NewsWatch: Cities and Counties -- The Grid, Cacti Connection, Pension Cut, Closed-Door Policy, Intelligent Community Nominations, EPA and Urban Waterways, Counties Tap Immigration Database

The 21st Century Grid
The electrical grid is wondrous. And yet -- in part because we've paid so little attention to it -- engineers tell us it's not the grid we need for the 21st century. It's too old. It's reliable but not reliable enough, especially in the United States, especially for our mushrooming population of finicky digital devices. Blackouts, brownouts and other power outs cost Americans an estimated $80 billion a year. And at the same time that it needs to become more reliable, the grid needs dramatic upgrading to handle a different kind of power, a greener kind.  National Geographic

State of Metropolitan America
Our nation's large metro areas remain at the cutting edge of the nation's continued growth. Between 2000 and 2009, the hundred largest metro regions "grew by a combined 10.5 percent, versus 5.8 percent in the rest of the country."  Governing

New York City Invites Planning Input
The Charter Review Commission appointed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, though initially focused on term limits and non-partisan elections, recently invited comments about the city's Uniform Land Use Review Process. Gotham Gazette

The Cacti Connection
The Paradise Valley, Ariz., Town Council approved a special-use permit Thursday to allow a Seattle telecommunications company to install 42 antenna nodes, many disguised as faux cactuses, in the town right-of-way. The council voted 6-1 to allow NewPath Networks to bring in the infrastructure.  Arizona Republic

California Local Governments Seek to Cut Pension Benefits
Local governments across California are poised to roll back pension benefits for public employees. Sacramento County officials have had more than a half dozen meetings with their counterparts in nearby counties and cities as part of a collaborative effort to set more conservative, uniform pension guidelines. Other agencies, including Placer County, already are negotiating with unions to lower retirement benefits for new hires. In Alameda County, sheriff's deputies agreed to such a rollback earlier this year. Sacramento Bee

City's Closed-Door Policy
Nine stores in Manhattan and the Bronx have been hit with $200 fines for leaving their doors open on hot days in the hope that the escaping cool air would lure sweaty customers. They are the first to be fined as part of a law enacted in 2008. Last year, only warnings were given out. So far this year, the city's Department of Consumer Affairs has inspected 105 stores. Seventy were in compliance, 26 were issued warnings and 9 that had been warned last year were fined, said Kay Sarlin, a department spokeswoman. New York Times

Sept Nomination Deadline for Intelligent Community Awards
The Intelligent Community Forum, an international think tank, is now accepting nominations for the 2011 Intelligent Community Awards. The Awards honor communities for economic and social development based on information and communications technology. Nominations will be accepted through Friday, September 24, 2010. The Awards are announced in three stages: the Smart21 (semi-finalists) in October 2010, the Top Seven (finalists) in January 2011, and the Intelligent Community of the Year in May 2011 at ICF's Building the Broadband Economy. Recent honorees include Suwon, South Korea; Stockholm, Sweden; Dublin, Ohio, USA; Dundee, Scotland; Arlington County, Virginia, USA; and Tallinn, Estonia.

Complete nomination criteria, information on the selection process, profiles of previous winners, and a nomination form on the Awards Nominations page.

EPA Moves in on Urban Waterways
U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on Wednesday declared the entire concrete-lined Los Angeles River channel "traditional navigable waters," a designation crucial to applying Clean Water Act protections throughout its 834-square-mile urban watershed. "We're moving away from the concrete," Jackson told more than 200 residents and government officials on the banks of one of the river's heavily polluted tributaries, Compton Creek. "This is a watershed as important as any other," she said. "So we are going to build a federal partnership to empower communities like yours .... We want the L.A. River to demonstrate how urban waterways across the country can serve as assets in building stronger neighborhoods, attracting new businesses and creating new jobs." Los Angeles Times

County to Tap Immigrant Database
Oakland County, Mich., Sheriff Michael Bouchard announced plans Wednesday to join hundreds of other communities nationwide that tap into a federal immigration fingerprint database to identify immigrants arrested for criminal activity in the county. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would then decide whether to initiate deportation proceedings against any legal or illegal immigrants flagged by the program. Oakland County is the 437th jurisdiction in 24 states to use the new system, ICE said. Wayne County became the first county in Michigan to use the system last year. ICE hopes to make it available in all jurisdictions by 2013. Detroit Free Press

Termination hearing Follows Racy County E-Mail
The Forsyth County Commission voted to hold a termination hearing for Planning Director Jeff Chance. While looking for Chance's communication about a county issue, someone discovered sexual e-mails between Chance and his girlfriend as well as e-mails from others in his department. Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Photo Jordi Martorell. CC Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic