Advertising Hits Arizona County Government Website

Combuchan writes "Just when you thought that pages on your local government's website were the last bastion of the advertisement-free WWW, that may soon change. Maricopa County (seen on slashdot before), home to 3.4 million people in the Phoenix metropolitan area, has seen their GIS website "become an every day tool for realtors, developers, mortgage and title companies, appraisers, inspectors, attorneys and many other professionals associated with the real estate industry." As a result, they are now accepting bids for Web advertisements. As the county is one of the best-run in the nation, this could set quite the precedent."

Comments

It's either ads or taxes.

[Anonymous Crowhead]

Someone's got to pay. I don't see the big deal.

Re:It's either ads or taxes.

[Anonymous Coward]

you foolish child

Re:It's either ads or taxes.

[kfg]

Do you wish your taxes to buy you some sort of remaining say in government (and thus in the levying of taxes), or do you wish to sell those rights to Coca-Cola?

KFG

Re:It's either ads or taxes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Realistically, if this catches on it'll be ads AND taxes. Politicians will first look on it as an additional source of income, not a way to reduce taxes.

Re:It's either ads or taxes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Realistically, if this catches on it'll be ads AND taxes.

Realistically, who cares? You have to be a clueless IE user to still be seeing banner ads on websites in this day and age. Get Mozilla Firefox, go install adblock.mozdev.org, start clicking on ads you hate and blocking them. Voila.. in a few days of training, 99% of the ads will be gone on your favorite websites. I haven't seen any of the Slashdot ads for years. I'm sure not the only one, but you know why Slashdot is still here? The majority of people visiting this site are still clueless enough to be using IE so they have no choice! Muhahahahaha.

Re:It's either ads or taxes.

[Anonymous Coward]

AND taxes!

Re:It's either ads or taxes.

[flacco]

It's either ads or taxes.

technically correct. more precisely, it's taxes. that the citizens pay. for the operation of their government.

which, in theory, is not supposed to be a whoring billboard for the highest bidder.

Re:It's either ads or taxes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Conflict of interest? When advertisers are paying their bills, then they are likely to do things to keep those companies happy so the money keeps flowing in. I don't know if this specific instance is ominous, but it sets a very bad precident IMO.

Re:It's either ads or taxes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why was this mod'd down when it was correctly placing into context the previous poster's naivete.

Re:It's either ads or taxes.

[AlphaWolf_HK]

Hey I live in maricop county, and I say so less the taxes, so much the better.

Re:It's either ads or taxes.

[Anonymous Coward]

It already is paid for by taxes. Now it has switched to ads, will that mean you'll get the taxes back?

NO.

Re:It's either ads or taxes.

[ratamacue]

Like a politician, you have overlooked the most obvious and efficient solution: cut spending. Reduce the scope and power of government. Let people decide for themselves where to direct their money.

Personally, I don't recieve a return on approximately 95% of what I pay taxes for. Did you know that the average US citizen pays nearly 50% of their yearly earnings to government through federal, state, and local taxes combined? Do you really think government knows better how to spend this money than you, the one who earned it in the first place?

I'm not rich, mind you -- just an individual who insists on taking full responsibility for himself, and doesn't WANT to have life spoon-fed to him by government. Sure, "someone's got to pay", if you blindly assume that everything government does is for the better.

Re:It's either ads or taxes.

[dave420]

The Mafia could also pay, but then the government would be responsible to them. That's the issue. It's not that they're being paid, but it's the fact they're being paid by a company. A private entity. That means they are in their pocket. They have a responsibility to their sponsors. Even if the responsibility is 0, it's still a conflict of interest, and something you should be very worried about indeed. They're public servants, not corporate servants. sheesh.

Re:It's either ads or taxes.

[maddskillz]

Is that in the constitution somewhere? I am unfamilliar with american politics

what is the point

[phantasma6]

How much revenue would advertising bring to the site? Would it be worth the degraded image that advertising will bring? Do they really need that extra money?

Re:what is the point

[Trailwalker]

Maricopa County Supervisors Lower Property Tax Rate

Says it all right there

Re:what is the point

[barks]

You're absolutely right.

As the site has a very clean and professional look, as oppose to very corporate sites (CNN.com comes to mind for me), that's probably one of the factors that's made them so successful. They should except to lose some visitors and will have to make a decision as to what is more important - more coin, or more traffic.

Re:what is the point

[DAldredge]

Maybe they did, but how much did they raise the value of that property? If they lowered the rate by x% then all they have to do is increase the value of the property by x%+y% to bring in even more money. You pay more in taxes, but the rate is less.

Re:what is the point

[Combuchan]

As the site has a very clean and professional look, as oppose to very corporate sites...

The last three pages of the linked PDF discussing where ads might end up may very well change your opinion. I thought this was merely the addition of three text ads on the actual GIS application, but they're really going all out.

I don't blame the county for doing this, all in all. From an urban-planning geek's perspective, it's one of the coolest local sites I know of. But serving 300,000 a month with what I assume to be an intensive GIS application can't be cheap.

The notion of having a user "pay" for government services rendered is of course nothing new (have you seen what some cities charge for copying fees?), and this really is an extension of that concept to the Internet.

But where does it stop? Where, for example, is the line drawn between a local government's Tourism Bureau and an all-out travel information website with hotel reservations, tickets to local shows, maps, guides, and whathaveyou? If you run a site like that, do you want to be competing against your Government?

Re:what is the point

[kevlar]

How much revenue would advertising bring to the site?

Answer: a decent amount!

They know precisely WHO their audience is. They know they deal with Real Estate. Mortgage companies and companies like Home Depot I would think would be the first to jump on the band wagon.

Re:what is the point

[notanatheist]

If the pot dealers would just get their licenses and pay their taxes like every other working joe then it might not be an issue. Other drugs are illegal to sell but you can legally obtain a license in Arizona for selling marijuana though you can't legally possess it! Oh, and it is illegal to shoot camels and cacti in the desert.

Re:what is the point

[aggiefalcon01]

I don't blame the county for doing this, all in all. From an urban-planning geek's perspective, it's one of the coolest local sites I know of. But serving 300,000 a month with what I assume to be an intensive GIS application can't be cheap. The notion of having a user "pay" for government services rendered is of course nothing new (have you seen what some cities charge for copying fees?), and this really is an extension of that concept to the Internet.

Perhaps, but what about a usage fee instead? Maybe the information is public, but as you said, serving the app probably costs a lot.

