I received this in an email from some locals who are trying to raise awareness in my community. Anyone seen an article about this? I'm trying to track down the source.

Y2K Czar Pushes 'Community Conversations'

March 26, 1999 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Identifying the nation's smaller communities and local governments as possibly the weakest link in the chain of Year 2000 awareness, President Clinton's Year 2000 czar, John Koskinen, today unveiled plans for a summer campaign to promote awareness at that level.

Specifically, Koskinen pledged to release in May a World Wide Web "toolkit" of best practices for communities to use as they near the millennial date change. Then, in early June, the White House's Year 2000 office will begin traveling to communities to promote town hall-like meetings that will bring together local officials, citizens and service providers for discussions on potential Year 2000 failures.

Koskinen said in an interview that the idea grew out of a series of notable community campaigns to cushion the blow that citizens might take if some systems fail to successfully roll over. Koskinen recognized Norfolk, Neb.; Columbus, Ohio; and Montgomery Co., Md.; as leaders in Year 2000 outreach. Koskinen announced the campaign at Metropolitan Council of Governments' "Y2K Contingency Planning and Business Continuity Forum."

"We will encourage communities to bring in principals from hospitals, emergency response services the local banking communities and other services and to engage with the public in a dialogue about what to expect," Koskinen said. "My goal is to have the public know as much about this issue as I know."

Not all communities will deal with Year 2000 outreach in the same way, nor will the White House prescribe solutions, Koskinen said. "In some cases, local governments will take the lead, in some cases it might be a local newspaper; and in other cases it might be a service provider like the power company," Koskinen continued. "This will be a national campaign with national leadership, but it will also be a local campaign with local leadership."

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), April 14, 1999

Answers

FM,

This jives with Koskinen's comments concerning the media and Y2K last month. It makes a lot of sense for him to try and direct any actions taken to the local level. Good politics and eases burden of relief expected from federal level.

-- Brett (savvydad@aol.com), April 14, 1999.

There have been lots of hints from him in this direction.

That tool kit should be interesting reading!

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), April 14, 1999.

FM, i think your best bet whenever you have the date of a story, is to go to peter de jager's site at http://www.year2000.com. click on "news clippings" and go back to the day in question. usually, if it's something from the federal gov't, there will be several articles about it. that's what i do, and i've had pretty good results so far.

-- jocelyne slough (jonslough@tln.net), April 15, 1999.

Thanks guys. I found the source of the article. I'm just waiting for it to show up in the searchable archives. The article was published in March. I'll try to post when I get the URL. :)

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), April 15, 1999.