ENHANCEMENTS TO WASHOE COUNTY WEBSITE MAKE VOTING EASIER SUNDAY VOTING ALSO ENCOURAGES TURNOUT Taking advantage of technology, Washoe County is making voting even easier by posting information on the county’s website that voters can access 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For the first time, voters are able to go to WASHOE COUNTY REGISTRAR OF VOTERS OFFICE and view a copy of their sample ballot, track their absentee ballot request, and view candidate profiles as well as other information that was previously available. Simply click on the "YOUR Voter Registration status, sample ballot, polling place and absentee information" from the left side of the Voters’ page and enter your last name and birthday (ex. 05-16-1961). Your unique voter information including party affiliation, polling place location and even directions (when available) will appear. You can view a copy of the sample ballot and by clicking on the links PDF 1 and PDF 2, sample ballot pages unique to your precinct will appear. "By providing this information conveniently from the comfort of citizens’ home or office computers, we hope to encourage voter turnout as well as helping the voters become more informed before they go to the polls," said Registrar of Voters Dan Burk. According to Burk, 8,600 people have cast their ballots since early voting began on Saturday, October 21st. He estimates that 25,000 to 30,000 voters will choose to vote early before early voting ends on November 2nd. This compares with 34,000 early voters in the 2004 Presidential Election year which traditionally draws more voters. Burk attributes the impressive turnout so far to early voting availability on Sundays at six selected Scolaris grocery stores…a first for Washoe County. He anticipates voters will take advantage of the three-day holiday, including Sunday, to cast their early ballots. Early voting locations and times are also available at WASHOE COUNTY REGISTRAR OF VOTERS OFFICE. "In addition to viewing their voter information online, the most important thing voters can do is bring their sample ballots with them," Burk adds. "Scanning the bar code on the back of the ballot speeds up the processing time." Burk reports that to date, not a single early voting location has reported a delay of longer than 5 minutes for those who have opted to vote early.

Real Property Assessment Data

The Washoe County Assessors Office has a user friendly site to search property records at
http://www.washoecounty.us/assessor/cama/search.php

Give it a try.

EPA Libraries Update From Bernadine Abbott Hoduski



Not only does EPA shut down its libraries but it now is eliminating
electronic access to much information needed by its scientists to do their
job. Bernadine Abbott Hoduski, ALA Councilor at Large, 312 N. Howie,
Helena, Montana
Sent: Monday, October 09, 2006 3:36 PM
From: "Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)"
info@peer.org>
Subject: PRESS RELEASE: EPA Scientists Losing Access to Journals Monday,
October 9, 2006
Contact: Carol Goldberg (202) 265-7337
EPA SCIENTISTS LOSING ACCESS TO JOURNALS
Cuts in Subscription Budgets Take Scientific Journals and Eco-News Offline
Washington, DC ? The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is sharply
reducing the number of technical journals and environmental publications to
which its employees will have online access, according to agency e-mails
released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

This loss of online access compounds the effect of agency library closures,
meaning that affected employees may not have access to either a hard copy or
an electronic version of publications. Citing budgetary shortfalls,
cancellations of online subscriptions will be felt more sharply in some EPA
offices and regions than others. For example,
one e-mail notes: ?Region 3 [Mid-Atlantic Region] needs to cut its journal
renewals about in half and the journals in question are very expensive.?
Other offices will face cuts of as yet unspecified but likely comparable
dimensions.

In addition to technical journals, EPA is also canceling its subscriptions
to widely-read environmental news reports, such as Greenwire, The Clean Air
Report and The Superfund Report, which summarize and synthesize breaking
events and trends inside industry, government and academia. Greenwire, for
example, recorded more than 125,000 hits from EPA staff last year.
As a result of these cuts, agency scientists and other technical specialists
will no longer have ready access to materials that keep them abreast of
developments within their fields. Moreover, enforcement staff,
investigators and other professionals will have a harder time tracking new
developments affecting their cases and projects.