Why not put a referrendum/bill through that makes certain it's only a few ads in the GIS area of the site, and it's only enough ads to pay for the costs of maintaining that GIS area?

Why not? Because this's what I, a taxpayer, would want ...

Re:what is the point

[dasmegabyte]

Where, for example, is the line drawn between a local government's Tourism Bureau and an all-out travel information website

There isn't one. And why should there be? Government, especially on the local level, isn't separate from the people, it IS the people. We've just become so used to our interests differing from those of politicians that we've become out of sync with what government is. If the people of a town need tourism, and they decide to vote for a Councilman on the basis of creating a Bureau, then that Bureau should do everything it can to bring people in. If a commercial site were able to do the job as well or better, a new Councilman proposing to demolish the Bureau might be voted in. I've heard many stories of politicians running for local office on the platform of destroying the department they're elected to head...

I work in municipal software, and there's usually a great sense of community in local government. We will lost contracts to worse and more expensive competitors in their home towns. We can expect OUR home town to buy everything we do regardless. And in exchange, we go the extra mile for them...we've put thousands of dollars of support into their software, including daily site visits when they have problems. Government and Business aren't two opposed agencies, and they're certainly not creating a triangle with residents at the other end. Local government, when it works, is there to make residents' lives easier, and that includes the businesses that have residency there. It can also include FIGHTING businesses that ask for too much...a local village is splitting off of its parent town because the parent keeps allowing the Walmart corporation to develop land without any environmental impact, resident appeal or archeological survey (around the second oldest city in america!). The residents were sick of it...so they've begun incorporating themselves in preparation to block the development which is turning a nice semi-rural area into suburban sprawl. Government is leading this charge.

Re:what is the point

[TykeClone]

The best government is local. It's a lot easier to go and complain about something to your neighbor than it is to someone separated from you (in the county seat, the state capitol, or Washington).

We've sort of got the whole government concept thing turned upside down - most money should stay local and most services should stay local. Instead the local governments have to live off of the scraps left over by the other levels of government.

Re:what is the point

[dasmegabyte]

I dunno about that. There are a lot of programs that just wouldn't work on a local level. Social welfare programs, for example, benefit greatly from spreading the tax burden across regions. Defense benefits from a central authority. Not to mention ubiquitous interstate highways.

In fact, our government works really well, when you get down to it. Yeah, there's pork...but there's always going to be. Yeah, there's a lot of tragic stupidity...but we know about it, and we have the power to fix it. I can't think of a better government...well, maybe Canada, but they got all of our best progressive thinkers back during Vietnam :).

Re:what is the point

[TykeClone]

Defense is a legitimate function of the federal government as are the interstates. Financial regulation is also a proper function - a stable banking sector is the cornerstone of a good economy. I'm not so sure that social welfare programs are - but that's another issue.

I'm on the city council of a small town and I also do tax preparation work. I know how much money flows out of the area to both the state and federal governments, and I know what pittance we have to left over to run the town.

We have done two block grant projects in the last four years - projects where we've gone hat in hand to Uncle Sam and asked for some of our money back so that we can do some good in the community. And (just like any time you get involved with the feds) we got that money with strings attached.

One of the programs was a low income housing rehabilitation project - a very worthy goal and one that did help some needy people in the community. For us, the overhead involved because of paying someone to handle federal paperwork was about 10%. Without that, we could have helped another family but couldn't because of the regulations involved in receiving the money.

This theme repeats itself whenever you deal with the federal government. The tax code is so long and convoluted that you probably couldn't survive an audit - even without trying to pull a fast one. Regulations that sound good (HIPAA - medical privacy sounds great) lead to rules that leave no good way of doing things. Financial regulations are mostly good for the economy (safety and soundness of banks), but many of them are open to interpretation (if you have a savings account, you are limited to a small number of automatic or telephone transfers - but can have unlimited ATM transfers or over the counter transactions by regulation. How do online transfers or payments count?)

The more you remove the government from those who live under it the less common sense it has and the more it wastes.

Re:what is the point

[nadaou]

From an urban-planning geek's perspective, it's one of the coolest local sites I know of. But serving 300,000 a month with what I assume to be an intensive GIS application can't be cheap.

It can be Free (the software anyway).

UMN Mapserver
+ GRASS GIS
+ FreeGIS tools

The equivalent ArcWeb system ain't cheap. Like several county employees' salaries uncheap.

I tried to look at their GIS site to see what they were using, and got this error:
(Firefox on Debian/G/Linux)

http://www.maricopa.gov/Assessor/Error.aspx?type =b rowser
"This site is best viewed when using Internet Explorer.
Your using: Netscape5"
[not proceeding]

.. I'm guessing they are not using Free software.

Bonus chuckle [non-county residents only]:
Spot the apostrophe disaster in the error message.

Re:what is the point

[Bull999999]

As a home owner, I can tell you that taxable value of a home is quite different then the market value, and they don't usually have one to one relationship. I'd say that you are trying to force the relationship on it just to prove your point.

For example, painting the house with a popular color may bring up the market value but it will not bring up your taxable value, whereas adding a bedroom may bring both of them up (although not equally).

Re:what is the point

[TKinias]

scripsit nadaou:

Bonus chuckle [non-county residents only]:
Spot the apostrophe disaster in the error message.

Um, some of us residents can use an apostrophe correctly... we're just not in county government...

Re:what is the point

[DAldredge]

And I can tell you that, at least in Texas, the taxable value and the market value are quick approaching each other. It allows them to raise taxes with out saying they are raising taxes.

Re:what is the point

[Bull999999]

And what's that got to do with the Arizona counties? As I said before, you are trying to force relationships to prove your point.

At least in Colorado, property taxes and taxable values are public record, although homeowners will laugh at your face if you offer taxable value for their houses (unless it's extremely run down) since taxable value here generally runs lower that the market value.

Any one from Arizona care to comment on taxable value vs. market value on your home state?

Re:what is the point

[nadaou]

My point wasn't that the county residents couldn't write, that's just dumb; it was that it was paid for with a lot of your tax money, and resulted in a broken system with poor quality control [and now with the added bonus of commercials]. Funny for us (as this time it isn't our local politicos), sucks for you.

This won't help lower taxes.

[DAldredge]

This won't help lower taxes, it will raise them. You see someone (political connected) will 'have' to be hired to managed the ad program. And since the persons salery will come out of a different budget pool they will still make it look like the ad program is bringing in more than it is.

