Laid-off Appalachian miner blames politicians, but not those you might think, for region's woes

Thousands of Central Appalachian coal miners have been laid off since January as coal companies decrease operations in the region and move to more lucrative mining areas, including the Powder River Basin in Wyoming. There are several reasons for this, the biggest of which is cheap natural gas. Mimi Pickering and Sylvia Ryerson of radio station WMMT in Whitesburg, Ky. recently interviewed Letcher County miner Gary Bentley, to collect his thoughts.


Bentley, 29, lost his job with Arch Coal Inc. in June, and after months of searching, was hired at a mine in Owewnsboro, Ky., five and a half hours from Whitesburg in the western part of the state. He worked for Arch for 10 years, and is a Letcher County native. The layoffs are unlike anything he's seen, he told Ryerson and Pickering, and he doesn't think it's fair.

"People come in here and they make billions of dollars, and they've been doing it for hundreds of years here, and now when they're leaving, they're just leaving us with nothing," Bentley said. He was lucky to find work in Kentucky, he said, because many other miners he worked with had to get jobs in Alabama, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and even Australia. It's also been slightly easier for him because he has a high school diploma. Some older miners he knows have no more than a sixth-grade education, and were hired before mining companies began requiring at least a high school education.

Bentley said local politicians want to blame Central Appalachian coal's decline on the federal government because of increased Environmental Protection Agency regulations, but what he saw at EPA hearings in Pikeville, Ky., showed him a different story. "I was real disappointed with our local, state and regional politicians because I felt like they all wanted to get up there and point fingers and say 'It's this person's fault, it's this person's fault. They're trying to destroy our industry; they're destroying Eastern Kentucky,'" Bentley said. "But at the same time, they're in the position. Why weren't they doing more to stand up for the region? Why weren't they doing more to try and bring in other industry?"

Bentley continued: "Anybody with any sort of intelligence that keeps up on the coal industry saw the declines coming. ... So, I feel that the political leaders really failed us by not having a back up plan for this area and for these communities. ... We need real answers and real solutions, not just a bunch of hot wind." To listen to Bentley's full interview, click here.

In southwest Oregon, as subsidy cuts hit policing, citizens form a general posse and do it themselves

An old police car has been parked on the
highway through O'Brien since the
sheriff's budget has been cut. (AP)

"There's no room in the county jail for burglars and thieves. And the sheriff's department in a vast, rural corner of southwest Oregon has been reduced by budget cuts to three deputies on patrol eight hours a day, five days a week," reports Jeff Barnard of The Associated Press. "People in this traditionally self-reliant section of timber country aren't about to raise taxes to put more officers on the road." Instead, folks are "mounting flashing lights on their trucks and strapping pistols to their hips to guard communities themselves. Others have put together a virtual neighborhood watch, using Facebook to share tips and information. 'I believe in standing up for myself rather than waiting for the government to do something for me,' said Sam Nichols, who organized a posse of about a dozen fed-up residents who have started patrolling the rural community of O'Brien, which has about 750 residents.'" They call themselves Citizens Against Crime -- CAC, for short.

O'Brien sits in Josephine County, a county which recently lost $12 million in federal timber subsidies. The jail, sheriff's patrols, prosecutors, probation officers and juvenile programs have all been drastically cut. The jail can house 69 inmates -- so few that recently small-time offenders have been let loose only to be repeatedly picked up for new crimes. In O'Brien, "We all know each other, and we're all related," said Carol Dickson, who helped to start the CAC about three months ago and posts regularly. "People know who's doing this," she said of recent spate of property crime in the area. "They are getting tired of it. They are speaking up, and they are saying, 'Enough.'"

The local police think the citizens involved are smart about this venture, that it's not vigilantism and that everyone understand the dangers. But policing expert Dennis Kenney, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at New York University, says neighborhood watch efforts can turn into problems when volunteers "decide that instead of supplementing law enforcement, they are going to replace law enforcement." He told AP that "people drawn to this sort of thing are the kinds of personalities more likely to take it too far." However, Nichols says what his group is doing is "not vigilantism at all. If it was, we would have taken care of a couple of problems a long time ago. Because we knew who they were, and where they lived."

The group is earning its keep. Members have reported a wildfire and a break-in since their watch began. The police log in the Grants Pass Daily Courier shows five thefts or burglaries in O'Brien from January through July, but none since August. (Read more)

Colorado officials, pressured by local officials, plan to strengthen oil and gas regulation

Driven by local pressure and public opposition, Colorado officials are poised to revise state oil and gas laws, much to the chagrin of industry groups, Bruce Finley of The Denver Post reports. The state has proposed buffer-zone restrictions on new wells and mandatory groundwater testing prior to drilling, but local officials worry those won't do enough to ease communities' concerns.

Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission director Matt Lepore, left, said he will ask commissioners to launch a new rule-making session to revise the rules last set in 2008. "We want to get it right, as best as we can, for as many people as we can," Lepore said. Colorado Oil and Gas Association attorney Andrew Casper said the group has identified "numerous concerns" with the proposed revisions and a new rule-making session. Homebuilders have also voiced concerns about bigger buffer zones, which could complicate urban planning.

Local and state lawmakers said their communities are complaining regularly about fracking. Democratic Rep. Su Ryden of Aurora said most of her constituents "want drilling as far away as possible." Colorado Conservation Voters director Pete Maysmith said during an invite-only community discussion with Gov. John Hickenlooper that "neighborhoods and fracking don't mix." Maysmith's group gave the governor a petition with 14,500 signatures from residents in Adams and Pueblo counties asking for their communities to be shielded from drilling. (Read more)

Some Dollar General stores now sell beer; one Kentucky town, caught off guard, doesn't want it

Dollar General Corp., a mainstay in rural areas, many of which ban the sale of alcoholic beverages, has started selling beer in nearly 4,000 of its stores, where it's legal and where company officials think there's a demand, reports Nick Tabor of the Kentucky New Era in Hopkinsville. Of the company's 381 Kentucky stores, most of which are in rural areas, many of them "dry," 26 now sell beer.

That includes one in Crofton, population 750 and declining, a few miles north of Hopkinsville, where the city council officially declared six months ago that it didn't want alcohol sales in town. The city sent Dollar General a letter asking it to cancel plans to sell alcohol there, but has received no response, Mayor Dan Lacy told Tabor. “We have enough problems with drugs and everything now without something else coming in there,” he said. “It’s supposed to be a family store. So that’s what the people in Crofton expect.” (Wikipedia map)

As state law requires, the company posted a small legal notice in the New Era that it was applying for a beer license, as state law requires, giving the public 30 days to protest. But many residents of Crofton don't get the daily paper from the county seat, so they didn't see the notice or heard about it too late to meet the deadline.

The city hopes to hear back from Dollar General before taking further action, but County Attorney Mike Foster said it's likely too late for legal action because it "would be unusual for Kentucky's Alcoholic Beverage Control Licensure Board to consider a petition that was filed too late," Tabor reports. The New Era is mainly behind a paywall, but the story can be found here.

Mayors along Mississippi want feds to pay attention to the river's issues

More than 20 mayors from cities and towns along the length of the Mississippi River, from Minnesota to Louisiana, will gather in St. Louis Thursday and Friday to discuss a plan to bring national attention to problems with the river at a time when budgets are tight and money to address the issues is scarce, reports Bill Lambrecht of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Many river communities suffered a "one-two punch" recently as drought dried fields and hindered river traffic, then Hurricane Isaac flooded those fields, drowning much of the livestock of small-scale producers. But local officials were concerned about lack of attention to a laundry list of river issues, including crumbling ports and aging locks and dams, long before this summer, Lambrecht reports.

About 40 mayors have signed onto a new initiative to argue the river's case collectively to Congress, the Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency. The mayors will first pressure Congress to pass the Farm Bill, which contains drought and disaster relief. Then, they intent to ask for more robust flood insurance legislation. Lambrecht reports they plan to present a detailed platform of the river's needs early next year. (Read more)

Western N.C. county hopes its prescription-drug task force will address high rate of overdoses

One hundred people die every day from drug overdoses, according to the Centers for Disease Control, and almost three out of four of those are due to prescription drugs, according to the National Institutes of Health. Prescription drug abuse is an epidemic that began in Appalachia, and as one western North Carolina county deals with the issue,  a local newspaper is putting it on the public agenda.

