstacles, Cole reminded attendees. In the 19th Century, population growth was exceeding food supply. Agriculture discovered nitrogen fertilizer, which dramatically increased food production, but the largest single source was in Chile, making it difficult to supply.

 

"Fritz Haber won the 1918 Nobel Prize for developing chemical process for producing ammonia. The food supply crisis was averted, and today, ammonia is second only to sulfuric acid in terms of chemicals production worldwide. Some 40 % of the world population is alive because of ammonia."

 

Between process discovery and widespread use was a 35-year learning curve, during which farmers began to use ammonia as fertilizer, standards were developed and infrastructures were developed.

 

"Now do you understand the 'why' of why bother?" he asked. "Even though hydrogen technology is not ready and fossil energy supply is not yet critical, we need to be prepared to avert crises."

...

 15. Richmond weighs cable TV buyout - Kentucky.com - Lexington, KY, USA

 

RICHMOND - City officials are considering a brave new world: the cable TV business.

 

This week, a committee that has been studying the issue for about a year recommended that Richmond cancel its franchise agreement with Adelphia Communications Corp. and attempt to buy its local operation. The company has filed for federal bankruptcy protection.

 

The nation's two largest cable companies, Time-Warner Inc. and Comcast Corp., are working on a joint bid for Adelphia, which has been divided into seven regional clusters in an effort to attract more buyers. Presumably, if the cluster is sold, Richmond would attempt to buy the local operation from the new owner.

 

That could cost $55 million and there are plenty of unresolved financial and technological questions, so city officials are proceeding cautiously.

 

Adelphia serves nearly 19,000 customers in Richmond, but more than 60,000 others in communities surrounding Lexington would also be affected because they get their signal from Richmond.

 

Cable service is a touchy subject for officials of small governments. In an effort to gain more influence with Adelphia's predecessor, Frontier Vision, 14 of them banded together a few years ago to form the Kentucky Regional Cable Commission.

...

Note: I could find nothing on-line about how the Kentucky Regional Cable Commission functions. It is mentioned in a 2003 report on Inter-County Cooperation . Richmond city is in Madison County which is in the Bluegrass ADD regional community.

Also note that one of my email addresses is regional@... so I do have an interest here in optional outcomes. Ed.

 

16. Other in the news:

      a) WORKING on the Web - FCW.com – USA

... Web collaboration continues to present serious obstacles. Making those happy images a reality even after an agency has acquired and implemented the technology is a challenge, making it difficult, if not impossible, to get the desired payback.

 

"You can implement all the technology you want, but you can't make people collaborate," said Judith Hurwitz, president of Hurwitz and Associates, an IT research firm. If your people won't participate or participate only grudgingly, the payback will be slow to arrive, if ever.

 

The obstacles to achieving the desired results from Web collaboration are as centered on people issues, such as sharing, adoption and training, as they are on technical ones, such as scalability and security. Fortunately, agency officials have now had enough experience with collaboration for proven best practices to emerge, lessons that can help others overcome obstacles and avoid major pitfalls.

...

      b) Turning Strategy into Action, Part 4: - DMReview.com - New York, NY, United States

...

CPM is the application of fundamentally sound business management practices, enhanced by timely and accurate information, in order to effectively communicate, comprehend and control (C3) the performance of an organization.

 

Simply put, communication, comprehension and control define the exercise of business management over the resources of the organization in the accomplishment of corporate performance objectives.

...

      c) USAF plans space wars, world's space hardware gets nervous - The Register - London, England, UK

 

A new US Air Force doctrine document on counterspace operations reveals that neutral, commercial and third party space hardware could be on the target list. The document, says Noah Shachtman in Wired, suggests the Air Force sees it as its duty to "slap down other countries' space efforts, should the need arise," and will be prepared to take out - in the gentlest way practicable - non-combatant systems that may be being used by the other side.

 

The document doesn't specifically say anything like 'we'll shoot down any neutral satellite we find being used by our adversaries.' But neither does it say, 'whatever we do we must ensure we don't shoot down any neutral satellite.' ...

      d) EPA inspector general report criticizes Bush’s clean air policy - Waste News - Akron, OH, USA

 

Sept. 30 -- A federal watchdog office released a report saying Bush administration reforms to the New Source Review portion of the Clean Air Act have seriously hampered enforcement cases and efforts to negotiate settlements. ...

 

 

17. Subscription link stories 

 

      a) A region's future - Charlotte Observer (subscription) - Charlotte, NC, USA

One word: Bioinformatics.

Like the Dustin Hoffman character in "The Graduate" who was told that the magic word for his future was "plastics," the nine-county Charlotte region got some advice Wednesday. It wasn't "plastics," but bioinformatics. And optoelectronics. And motorsports, entrepreneurship and workforce skills.

Elected officials and business leaders from the region gathered to hear about a new report that studied economic development strategies. "No Boundaries: A New Approach to Regional Prosperity," comes from an Austin-based consultant hired by the Centralina Council of Governments. Among its key points:

• Collaborate regionally.

• Develop an entrepreneurial culture.

• Make improving workforce skills a priority.

• Focus economic development efforts on retraining and expanding industries and attracting new industry that complements key sectors, such as motorsports.

And that leads us to bioinformatics and optoelectronics.

The former is "a relatively new industry that utilizes tools from the software and biotech industries," says the report. The latter is "the combination of optical and electronics products into one field whose products span numerous industries." That may be hard to grasp, but the underlying point isn't: Economic development must be collaborative, and as the textile and furniture industries shrink, efforts must focus on growing fields that already have a toe-hold in the region.

The report also has some cautions. The percentage of population age 25 to 44 has dropped to 31 percent, from 34 percent in 1990. High-tech industries prefer regions with at least 34 percent of the people in that age group.

What's next? After all, it takes more than a simple county commissioners' vote to change a region's culture. But the report's findings dovetail with other such studies done in the past decade. Think and work regionally. Make better use of UNC Charlotte. Focus on education.

Approaching all those challenges as a unified region is more complex than the traditional approach in which each county goes it alone. But it's the best way to ensure that this region continues to grow and prosper.

READ THE REPORT: http://www.centralina.org/ceds/Centralin%20Regional%20CEDS%20FINAL%20DRAFT_09%2023%2004.pdf

www.centralina.org

        b) Stadium tax: essential or excessive? - Kansas City Star (subscription) - Kansas City, MO, United States

The Chiefs and the Royals hope to do at the polls Nov. 2 what they can't seem to do on the field: win.

Team officials want voters in metropolitan Kansas City to pass a quarter-cent bistate sales tax to raise $360 million for remodeling Arrowhead and Kauffman stadiums, part of a $1.2 billion plan that also would finance arts projects.

... The average per-household cost of the tax would be about $94 the first year, based on retail sales estimates by the Mid-America Regional Council. ...