Ain't goverment budgeting wonderful? It makes Enron's accounting look legal by comparison.

Re:This won't help lower taxes.

[DAldredge]

No, I know how goverment works. It has always worked this way and has shown no sign of changing anytime soon.

Crack open a history book sometime and see for yourself.

Re:This won't help lower taxes.

[Anonymous Crowhead]

This won't help lower taxes, it will raise them. You see someone (political connected) will 'have' to be hired to managed the ad program. And since the persons salery will come out of a different budget pool they will still make it look like the ad program is bringing in more than it is.

I think you are being overly cynical. There is no way you can know this to be true. Not every job in the governement is gotten by being politically connected. I know this for a fact because my mom (cue the mom jokes) is an executive recruiter and has done dozens of placements for high level government jobs in at least a dozen states. FYI: Recruiters find and present the candidates.

Re:This won't help lower taxes.

[Anonymous Coward]

What are these "books" of which you speak? They sound dangerous. Report to Room 101 for reeducation immediately, citizen of the United Corporations of America!

Re:This won't help lower taxes.

[Anonymous Coward]

...but many new ones are certainly CREATED by politics, whether they are exempt or non-exempt.

FTEs, man, FTEs.

Look around your political/administrative group's hierarchy sometime. Some small groups/divisions/departments get more resources than they probably deserve on a per-FTE basis. This comes down to politics, whether it is as simple as "squeekiest wheel gets the grease", or as advanced as political blackmail, it usually works out that way.

All animals are created equal, but some definitely are more equal (in their eyes and their adorers') than others.

Re:This won't help lower taxes.

[dasmegabyte]

You've never worked for a county.

See, the US government can operate on deficit spending. Many states can do this as well. A county cannot -- and counties just don't get that much tax. The budget is small and set...you know exactly how much money and how much help you have for the year, and you make do with that. Many places will have some positions that are only allowed to work 10 or 20 paid hours a week.

Local and regional governments get around this by buying packages of software and services with a yearly fee...cheaper than hiring an employee. This is probably what Arizona County did, especially seeing as they recently reduced property taxes and hence the county's budget.

Government budgeting *IS* wonderful. Unfortunately, the state and federal budgets AREN'T budgeted -- not really. They figure out how much they need, and then write that down...as opposed to figuring how much they get, and making that stretch.

Re:This won't help lower taxes.

[Bull999999]

I suppose I should start getting programming tips from accountants now?

Why would you open a history book when they have this course called "Govermental Accounting" with books to go along with it.

Oh no!

[That's Unpossible!]

A government earning money instead of forcing its citizens to supply it under threat of force.

What on Earth will we do?!

Love it...

Re:Oh no!

[Izago909]

A government earning money instead of forcing its citizens to supply it under threat of force.

If you don't like taxes there must be some country on Earth where citizens pay none. I mean it's just so outdated. The US Mint makes the money, why can't they just make extra and give it to the government?

Re:Oh no!

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the deal, I'll pretend that government is "company" when they let me opt out of their laws and their taxes.

This line of thinking is crazy.. government is of the people and by the people.. it's not supposed to be hired by Joe Real Estate Agent to put his ads online.

I thought "coke day" in public schools was bad enough.

Re:Oh no!

[gspr]

The government has a responsibility for its citizens. Its primary objective is to take care of them, not to earn money. To do the job, though, they need money, which should come from those it takes care of - the citizens.

Re:Oh no!

[Matt Perry]

A government earning money instead of forcing its citizens to supply it under threat of force.

Does this mean the tax payers can stop subsidising it?

Re:Oh no!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you can live in Cuba. But eating rationed beans and rice every day gets old. I'd rather live with the fear of starvation to get my ass moving than to have the government forcefully take care of my basic needs.

Re:Oh no!

[DAldredge]

In the US the job of the USGOV isn't to 'take care' of us, it's to do what is outlined in the USCON.

Re:Oh no!

[Anonymous Coward]

what's wrong with rice & beans? *riiiiiiip* I eat them all the *faaaaaaaaaart* time with green eggs and ham. *splaaatteerrrriiiip*

Re:Oh no!

[Anonymous Coward]

hehehehehehehhe

phart jokes are phunnay.

Re:Oh no!

[Anonymous Coward]

In the name of capitalism, I suggest we open a second government to give this monopolistic one some competition. This will cause both to have to increase product quality while decreasing overall costs just to stay alive in this competitive marketplace.

Or is that not how it works anymore...

Re:Oh no!

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

This is a good point. We pay taxes for services. Want to live in a third world nation? Or forth world nation like Somolia? Go for it.

Re:Oh no!

[Izago909]

Hate replying to my own comments, but judging by replies to my comment I think I didn't make my sarcasim clear enough....

Re:Oh no!

[That's Unpossible!]

Its primary objective is to take care of them, not to earn money.

That is only the primary objective of a socialist government. The primary objective of the US Government is to defend the country, the people, and their freedom.

To do the job, though, they need money, which should come from those it takes care of - the citizens.

Why?

Re:Oh no!

[That's Unpossible!]

Here's the deal, I'll pretend that government is "company" when they let me opt out of their laws and their taxes.

Absolutely. That is called freedom. A few, basic laws maintained by a minimal government requiring minimal taxes. Even better if the government can generate the funds on its own. Now you're thinking like a Libertarian, hooray.

Re:Oh no!

[Anonymous Coward]

One might easily give the same flippant response to campaign donations by industry lobbyists... I suppose that's alright by you, too?

Re:Oh no!

[mingot]

The mint only makes coin. Better to ask the BEP for paper money.

And here are some stupid cliff (of cheers fame) fun facts:

The mint and BEP are the only two goverment entities that consistantly make money. They create the stuff and they basically 'sell' it at face value. The margins on coin are low, but they still make a mint. nyuck nyuck.

The United States Postal Service sell advertising. Put in a change of address recently and the confirmation letter's envelope from them contained serveral ad inserts targeted at people who are moving from some big businesses you've probably heard of. I was a bit taken aback.

Re:Oh no!

[ryarger]

Great idea!

I, as CEO of SuperCo, especially like it! This way, there will be nothing stopping me from buying up every competitor, paying my employees $1/hour, and saving money by switching all of my operations to cheap quick burning coal!