Wikipedia map

Yancey County (Wikipedia map) has "one of the worst rates" of unintentional overdoses of prescription drugs in the U.S., said Yancey Mitchell Prescription Drug Abuse Task Force chair Mechelle Akers. The task force presented information to the Yancey County Commission this week, reports Jonathan Austin of the Yancey County News. In 2008 to 2010, the county had 13 overdose deaths. Akers, who is a pharmacist, said the numbers exceed North Carolina and Yancey's neighboring counties' overall rates.

Seventy percent of those who overdose from prescription drugs get them from family members or friends, Akers said. The "flood of painkillers has swamped law enforcement," Austin reports. There were 102 drug arrests in 2002, and 800 last year. Angel Light Counseling addiction specialist John Williams told Austin: "Addiction to drugs is the largest problem our society faces, and legally prescribed medication constitute a large percentage of this problem. With the economy the way it is, people are more depressed and worried. They seek some kind of relief. They turn to something that alters their consciousness to reduce their worry." (Read more)

After officials berate reporter, publisher calls them out face to face, and in paper, for violating bid law

After the commissioners of Crawford County, Missouri, "verbally attacked" a Cuba Free Press reporter who had asked questions about road projects and spending, according to the Missouri Press Association Bulletin, Publisher Rob Viehman confronted the commissioners and asked why they hadn't given the weekly newspaper two records it had requested: a list of bids for road materials and planning records for this year's road work. (Wikipedia map)

His questions, and the commissioners' answers, revealed that the county had been disobeying state law by not seeking bids for the materials. "I'm not saying you didn't get a fair price, but we don't know if you did," Viehman told them. "We just want you guys to follow the rules."

Viehman wrote in an editorial: "Not only does the bidding process give the taxpayers the best deal, it provides the elected officials with cover and accountability. It’s to our commissioners’ benefit to take bids on everything they can so they can tell the voters, their neighbors, 'We asked for bids and we accepted the bid that we felt was best for us because ... ' By not taking bids, our commissioners can’t say that. Taking bids could also get the taxpayers a better price on items that may only be available locally from one vendor. If the only asphalt supplier in Crawford County has to submit a bid for their product, isn’t it more likely they will reduce their price out of concern a nearby competitor might underbid them? If bids aren’t taken, however, that can never happen. By not taking bids, our commissioners don’t know if the taxpayers got the best price for asphalt, rock and culverts. That’s the problem!" (Read more)

Romney would give states control over drilling on federal land, provide less support for renewable energy

Romney talks energy in Hobbs, N.M.
(NYT photo by Jim Wilson)

Mitt Romney proposed an end to a century of federal control over oil and gas drilling and coal mining on government land Thursday, in an energy plan that also calls for less support for renewable energy.

"The federal government owns about 28 percent of the 2.27 billion acres of land in the United States. But as of March 2012, only about 37 million acres were under lease for oil and gas operations, of which about 16.3 million acres have active oil and gas production or exploration, according to the Interior Department," Eric Lipton and Clifford Krauss of The New York Times write. "Under President Obama, officials in Washington have played a bigger role in drilling and mining decisions on federal lands in the states, and such involvement rankles many residents and energy executives, who prefer the usually lighter touch of local officials."

"The Romney campaign acknowledged that such a significant policy change would require the approval of Congress, the Times reports. "Getting such legislation passed, even if Republicans controlled the House and the Senate, would be very difficult, given certain opposition by Democrats and perhaps even some Republicans."  (Read more)

The National Journal reported month that some farmers are uneasy with the GOP ticket’s "opposition to renewable-energy policies that have helped them economically." Romney opposes a wind-energy tax credit "that has helped farmers bring in thousands of dollars in extra income by leasing their land to wind producers." His running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., opposes the mandate for a certain amount of ethanol production, which has driven up demand — and probably prices — for corn. "Romney stands by his support of the ethanol mandate," but "Ryan’s record of full-throated opposition to it rubs corn and crop farmers the wrong way," Coral Davenport writes. "In addition, Ryan’s budget roadmap proposes deep cuts in renewable-energy and nutrition programs that help farmers." (Read more)

Natural-gas boom begets frac-sand boom in Wis.

The boom in natural gas drilling has caused a boom in one type of sand mining. Round silica sand is used in the process of hydraulic fracturing to hold open rock fractures so gas can be released. The sand boom is perhaps at its height in west-central Wisconsin, the largest producer of "frac sand" in the U.S.

There are no official employment figures for the frac-sand industry, but Kate Prengaman of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism used job-site estimates to calculate that when current and proposed mines are fully operational, the industry will employ about 2,780 people. The number of permitted and proposed frac-sand mines has doubled to 106 since last year, but sand isn't "instant money," Prengaman reports. It's expensive to transport, and local officials are charging sand companies for wear and tear on roads. The state Department of Transportation estimates the industry could produce about 50 million tons of sand a year, Prengaman reports.

Some residents are concerned sand mining will hurt air and water quality, local infrastructure and tourism. They have mounted protests and lawsuits to combat alleged wrongdoing by the industry. Local officials and industry representatives say sand mining will help local economies and increase jobs, echoing local battles in other parts of the country surrounding gas drilling. (Read more)

About 250 localities have tried to limit drilling's reach, worrying industry and some state officials

Many local officials in rural communities are not opposed to natural-gas drilling, but they are opposed to drilling close to homes, schools or hospitals. Citizens are increasingly turning to their city and town governments to help fight encroachment of drilling rigs when they feel state regulations aren't strict enough to control the drilling close to their towns. Jim Malewitz of Stateline reports the trend is "worrying" industry representatives and state officials who want to expand the "industry's reach."

At least 246 cities or towns in 15 states have passed laws restricting drilling on local land, according to Food and Water Watch, an environmental group. Malewitz reports some of the ordinances are "merely symbolic" because those towns don't sit atop gas reserves. More than 90 cities or towns in New York have passed resolutions addressing gas drilling, 14 in Pennsylvania have passed regulations, and some in Colorado are doing the same. A Pennsylvania appellate-court panel recently struck down a new state law that barred local officials from using zoning to prohibit drilling in certain areas.

State regulators and industry advocates say local pushback is "misguided and a dangerous obstacle to economic growth," Malewitz reports. Advocates say drillers should be exempt from local zoning laws because extraction depends on where the resources are, and sometimes residential areas and towns are included. Zoning laws differ from town to town, and Malewitz explains some zoning laws in several states. (Read more)

Those who raised and gave money to save Calif. parks are upset, want refunds after stash revealed

Coe Park supporters with a $279,000
check for the state three months ago.
(Preservation Fund photo)

When cash-pinched California officials announced last year that they couldn't afford to keep 70 California parks open, neighbors held bake sales, children collected nickels, cities dug into their reserves, and nonprofits rallied big donors. Most of those 70 parks at risk were in rural areas where fundraising could be a monumental, heartbreaking task anyway. With the recent disclosures of a largely unknown $54 million pile sitting in state parks accounts, the Los Angeles Times reports that the can-do spirit has been replaced by a how-could-they indignation.

The fallout from the revelation, so far, has been the forced resignation of the state's parks director who many believe knew, or should have known, about the fund. Now, Steve Chawkins and Chris Megerian report, local governments are demanding their money back, "saying they were duped at a time they could little afford it." Ventura County alone is asking for an immediate refund of $50,000 which it desperately needs for a sewer line.