EPA?s professionals need current information in order to do their jobs, but
with each passing month, even these basic tools are being put off limits,
stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, whose organization has been
drawing attention to EPA?s shuttering of its technical libraries. EPA is
entering its own Dark Age, where both the inward and outward flows of
information are being strained through an ever-narrowing sieve.

Ironically, EPA managers had sought to ease employee concerns about library
closures by claiming that the agency is implementing a new library plan to
make environmental information more accessible to employees, according to a
mid-September e-mail sent to all Headquarters employees concerning the
closure of the Headquarters library. Contrary to these assurances, however,
the way in which the agency is implementing budget reductions portends that
employee access to materials will markedly decline. In addition,
cancellation of hard copy subscriptions occasioned by library closures has
actually driven up online subscription costs, as online discounts for hard
copy subscribers have been forfeit.

Overall, EPA?s research budget is also being reduced, even though President
Bush is seeking selected increases in EPA research for topics such as
nanotechnology and drinking water system security as part of an American
Competitive Initiative.
Without libraries and scientific journals, EPA may have to drop out of the
President's Competitive Initiative, Ruch added.



.

American Library Asscociation (ALA) Promotes Online Voter Registration



In a joint effort to make registering to vote easier and more convenient for eligible Americans, the American Library Association (ALA) is participating in GoVote, a project of Working Assets and Mobile Voter. Throughout the 2006 national election season, ALA will host on its Web site a link to the GoVote.org initiative, where individuals can click to register to vote or update their voter registration information.
Using the bilingual, nonpartisan site, people can register any time, from virtually anywhere—via conventional web browser, mobile phone browser and text messaging. People also can send email reminders to family and friends and sign up for information about volunteer opportunities in their local communities. Deadlines for voter registration vary by state, and a full list of registration deadlines can be found at: www.eac.gov/register_vote_deadlines.asp.“Libraries are a vital part of the American democratic landscape,” said ALA President Leslie Burger. “They serve the public by connecting citizens to valuable information regardless of economic status.” Beyond providing library users with the resources they need to make smart and informed voting decision, ALA encourages its members to become registered voters and to promote the GoVote.org voter registration site in their local libraries. Working Assets is a long distance, wireless, and credit card company. In 2003 and 2004, Working Assets launched and ran a campaign that registered over 1 million new voters. Founded in 2004, Mobile Voter is a non-profit, non-partisan organization seeking to facilitate the process of civic participation via mobile technology. For more information about ALA’s participation in GoVote.org, please contact Joan Claffey at 1-800-545-2433, extension 3215. If you have technical questions about using the GoVote.org site, contact GoVote by email at govote@workingassets.com or by phone at 1-877-205-8683.

American Library Association position on EPA library closures



ALA supports congressional effort to investigate closure of EPA libraries
(WASHINGTON) The Environmental Protection Agency has announced that it has begun closing its libraries in response to the Bush Administration's planned $2 million cuts to the agency's 2007 federal budget. As of October 1, 2006, the EPA Headquarters library will be closed to the public. The American Library Association (ALA) disagrees with the EPA's claims that closing the libraries-which field more than 134,000 requests a year from the agency's own staff in addition to requests from the public-will not impede the agency's mission to provide environmental information to its staff and the public.


ALA supports Ranking Democratic members of the House Science Committee in their effort to have the General Accounting Office (GAO) investigate the EPA's plans to shutter the libraries. Representatives Bart Gordon (D-TN), John Dingell (D-MI) and Henry Waxman (D-CA) made the request for an investigation in a letter to GAO on Monday, September 18th.


"Closure of the EPA libraries will make it extremely difficult-and in some cases impossible-for constituents and even EPA staff to find reliable information on a wide range of sensitive environmental issues," said Leslie Burger, President of the American Library Association. "The EPA libraries are essential government services, and they house an estimated 50,000 documents on environmental issues that are available nowhere else," she continued. The American Library Association has taken a position against closure of the EPA libraries urging its members to write to members of Congress and the Bush Administration.

Just in from the USGS

Water-Table Levels and Gradients, Nevada, 1947-2004

Quality of Nevada's Aquifers and Their Susceptibility to Contamination, 1990-2004