Don't like it? Start your own competitive business, let the market decide! Of course, no consumers can resist my Everyday Low Low Prices! long enough for you to stay in business. Oh, and did I mention that any employee (that is to say, everyone) will be fired immediately if they shop anywhere else? But that's your problem, eh?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to hire a few more police, er, security guards. You see, since I own all the land, I need a few people to make sure none of my employees are doing anything I don't like in their bedrooms that I'm kind enough to rent to them. Hey, if they don't like it, they can work somewhere els- er... move, er... go to Canada?

Think Libertarian! Think Freedom!
Sincerely,
CEO, SuperCo

Thank God for Adblock

[Edgebound]

As long as my Adblock still works they can advertise all they want.

Re:Thank God for Adblock

[Saeger]

As long as my Adblock still works they can advertise all they want.

"We oughta pass a law against that! Just think of all the tax revenue we're missing out on because of those anti-consumerist thieves!"

--

Re:Thank God for Adblock

[Anonymous Coward]

I like to consume mass quantities as much as the next guy but what I dont like is being annoyed with flying banners and blinkingflash adverts

Re:Thank God for Adblock

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone always talks about Adblock. Mozilla.org has a great tip that gets rid of virtually all ads without needing to install anything. Just go to to:
http://texturizer.net/firefox/adblock.html
and follow the directions there.

Re:Thank God for Adblock

[maddskillz]

That type of law wouldn't be passed by a county. That is a state or federal thing. A local government really only worries about how high your fence is, or if you dog has it's dog tags

Adblock for FireFox

[wyldeone]

Just get AdBlock for FireFox. After a week or so of tuning it you'll almost never see an ad again.

Re:Adblock for FireFox

[builderbob_nz]

Just tried this myself but I don't use FireFox (yeah I know it's blashphamy). When I was downloading it I couldn't see anything to say that it was for Firefox only, and guess what... it works fine with Mozilla!

Re:Adblock for FireFox

[rokzy]

a week?

I get everything with just:

*doubleclick*
*ads*
*/google/box?*
*maxservin g*
*advertising*
*gator*
*adtrix*
*vioclicks*

plus flashblock.

YMMV

Re:Adblock for FireFox

[Anonymous Coward]

I've noticed that a lot of Mozilla extensions that work fine under Firefox and vice-versa. Just FYI.

Re:Adblock for FireFox

[g-san]

Hopefully they have a dumb webmaster that just puts the new junk in /ads/ :)

Of course, the site "is best viewed with IE(tm)"

Two words

[Safety Cap]

Ad-Block

You should see azcentral.com

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.azcentral.com

Ad heaven!

It's Better Than Taxes

[Anonymous Coward]

Save your energy to complain when governments waste money. When they make money I see no reason to complain.

Right

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a country by the corporations, for the corporations, and now paid for by the corporations! What a great country we live in.

I'd much rather keep my money for myself to spend on the products the corporations make than contributing to the country I live in. What a horrible concept!

Unfortunately, now I won't have anyone to complain to when things start going wrong, because I'm not paying them.

Re:Right

[Anonymous Coward]

Serious question: Are you being sarcastic?

Re:Right

[black mariah]

Yeah, Tom's Lawn Care and Mower Repair is a huge fucking corporation, isn't it? Grow a brain before posting, fuckwad.

Re:Right

[Anonymous Coward]

Black Mariah is a dirty fucking troll, but he has a good point here. If he didn't have such a horrible posting history, I'd mod him up despite the general assholeishness of his post.

Re:Right

[dasmegabyte]

Uh, I love cynical posts like this. Hey brother, let me help you out. Government has a pricetag, and projects we like sometimes don't get the money they need. This is because government has to jump through a lot of hoops to get bonds and such passed, so generally they have a finitie amount of money for everything they have to do. For little projects like GIS datasets, which are EXTREMELY expensive to produce and yet most residents expect them to be free, people have to get a little creative. The US Government (USGS) outsources some of their larger data downloads to companies that either charge for bandwidth or ask you to assemble datasets to be burnt on a CD. My state gets around the cost of producing dataset by creating a community "clearinghouse," where members can download all the data in exchange for uploading all of theirs. Much of the orthoimagery (photos from planes) is done by amateurs and hobbiests. And still others of it is older data "retired" by professional GIS folks who can't sell last year's data (but can take a tax break for giving it up to said hobbiests).

Incidentally, there's been "advertising" by GIS firms on this state's GIS website for at least three years, as well as a directory of where to get your GIS imported. Most of these firms are NOT corporations at all...they're private firms and small businesses and sometimes just clever geographers with plotters and spare time. There's no reason government and business shouldn't work hand in hand, so long as it doesn't squelch peoples' rights, and in this case we're getting a lot more out of the deal than we're putting in to it.

Re:Right

[buswolley]

Its better that we see the corporate control than to be ignorant of their influence. I don't think he was being sarcastic. Maybe just truthful... Wow I haven't posted in a year.

Re:Right

[Bull999999]

Although that AC probably posted using a computer built by (atleast the components) one or more corporations, with Internet connection made possible by one or more corporations, on a board owned by a corporation.

Re:Right

[Anonymous Coward]

Maricopa = Best run county?

Two weeks after they got that award, 53 politians were arrested for the AZ-scam curruption scandal.

Between Sheriff Joe Arrpaio buying million-dollar properties with cold hard cash and 'Propane Jane' janet napalitano bankrupting the state with the alternative fuel crap she pulled, this is one of the most currupt counties in the US. Then there was Evan mecham, Fife symingtion, ... heck Sammy The Bull got the cops to let his kids drag race down central avenue during its weekend-shutdown. You know the town is corrupt when the mobsters run the cops like that, and I don't even want to go into liquor licenses, jerry calangelo, or the rest of the 'phoenix 40' that really run the town...

Anonymous AZ native

Re:Right

[buswolley]

The concept of a corporation is not bad in and of itself. I also do not wish to say that all things produced by corporations are bad. However, it would be ignorant and pure folly to ignore the power structure that corporations possess in this country. And since a corporation's interests are usually different than Joe Smo's interests, Joe Smo should be aware of, and contemplate the power structure above him that work agains his interests.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio

[l810c]

This is county with America's Toughest Sheriff

I especially like this:

The same is true for his chain gangs which work six days a week contributing thousands of dollars of free labor to the community.

Re:Sheriff Joe Arpaio

[dustinbarbour]

Yes.. America needs a boatload of sheriffs like this guy. You know they used to have webcams in their city jail?! Sweet!! I can't seem to find them now..

Re:Sheriff Joe Arpaio

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who lives in Phoenix, which is right in the middle of the county: The man's insane but he's funny.

Among other things, he's responsible for mandatory pink boxers for inmates in prison, the return of striped black-and-white coveralls, and building massive "tent city" complexes instead of new prisons. The prisoners erect the tents themselves.

Frankly I think he's on the right track. It's prison, not free air-conditioned housing.

Re:Sheriff Joe Arpaio

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a co-working who spent some time in a tent. I think they got what they deserved, for dropping a baggie of meth under my desk.

Re:Sheriff Joe Arpaio

[ffsnjb]

Because stupid people took them to court to get the webcams removed...

Re:Sheriff Joe Arpaio

[PD]

It's not prison, it's jail. You know, the place where people who can't pay bail are kept before their trials. Supposedly, they are presumed innocent before they are found guilty, so why do you think it's right to treat them badly?

All this macho "throw the book at them" talk is indicative of a serious aversion to thinking.

Re:Sheriff Joe Arpaio

[Anonymous Coward]

read the case, dickhead.

Oh, and watch your ass if you ever come through Maricopa County, or you may end up one of the suckers you used to watch on the internet. Sherriff Joe doesn't care if you're guilty, hell, it's a jail, not a prison. You should learn to research before you open your ignorant mouth you stupid mother fucker.

Re:Sheriff Joe Arpaio

[Anonymous Coward]

The cameras cover a holding cell, the pre-intake, the search cell and the holding cell area.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't that mean you'd be plastered all over the internet before you were even found guilty?

Grounds for defamation of character. Not to mention most of you only watched to see women peeing on the toilet across the hall, you sick twisted fucks.

Re:Sheriff Joe Arpaio

[beakburke]

Not entirely correct. Jails are used both for holding people before a trial/court appearance and for sentences less than 1 year.

Let the public decide

[pgnas]

It's really very simple, let the public decide, and then demonstrate exactly how the revenue generated will be spent.

I would recommend that the itemized revenue be available online at any time.

no big deal.

Re:Let the public decide

[aggiefalcon01]

Of course, this's the best idea. This's what taxpayers would want. So, of course, they'll never do this.

Re:Let the public decide

[pgnas]

Very true, funny how this "Democracy" works sometimes. If you think at any time we(the people) are not making the decisions in this country, it is the people that are "elected".

ads....

[Anonymous Coward]

Next up: Google advertises it's ipo sale on whitehouse.gov

Just a random thought

[phaetonic]

Isn't advertisement at the government level a bit wrong, as it implies the government has a bias over one product/company?

Re:Just a random thought

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you figure? Foil hat a bit too tight?

If they accept ads from anyone what's the problem?

Re:Just a random thought

[Anonymous Coward]

If they accepted advertisements from anyone, there would be outcry. KKK want to advertise on your county's site? Well, since you accept advertisements from anyone...

Since it is obvious that they can't take advertisements from just anyone then selection is involved. This is a problem.

Sooner or later, if this practice spreads, someone somewhere will take a kickback to put a company's advertisement in a more prominent location, and then there will an unholy stink.

heh

[Perianwyr Stormcrow]

As ads suck less, I am less inclined to block them.

I don't ever block Blogads. They're relevant almost 100% of the time.

Your standard punch the fucking monkey in the balls to win a free root canal and lobotomy combo performed by a spider from Hell banner ad is why ad blockers were invented, and their mere existence is enough to make those who purvey standard size ads unworthy of my attention, ever. In my view, nearly all standard sized advertisements (banners, skyscrapers, blah whatever) are trash and get treated like the trash they are.

last bastion?

[sinnfeiner1916]

my website doesn't have advertising, and i suspect that neither do any of ours. Plus, I am sure we have better content than anything on "gurrlpages.com" or whatever. then again, this is slashdot....

GIS?

[themurph17]

Google Image Search??

So...

[Anonymous Coward]

At what point does government stop being a government of, by and for the people, and simply become a coalition of corporations, headed by ex-CEOs and business leaders?

It's an important question to ask. Is this really what we want our country to become? It seems that many people here don't really care. Let me assure you, in 50 years time, it will make a huge difference. It just might mean the difference between 98% of the population living in abject poverty, and 2% of the population with more money than they can dream of.

Re:So...

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Happened a long time ago, where have you been? There isn't a single politician anywhere who wasn't a doctor, a lawyer, or a CEO, there ain't no such thing as government of the people anymore.

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

s/anywhere/in the USA/g

Re:So...

[Marxist Hacker 42]

No- I don't think so. Given what the WTO has been pulling, there ain't no such thing as a non-corupted politician ANYWHERE in the world. Not the US, not the EU, not Asia, and certainly not in the third world.

They've all been bought and paid for by the corporations in one way or another.

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm from Canada and you forgot about us. ;-)

I don't know about other places but I'm very politically active and I can say most politians are not bought here. Just the very high level ones, sadly.

Nice username.

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

and damn few doctors and CEOs....

Re:So...

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Who pays for campaigns in Canada? I'll admit, your average dog catcher or school board member won't be bought- there's no interest because there's no influence. But if your provinces are anything like Oregon, any province-wide campaign will cost $1-$2 million, easy. You don't find that kind of money growing on trees- so a politician is forced to sell influence to get elected. This is true of any democracy under capitalism.

Same thing as cop cars being painted with ad's

[TyrranzzX]

As always, ye who gives the county much needed revenue through advertising gets special treatment when you need a favor from the country should something go arwy. Same thing as cop cars with coporate advertising awhile back; if there was a protest at the local mcdonalds, and the cop cars adorn the corporate logo of mcdonalds, the cops would be there quicker to help out mcdonalds than, say, some local woman who just got raped.

I spose this is what we get for putting people in power who want government to make good business sense.

Re:Same thing as cop cars being painted with ad's

[Anonymous Coward]

Insightful? Paranoid B.S. is more like it.

Re:Same thing as cop cars being painted with ad's

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not outlaw donations to political parties? Some thing ... no?

Re:Same thing as cop cars being painted with ad's

[DAldredge]

No, that's they way things happen in the real world and to say otherwise just shows how young and stupid you are. ;->

Re:Same thing as cop cars being painted with ad's

[TyrranzzX]

Why are you even replying to that? Anonymous cowards are to be ignored for their flamebait, trolling, or other nonsense.

Re:Same thing as cop cars being painted with ad's

[DAldredge]

Thank you for pointing that out, as you can tell from my UID I am new here and am glad to have someone of your experience guide me thru the maze that is /.

Re:Same thing as cop cars being painted with ad's

[TyrranzzX]

NP, although, you may want to go out and do something else than spend 4+ hours a day (as per indicated by your profile) browsing slashdot. You'll go insane and your head will explode. Unless you're an admin, inwhich case nice job shooting down the ravenous monkeys with a 10-gauge you crazy crazy nutcase.

I like this guy

[Perianwyr Stormcrow]

I appreciate the creativity with which he approaches his line of work...

Re:I like this guy

[HazE_nMe]

The only reason he had to get "creative" is because of the zero tolerance policies Maricopa County has regarding Cannabis use. With the amount of Cannabis users in that county, it is no wonder he had to think "out of the box" to solve the problem of overpopulation in jails. The majority of the people in jail/prison in Maricopa county are in for non-violent drug offenses. I don't think that 6 months of "chain gang" work in the Phoenix sun is a fitting punishment for driving a trunkload of Cannabis up from Nogales. Penn and Teller did an episode of "Bullshit" that illustrates how Joe Arpiao would like to deal with the drug problem in the US. I personally think that making people do manual labor in the Arizona summer should be reserved for the violent criminals, rather than someone who can easily be compared to William McCoy. (That is if Bill even ever really existed.)

discrimination

[slothman32]

Has anyone noticed that the site actually prevents non win98/nt/xp/me/ie4 from viewing it. It doesn't just not work it actually is prevented. It smells like discrimination to me. OF course /.ers won't think so because they acn change. But then /.ers are wrong and stupid. Hint mod this down so I don't have excelent karma and get more mod points.

Re:discrimination

[Daniel Ellard]

Only a small number of pages contain info that requires a plug-in which appears to only work under IE. More like stupidity than discrimination; here's the message I get (using Safari):

This site is best viewed when using Internet Explorer. Your using: Netscape5

So they should be (at least) doubly-embarrassed.

Re:discrimination

[damiangerous]

It uses a MapGuide plugin which isn't available for anything beyond IE. When you're dealing with GIS data, I'm not sure you can really be that choosy about the format. If there's only a reasonable cost to make the data more accessible you have a shot at converting it, but I don't think that's likely.

Re:discrimination

[smooth wombat]

This site is best viewed when using Internet Explorer. Your using: Netscape5

So they should be (at least) doubly-embarrassed.

Especially if the wording you posted is what is used on the web site.

However, if you are the one who can't use proper english then that explains why this article might be on the right track to debugging programs.

If you can't spell correctly what makes you think you can program correctly?

Re:discrimination

[Daniel Ellard]

Yes, that's the wording from the web site, and that's why they should be multiply-embarrassed.

Not to be nasty, but you might want to be careful about criticizing my English if you can't even capitalize the word properly.

Where the good guy pays

[alext]

Bit late now.

The IETF's myopic mantra of "everything must be free" has inevitably failed and in its place is a system where the best sites have to pay for the privilege of having a big audience.

A more practical economic model would have ensured that the consumer paid instead of the producer. Now having married these systems in haste we get to repent at leisure.

Re:Where the good guy pays

[DAldredge]

WTF are you talking about?

Re:Where the good guy pays

[jdunn14]

Amen brother, I was trying to figure out what the hell that guy was rambling about, but had to give up when my head hurt.

Goverment hosted advertisng...

[Anonymous Coward]

How seperate is that from goverment endorsed products, will Bush be telling us to buy Exon Mobil Oil and not Shell next?

Ha ha hee hee ho that's a good one.

[Jeffrey Baker]

Maricopa County is only "well-run" if you think it's a good idea to build a city of millions in the middle of the desert, hundreds of miles from the nearest renewable source of water and sustainable agriculture. If you consider those minor matters of survival, it's a fucking disaster.

Let Maricopa County have advertisers on their real estate website. That will distract people from the fact that they're buying land in the desert

Re:Ha ha hee hee ho that's a good one.

[E-Rock]

Come visit in October. You'll love it.

Re:Ha ha hee hee ho that's a good one.

[Anonymous Coward]

The truth of the matter is that there is quite a bit of agriculture in the Phoenix area. Mostly citrus (it's on the state seal), but you can also see corn and various other things being grown if you drive to some of the outlying areas of the city. There are also a number of lakes within an hour's drive of the city. The Salt River used to run right through Tempe (until they dammed it up for some reason or another--a number of canals run through the city). You can, however, bring your own beer and tube down the river (lasting 4 to 6 hours) at a cost of less than $20 out in East Mesa. That money goes straight to the park and is used to maintain the area. Unfortunately, Phoenix residents still really need to be a little more conscious of the litter they leave along the river.

Considering that Phoenix is one of the fastest growing areas in the country (and also one of the largest cities), they must be doing something right. But I suppose all of these little facts must have slipped your mind when you shot your mouth off. Or maybe you just didn't know. If that's the case, you really shouldn't talk like you know something about the place.

Re:Ha ha hee hee ho that's a good one.

[Triumph The Insult C]

you're thinking of las vegas

there's plenty of well water here

Re:Ha ha hee hee ho that's a good one.

[angrykeyboarder]

Yeah, I'd guess it was ignorance.

Re:Ha ha hee hee ho that's a good one.

[Jeffrey Baker]

Yes, I am painfully aware of the agriculture practiced in Arizona. My tax dollars are subsidizing it to the tune of about $1000 per dollar of produced crop, mostly in the form of water projects.

Here's some stats for you on Maricopa County's water supply. The basins and aquifers contain about 175 million acre-feet of water. This is the bit the county has rights to. The county's water use is over 2 million acre-feet per year. The groundwater recharge rate is a pathetic 150,000 acre-feet per year, on average. The aquifer will be depleted in 60 years, according to Maricopa County's own, very optimistic estimates.

Now, riddle me this. Is it wise to invest in real estate in an area that will have pissed away its water supply in less than a century?

Furthermore I'd like to point out that much of Maricopa's and Arizona's surface water supply, for the bastardization of agriculture they tend to practice in that region, is piped in from the Colorado River, which aquatic system had to be ruined to support ambitious Arizona land owners, at the expense of everyone else.

Here's a nice book to read: Cadilalc Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water

Re:Ha ha hee hee ho that's a good one.

[transient]

Definitely. I lived in Scottsdale for about two years and it's simply fantastic during most of the year.

Re:Ha ha hee hee ho that's a good one.

[Anonymous Coward]

...but do you know how Water Rights work?

