Word: parkes
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David Habecker, ESTES PARK, COLO...
Earlier this year, Takoma Park, Md., A suburb of Washington with a liberal tilt, held a special election to fill a vacant city-council seat. It was the town's latest contest under a 1992 law that allows any adult resident--including noncitizens--to vote for local offices. And since the election occurred at an odd time of year, officials took extra steps to get the word out. They mailed a notice, in Spanish and English, to every home. They sent a second notice to every registered voter. Yet when Election Day came, turnout was light, especially among noncitizens...
Still, the measures provoke strong opposition. Roger Clegg, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, argues that "we need more--not fewer--incentives for immigrants to assimilate and become full-fledged American citizens." Unfortunately, the immigrants of Takoma Park don't offer much of a rebuttal. If noncitizens truly want to vote, they can't blow off elections...
...early 1990s, immigrant protests in Washington and New York City caused activists to argue that giving noncitizens the vote would help quell unrest. The idea fizzled everywhere but in Takoma Park and five smaller suburbs of Washington. For the 1993 election, noncitizens voted in Takoma Park at a 35% rate, better than the 30% for citizens. But the noncitizen figure plummeted over the following seven elections. City clerk Jessie Carpenter speculates that "early on, there was more interest because [voting] was new." She doesn't believe that resurgent concern over illegal immigrants has driven noncitizens from the polls...
...geothermal potential. But as is often the case, it's newly entrepreneurial citizens who are making things happen. One Chinese student who studied geothermal technology in Reykjavík went home to transform what had been a peasant village into a model geothermal development, with housing, pools and a recreation park all heated geothermally. "People can say a lot of things about the Chinese government," says Hans Bragi Bernhardsson, head of China operations for Enex. "But if they decide to do something, they achieve it." In this case, let's hope...