An unexpected outcome of the fracas is that organizations that support parks tell the Times that the affair has tainted their already ongoing pleas for donations. "There was a sense of betrayal," said Carolyn Schoff, head of the California League of Parks Associations. "We're the ones in the trenches raising funds for state parks and now there's a dark shadow over us." State officials have urged the public to bear with them as they try to make sense of the situation. In a letter to parks donors, Secretary for Natural Resources John Laird and Janelle Beland, acting director of state parks, said they were "as outraged as you are about this news." (Read more)

Mayor's courts of Ohio are a relic unlikely to change, since they fatten small-town coffers

They've been called "Boss Hogg backwood justice," and the more specific "rap sheet" against local mayor’s courts in rural Ohio says some judges spend public funds on holiday parties and flower arrangements, fail to properly account for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and use speed-trap traffic fines to prop up village budgets, Justin Conley and Rebecca McKinsey report for the Columbus Dispatch. Despite longstanding criticism, they write, "No one seems willing or able to make changes" to fix what's wrong with the courts, which dispense justice to tens of thousands of Ohioans and demand fines totaling millions of dollars every year.

The state doesn’t require the mayors or magistrates in the courts to have law degrees, and is hardly paying attention to them, write Conley and McKinsey, fellows in Ohio University’s Statehouse News Bureau. The state Supreme Court doesn't go after the officials when they violate the law by failing to provide information to the high court, and "The state auditor’s office, which has found repeated instances of misspending and other problems, says it doesn’t have enforcement power to take corrective action." Former state Sen. Kevin Coughlin, a Cuyahoga Falls Republican, said he thinks mayor's courts "have no place in a modern society where you have to have complete integrity in your judicial system.”

The senior justice of the Supreme Court, Paul E. Pfeifer, is the most vocal critic of mayor's courts. “People . . . come out of there feeling like they just participated in a bad spaghetti western,” he said, “where the cabinet maker or coffin maker takes off his apron, sits on a bench with a gavel and metes out justice.” Like many critics, Pfeifer said mayor’s courts are often more about fattening a community’s bottom line than protecting its residents. Some collect far more from mayor’s courts than from all local taxes combined.

There were 318 mayor’s courts in Ohio in 2011, and 76 percent of them were in villages with fewer than 5,000 residents. Supporters, many with ties to small communities, say mayor’s courts are convenient, easy to navigate and inexpensive. “For every one that may not be up to snuff, there are a hundred that do an excellent job,” Magistrate Charles "Kip" Kelsey told the Dispatch. “The fact that Louisiana and Ohio are the only two states that have these mayor’s courts — are we then backward? Or maybe we’re forward. I like to think that maybe we’re progressive." New York and West Virginia have similar courts. (Read more)

Pa. court narrowly strikes down law limiting localities' rights to limit oil and gas drilling zones

A drilling well pond in Derry, Pa.
(Pittsburgh Post-Gazette photo by Andrew Rush)

A appellate court panel has struck down a new law that barred local governments in Pennsylvania from using zoning to prohibit oil and gas drilling in certain areas. Marc Levy of The Associated Press reports the decision was a defeat for Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett and the booming natural-gas industry, which had long sought the limitations. The governor's office said an appeal to the State Supreme Court is likely.

The Commonwealth Court panel ruled 4-3 that the limitations, in a bill regulating the gas industry, were unconstitutional under state law. The majority opinion found that the provisions upended the municipal zoning rules that had previously been followed by other property owners, unfairly exposing them to harm. Seven municipalities had sued to overturn the five-month-old law. "Among the most objectionable provisions towns cited were requirements that drilling, also known as hydraulic fracking, waste pits and pipelines be allowed in all zoning districts, including residential ones, if certain buffers are observed," Levy reports.

S.C. is latest state to erect high obstacles for broadband ownership by local governments

South Carolina is the latest state to pass a bill that makes it difficult if not practically impossible for local governments to create their own publicly owned Internet providers. The move could set back the expansion of broadband into some corners of the state, likely more rural areas that large Internet providers say are hard to reach and aren't profitable because of lack of customers.

Municipal broadband watchdog Phillip Dampier said the passage of the bill is a display of the lobbying power of AT&T, South Carolina's largest private Internet provider, Cyrus Farivar of Ars Technica reports. Dampier and others also allege the bill was written by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative advocacy group that holds conferences for legislators and lobbyists. Farivar reports that AT&T is a member of ALEC and contributed $1,000 to South Carolina legislator Michael Gambrell, lead author of the bill. ( Read more)

Orangeburg and Oconee counties had already received federal funding to expand broadband, with Orangeburg County getting $2.4 million, Gene Zaleski of The Times and Democrat in Orangeburg reported. Seventy-five percent of the project was to be funded by U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Utilities Service money. It's unclear now whether the county will still receive that funding.