The City cannot "eminent domain" them from the farmer. Water rights are almost more valuable than gold in the western US. No matter what. It's the law, and all attempts to alter it, legislatively or in the courts, just evaporate quickly.

Just like Nevada...er, Las Vegas, cannot usurp the water privileges that go to Arizona or CA, because at the time they signed their Colorado River-sharing agreement with AZ, Nevada essentially had 0 population. And there is no way they will be able to pull a Metropolitan Water Board anymore (Owens Valley, CA) on the water holders.

Of course, most of that irrigated citrus farming that are now close to Phoenix/Tuscon/Scotsdale city limits were WAY out in the boonies 30 years ago...

You can have your $20 to float down a river and get drunk. I'll take the Oregon coast any day.

Re:Ha ha hee hee ho that's a good one.

[dvdeug]

you're thinking of las vegas

there's plenty of well water here

There's plenty of well water in Las Vegas, too. But no source of well water in a desert is going to survive millions of people drawing on it for centuries.

Re:Ha ha hee hee ho that's a good one.

[intertwingled]

read _Cadillac_Desert_, a really good book about water and the Western United States. It not only talks about the Phoenix Metro area, but also, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego, which are all in pretty much the same situation as Phoenix, even if they are located on the ocean.

Re:Ha ha hee hee ho that's a good one.

[lanner]

The original post is off topic and troll. I don't see why this was moderated up. If you want to discuss the issue, take it elsewhere. The fact that it was a government in Arizona that's doing it was accidental.

Note that I live in the Phoenix metro area. The gas, electrical, and water supply issues are interesting, but this isn't about that.

Not even an issue..

[dustinbarbour]

Eh.. That's why I installed the AdBlock extension for Firefox. problem solved..

Re:Not even an issue..

[Anonymous Coward]

And I saw someone getting robbed yesterday, closed my eyes and walked quickly by, problem solved...

They need the money...

[Edward Teach]

to pay some people to make the damned maps accessible to Mozilla users.

Re:They need the money...

[sd790]

No kidding!

This site is best viewed when using Internet Explorer.
Your using: Netscape5

I'm impressed...

Precedent?

[jaxdahl]

Are there any examples of government entities accepting ads in their publications before the Internet existed (or in print nowadays)? If so, this might not be so weird. If not, this is weird.

Re:Precedent?

[mtrisk]

Schools have been making deals with soft drink makers for decades. Millions go to school districts from Pepsi and Coke. In fact, I believe there was a school in the northeast that had a giant advertisement for Pepsi on their roof, as they were near the local airport. So this is nothing special, really.

Re:Precedent?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the difference between this and a political donation besides the fact the advertisers already have their reward and don't have to ask for the handout down the road?

Re:Precedent?

[jaxdahl]

Schools aren't really part of the legislative/judical/executive system though.. Actually, I can remember one example a while ago -- wasn't there some police department somewhere that was going to put ads on their police cruisers?

Re:Precedent?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, see any Bus or Train.

Hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

My first thought here is, what happens if the John Kerry for President campaign comes to these people and asks to buy ad space? Do they accept? Would it be ethical for them to accept? Would it be ethical for them to decline?

Isn't Arizona supposed to be one of the big contested states in the next election?

Re:Hmmmm

[YrWrstNtmr]

Or how about not the actual campaign, but another organization with a political agenda. Moveon.org, maybe.

if they are using ESRI products

[enrico_suave]

.. they NEED the ad revenue... seriously. It's wicked expensive/overpriced.

e.

Re:if they are using ESRI products

[Triumph The Insult C]

... and kick ass

what's better? throw something together with grass and gmt? right

people are willing to pay (i work with gis people that work with that .gov (we all happen to live/work in maricopa county as well)) because arc stuff is hands-down kickass

now ... getting esri's bundled flexlm to not crash all the time is another thing =9 (flakey e220r is the prob imo)

Re:if they are using ESRI products

[lurking]

However the time the clerks save in searching through old documents dramatically makes up for that expense. Looking up an old deed at any local courthouse it a true PITA..... Being able to find it with the click of a button is a true time saver.

Re:if they are using ESRI products

[doormat]

And a piece of shit... ArcGIS 9 is such a pain in the ass, I've found and registered two bugs with ESRI in the month I've had it...

Re:if they are using ESRI products

[enrico_suave]

... esri desktop products do kick ass... that is if you buy the "kick ass" extension for another 2,000 smackers... now their online ArcIMS products are a buggy bandaid at best =)

but hey that's just my opinion... if there was an opensource way to take my orgs desktop .mxd files and serve them up with dynamic data from a database , i'd be all over it...

but i digress... GIS is very useful, more towns should take advantage of it... and any savings from man hours spent dealing with paper map requests at town hall, is offset by the team of IT professionals trying to keep an ESRI online mapping product up and online =)

e.

Re:if they are using ESRI products

[dasmegabyte]

Expensive, yes. Overpriced, no. ESRI's stuff is far and away the best integrated and best functioning suite of GIS tools I've used...much easier and more flexible than the tools from MapInfo, and lightyears -- milllions of them -- ahead of anything the OSS community has come up with.

As soon as something can approach the functionality and usability of ArcInfo, I will gladly agree with you. But as it stands, ESRI's stuff isn't overpriced so much as everything else is under-engineered (and it shows!)

I don't feel bad giving my money or my clients' money to ESRI...because I know that they'll quickly eat up the $500-$1000 they save buying MapInfo stuff in wasted time due to silly interfaces and buggy code. MapInfo's data management and mapping tools are excellent...their data display and map generation tools, sorely lacking.

That said...for the absolute lowest level GIS stuff (splicing together seams of an orthoimage or converting mercater projection coordinates to longitude latitude), the ESRI package is major overkill. Few of our customers will never use the really impressive features of the toolset. But it also saves them time having ME install and layer their datasets...which I can do in a quarter of the time...and my time is billed at something obscene like $150 per hour.

Re:if they are using ESRI products

[Almost_anonymous_cow]

The bundled flexlm buggy? You running the server on unix or windows? My bosses win2k workstation with the lic manager on it has had months of uptime and never had it crashed.

Course they probably need the ad money just to pay for lic costs on all those arc products. Arcims, Arcsde, DBMS (if they use one). Not to mention all the desktop installs. Then you got the photography and planimetric updates which aint cheap. And dont me give me tiger data since i prefer my roads were they really are.

