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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Feds Ask Oregon Small Towns to Think Bigger

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Wednesday, January 20, 2010   

ALBANY, Ore. - Oregon's small towns are struggling to keep people employed, and two federal agencies are holding public forums this month to determine what more they can do to help. The first one is Thursday morning in Albany.

The Agriculture Department's Rural Development agency has 40 programs with money to loan. Some are geared for individuals, for housing and energy-efficiency upgrades. There are loans for city services like water systems and libraries, as well as business loans.

Vicki Walker, who heads the agency in Oregon, says there is funding available, if people with ideas will ask for it.

"We gave a loan to Lake District Hospital in Lakeview to expand. We had a loan committee meeting this afternoon; a motel in Oregon needed to refinance a loan because they have a balloon payment coming up. And we can make loans to these businesses."

Walker says she expects to hear complaints about the economy from those who attend the forums, but she hopes participants will also focus on what's going right in their towns, and how they might capitalize on it.

"We know something is working, because communities would dry up and blow away if they didn't. So, there's something that's working in your community; there's something that's just hanging on the edge, barely working; and there's other things that just totally went away."

The Farm Service Agency is co-hosting the forums. Walker says the information gathered at the meetings will be sent to President Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, as part of a report on how to create jobs in rural America.

The forums are free of charge. The Albany forum is Thursday, Jan. 21, from 9 to noon at the Linn County Fair and Expo Center. There's also a forum scheduled in Bend on Jan. 28 at Central Oregon Community College.

People who can't attend can comment online, at www.rurdev.usda.gov or at
www.fsa.usda.gov




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