Local officials in Pa., outmaneuvered in legislature, sue for right to zone out oil and gas wells

When the Pennsylvania legislature passed a law this year that stripped local authority over where natural-gas wells could be drilled, cities and townships decided to take matters into their own hands. Seven municipalities have filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law, which charges an "impact fee" for gas wells and sends the money to localities but also overrides local governments’ zoning authority. The case was argued June 6, reports Alice Su for the Center for Public Integrity. (Associated Press photo)

At first glance, writes Su, "The impact fee of up to $50,000 per well seems to put wealth from drilling on the Marcellus Shale into citizens’ hands. But gas companies can drill wherever they like, even if local councils vote to keep the wells out of their jurisdictions. “It gives industry the right to tell us how we’re going to plan our townships rather than the other way around,” said David M. Ball, a petitioner in the lawsuit and councilman of Peters Township, Washington County. “What happens when the next industry comes down the line, like the homebuilders’ industry?” Ball asked. “Pretty soon, what does zoning even mean?” Coppola said he receives “hundreds and hundreds of letters” every day from townships and boroughs in support of the suit.

Su notes that last month, the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors, which says it represents 95 percent of Pennsylvania’s land area, passed two resolutions stating opposition to “any legislation that would remove, reduce or inhibit local government authority” or “pre-empt the existing authority of townships to regulate land use.” Ball said, “I’ve personally not heard of one municipality that has said they support the zoning provisions of Act 13.” Whether the Commonwealth Court affirms Act 13 or not, White, Coppola, Milburn and Ball agree that the law will most likely be appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. “Act 13 eventually is going to be undone,” Coppola said. “It strips away too many rights of individuals. People are just going to go crazy.” (Read more)

National Endowment for the Arts partners with design group to improve rural communities

The National Endowment for the Arts, U.S. Department of Agriculture and Project for Public Spaces will partner with the Citizens' Institute on Rural Design to "enhance the quality of life and economic viability of rural areas ... through design workshops that gather local leaders together with experts in planning, design and creative placemaking to assist with locally identified issues," according to a press release.

CIRD has hosted more than 60 workshops in all regions of the U.S. since its inception in 1991. It works with communities with fewer than 50,000 people and focusses on downtown revitalization, arts-based development, heritage preservation, land and agricultural conservation, growth management and transportation. The organization will develop guidelines for communities to apply to host a workshop. Application deadlines will be announced this Fall, and selected communities should be announced in January 2013. (Read more)

As local governments picked up more of school tab, gap between poor and rich districts widened

The Great Recession has changed state formulas for funding education, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's annual Public Education Finances report released last week. According to Ben Wieder, reporting in Stateline, the news service of the Pew Center for the States: For the first time in 16 years, local governments picked up a higher share of the education bill than the states, while the federal government picked up more than 10 percent of the tab. Data was from the 2009-10 school year. State funding did decrease by 6.5 percent from the previous year, according to the bureau, the biggest decrease since reporting began in 1977. That drop was accompanied by an unprecedented increase in federal funding, largely stimulus dollars, that in many cases propped up state spending. Taken together, this means that education funding across the country increased by a half percent, while per-pupil funding increased by 1.1 percent.

Michael Griffith, senior school finance analyst at the Education Commission of the States, says local funding wasn't hurt early by the recession, but it declined as lower property assessments translated into lower local property tax collections. That decline came as state budgets were starting to recover, compensating for some of the losses in local revenue. Griffith expects that the next couple of census reports will show a fuller picture of the impact of the recession, particularly numbers for the past school year, in which federal stimulus dollars expired, Wieder writes. Declining state revenues increased the distance between the haves and the have-nots, Griffith says, because wealthier districts in many parts of the country were better able to make up for fewer state dollars.

Weekly paper develops its own ads to promote the value of public-notice advertising by governments

The young publisher of a weekly newspaper in West Texas came up with some ideas to increase readership and public support of public-notice advertising, which is under threat from local governments and state agencies that are trying to persuade legislatures that putting the legal ads on government websites would save money. The counter-argument is that people don't read government websites like they read newspapers, and many of them don't use the Internet.

