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To: C.K. Houston who wrote (385)	5/7/1999 11:13:00 AM
From: C.K. Houston	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 411

KOSKINEN'S EARLY JUNE Y2K TOWN HALL MEETINGS Y2K Czar Pushes 'Community Conversations' Identifying the nation's smaller communities and local governments as potentially the weakest links in the chain of Year 2000 awareness, President Clinton's Year 2000 czar, John Koskinen, is ready to release a World Wide Web toolkit of best practices for communities to use as they near the millennial date change. In early June, officials from the White House's Year 2000 office will begin traveling to communities to promote town hall-like meetings to convene local officials, citizens and service providers for discussions on potential Year 2000 failures. civic.com ============================================================== Montgomery County, MD 8-page Y2K Preparedness Ad Insert in Gazette ============================================================== Montgomery county is adjacent to Washington D.C. I have been talking to those I work with concerning y2k since last August. I have lived with much good natured kidding about it for months.In addition to the Washington Post, we have a number of other newspapers. One is the Gazette. When I returned from lunch today there was an 8 page advertising supplement from this paper sitting on my desk. This was paid for by the county. The first full page is color with the county seal, a letter from the County Executive, and a picture of a family planning for "Emergency Events and Y2K". Some of the topics covered - Preparing Your Home for an Emergency - Your Emergency Preparedness Kit - Public Emergency Shelters - What to DO When Electrical Power is Lost - Keeping Warm - Keeping Updated in Emergency - Y2K Contingency Planning A Must - Y2k Planning at Home - Y2K Planning at work - Financial and Personal Records - Travel - Testing Your Personal Computer ETC. Some of these had other topics included. Now Mongomery County is quite wealthy and can afford to do this. The Gazette is delivered free to all county residents though they change the name for each city- Silver Spring Gazette-Rockville Gazette etc. In spite of all that I read, I am glad this County is out in front as far as cautioning the people about the issue. One of the great results was the look on the faces of my co-workers as the light dawned. The decision to prepare and the degree of preparedness is personal, but the information should be inclusive and disseminated to all. -- Mike Lang (webflier@erols.com), May 05, 1999 greenspun.com ============================================================== TRANSCRIPT: Koskinen remarks to APEC Y2K Symposium ============================================================== "growing recognition internationally of the sweep and seriousness of the Year 2000 problem" "we've told our local governments and our state governments that they need to be prepared to handle emergencies on their own, since the federal government can't be everywhere dealing with every problem in light of the large number of problems that we are likely to have" "we should also obviously expect that we will have a large number, possibly, of what would be manageable failures taken one at a time, which will overwhelm the normal emergency response processes when they happen all at once." "It's clear that in the absence of information, people will assume the worst. It's also clear in any country if millions of people change their normal economic activities all at once, we'll have significant problems, even if all of the systems work just fine. No country can afford a lack of confidence that leads to runs on their financial institutions, hoarding of basic supplies, and increasedfear." "many of them are saying they're simply going to wait, see what breaks, and then they will fix it once it's broken. We are trying to tell them that that's a very high risk roll of the dice, because when they go to get the fix, whether it's an upgrade in their software or a replacement for the software or the hardware, it will be obvious what the fix is, everyone will know how to do it, but the risk is, they will be at the end of a very long line of other people who waited to see what broke and then decided to fix it. And the fix will work just fine when it arrives, but it may not arrive until March, April or May of the year 2000, and these companies and governments and those who decided to wait and see may find that they're going to be severely challenged in continuing their operations" "And the third thing we've asked FEMA to do is make clear to the state and local emergency managers, as I noted in my presentation, that those local governments should not assume that the federal government and FEMA will be able to come to their assistance no matter what their problem is, because we may have so many problems in localities across the country that we can't be everywhere at once. " "that's a very important point, because it's not as if we have a choice of either sharing information and managing it or having no information, because if we don't effectively collect the information and provide a clear picture and an accurate picture, we're all going to live with whatever CNN is showing at the time that they decide is an interesting part of the story that unfolds, or other newspapers, or magazines, and media." -- ng (can'tprovideemail@none.com), May 04, 1999 usia.gov. FULL DISCUSSION OF ABOVE: greenspun.com