Tiffany Waddell

The Texas Press Association reports, "Tiffany Waddell, the co-owner and one-woman staff of The Western Observer in Anson, started her own public notice campaign early this year, drawing from recent events affecting Jones County residents. Her first ad -- 'They Just Sold Your Cattle. Or Didn’t You Know?' -- was published after local ranchers expressed frustration in finding out the county had sold loose livestock without publishing notices in the newspaper that strays had been found. The Jones County sheriff’s office had posted the information on its website instead." Waddell told TPA that she and her husband own cattle, and "When you own 100 head, you don’t always know that one’s missing, so you don’t think, ‘Okay, I need to go look online,’ but you see the notice when you read the newspaper.”

Waddell, who is 29, has published three more ads about public notice, each one emphasizing important public information that was not readily made public or published in the Observer, the county's largest paper by circulation. “We want Jones County residents to have the information and not be left in the dark, like a mushroom,” she said. “We’re definitely not in it to make money, and the money we do make we put back into the community.” Losing public notices from the county would not be a big financial loss for the the Observer, she said, but added that they would take a big hit if the state were to stop publishing legal notices in newspapers.

State parks in dire financial straits; some saved by local communities, nonprofits, wealthy individuals

Several states have proposed closing some state parks, mostly in rural areas, because of shrinking budgets, and residents in surrounding communities are fighting to keep them open. California officials plan to close 70 parks next month. Supporters have raised $200,000 to keep California's China Camp State Park (above) open, and need $50,000 more from communities in wealthy Marin County, Chris Megerian of the Los Angeles Times reports. (Photo by Brant Ward, San Francisco Chronicle)

In poorer counties, it's harder to raise funds for parks. Officials and supporters are struggling to raise $80,000 to save the historic home of the state's last Mexican governor, but Los Encinos State Historic Park, just 35 miles away, was saved by a single $150,000 donation. State Parks Director Ruth Coleman told Megerin that about half of the 70 parks slated for closure will remain open, operated either by local governments or nonprofit organizations. Arizona was planning to close all its parks in 2010, but most have been kept open by agreements with local governments and nonprofits.

To stay afloat, state parks are trying new things. Nevada has added vending machines to draw revenue; Idaho officials want companies to advertise on park signs; Colorado is allowing oil and gas drilling in St. Vrain Park to generate funding. Kentucky state parks now sell alcohol at some locations and cut worker hours in an effort to save $6 million a year, reports Jack Brammer of the Lexington Herald-Leader. Though none of the state's 51 parks will be closed, private concession companies will be allowed to operate food services at seven resort parks, and parks will be closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Local-food advocates, small ranchers trying to revive local slaughterhouses

Almost all small slaughterhouses have gone out of business because they've been unable to compete with large, consolidated abattoirs. Just four corporations in the U.S. slaughter about 80 percent of the country's cattle. The loss of small slaughterhouses, mostly in rural places, has cost jobs in those communities and in many cases creates a lie of the "locally produced beef" label, reports Beth Hoffman of National Public Radio.

Some rural communities and groups are trying to change this by building their own slaughterhouses. The Cattle Producers of Washington will build a new facility in Odessa, Wash. (MapQuest image), exclusively serving small Eastern Washington ranches. Most grass-fed beef in the region had to be transported 400 to 600 miles into Oregon to be processed, but CPOW President Willard Wolf hopes the new plant will change that. "The whole idea is to have quality control and humane processing for local cattle, hogs, sheep and goats that provides consumers in the state with the locally produced products they are demanding," he told Hoffman. "Having a producer-owned plan will help keep dollars, ranchers and farmers in our communities."

Other communities are trying also to keep beef processing local. In Sullivan County, New York, officials say they want to maintain the rural "agrarian feel" of the county. Sullivan County Industrial Development Agency Director Jennifer Brylinski said the county is building the plant 90 from New York City on otherwise undesirable land to see the county's "farmland kept as farmland." The plant will cater to small ranchers in the region. (Read more)