Course the trick is that with city/county govs money coming in = money going out. With my city department federal money is a far off dream and takes a pretty big project to see any such as a forest fire. With all the GIS data we have we normally dont give away the data and there can be a cost to get it just as there is a cost with the paper maps. That half a million to update your data has to come from some place.

Re:if they are using ESRI products

[Triumph The Insult C]

it's on unix ... "flakey e220r is the prob imo"

it serves up 25 floating licenses for pretty much every extension esri has

part of the problem is that there are other installs of flexlm on that box ... one for erdas imagine, another for matlab, another for sun's compiler suite, etc

only the flexlm that comes with the arc stuff gets flakey. about every other month it needs a good SIGHUP and then it's ok

Two more words: "IE only"

[xixax]

I just tried their online mapping tool and:

"This site is best viewed when using Internet Explorer.
Your using: Netscape5"

In this case, "best viewed" is a synonym for "borked with every other browser except the one we use". Ads? I can't see any ads...

Oh, and that should be "you're".

Xix.

Re:Two more words: "IE only"

[lurking]

And requires AutoDesk Mapguide. Again..... Winblows only. There are a lot of great GIS sites out that dont require Mapguide. Why don't government agencies use them?

Huh. Well I dunno about where you live

[Anonymous Coward]

But where I come from, government providing preferential treatment to businesses or individuals in exchange for monetary sums is called "corruption".

Re:Huh. Well I dunno about where you live

[black mariah]

Individuals doing so is corruption, a city/county/state website allowing anyone and everyone to advertise is just... advertisement.

Re:Huh. Well I dunno about where you live

[hazem]

I thought that was called "political contributions"?!

It's so confusing. In one case you give money in exchange for favors. In the other, you get favors in exchange for giving money. I'm starting to see the difference now!

Best run?

[Anonymous Coward]

...the county is one of the best-run in the nation

That ain't saying much.

It's a community service

[nysus]

Government is here to make people happy, right? Well, people are happy when they have money. People only have money if the economy is good. The economy is only good when people are buying. People only buy things when they want something want. People generally don't need things they want and soon forget about those things. Ads remind people of those things. Thus, advertising on a government web site is a community service.

So what's the moral of this story? I guess it's that politicians are irresponsible/afraid enough to listen to the anti-tax zealots to do the wrong thing.

Re:It's a community service

[Anonymous Coward]

Last I checked, the purpose of government was to protect the citizenry from one another.

But I guess that's a point of active debate.

Porn ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we advertise hotBootyMama? Think they'd try to shut down our free speech?

Advertising and government just don't mix. If you want to advertise, get a lobbist.

In typical Slashdot tradition...

[cleverhandle]

...it seems that few people are actually following any links before posting corporate conspiracy theories.

Now, I will admit that there's something slightly unsettling about a government giving official coverage to particular businesses. Though, as pointed out above, it may be better than taxes.

But in any event, these ads are specifically for their GIS (Geographic Information Systems) portal. That's relatively specialized stuff - people visiting it (property owners and developers) have a pretty high probability of needing some kind of service the businesses advertise there. If they don't see the ad there, they'll go to the Yellow Pages - so who do you want the money to go to, the local gov or the telecoms?

While this still strikes me as a little odd, it's not like Aunt Tilly is going to be checking a web site for the garbage pickup schedule and be confronted with flashing ambulance chaser ads or something.

Re:In typical Slashdot tradition...

[geek]

"Now, I will admit that there's something slightly unsettling about a government giving official coverage to particular businesses"

Ever seen a bulletin board at a public library? Been to a city hall anywhere? They have tons of info on local business. Part of local governments job these days is promoting the local business community for sake of tourism and economic growth. It's nothing new or strange.

Re:In typical Slashdot tradition...

[PsiPsiStar]

The issue isn't gov. showing ads. so much as 'gov taking money from businesses (in a business relationship, as opposed to taxes) that the gov is supposed to regulate.'

Might businesses withdraw their ads if they don't like a particular bit of legislation?

Chambers of commerce are supposed to advocate businesses. At issue is how much money a government is allowed to collect for its advertising.

Re:In typical Slashdot tradition...

[dave420]

"better" than taxes because you're not paying for them, "worse" than taxes because the government no longer represents you, but their sponsors.

If that's really "better", than, well, sheesh. vote bush - he sounds like your sort.

Political Advertising via Press Release

[ljavelin]

"As the county is one of the best-run in the nation, this could set quite the precedent."

Sure does look like an ad to me. Do county-generated press releases, like the one glorifying the county supervisor, count as political advertising?

Or did the county supervisor have to pay to have that press release posted to the county web site?

Re:Political Advertising via Press Release

[Anonymous Coward]

Your last question is certainly valid. Apparently there is an industry that supplies "awards" to municipalities in return for tax dollars. My municipal government was recently exposed in doing just that by the small local newspaper:

http://www.intradenver.com/newspapers/commercecity beacon/index.asp?artID=3385

All for it

[mmmmmhotpants]

If only this story hadn't leaked until they actually had advertisers. They'd probably make twice as much from the slashdot effect than from a years worth of normal use.

If people like advertising-free web...

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Why not help me build such a thing? Anyone not in the USA gets an automatic invitation... last person took all of 19 minutes to get connected.

Oh, anyone from the US that's interested needs to drop by my undernet channel, chances are someone would invite you. ;-)

It's about time...

[Ms.XingTianCai]

Arizona is finally contributing to something...geeze, just look at our sports teams.

And why not? A voluntary corporate tax.

[CFD339]

My other job, my non-geek job, is that of firefighter. Its a volunteer "on call" community. I see the fights they have go through to replace a $50 coupling let alone a few thousand dollars of hose line.

As far as I'm concerned, if NIKE wanted to put their logo on a few hundred feed of high quality inch and three quarter line, I know a whole lot of departments that would be very very happy about it.

What to a small town fire department is a huge expense, is less than sending a sales guy to a meeting for corporate America. Think of the impact that could make.

-- ME.

Re:And why not? A voluntary corporate tax.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, you are a volunteer.

Before you know it there will be bugs in your fire fighting systems and you'll be infiltrated by terrorists.

You are also taking away jobs from the *real* fire fighters out there who have *real* training.

You communist volunteer fire fighters should keep your sub standard fire fighting to your own homes. Everone knows you kill as many people as you save. /one ticket please. port side window if you will.

And why not? A voluntary corporate tax-Waste

[Anonymous Coward]

"What to a small town fire department is a huge expense, is less than sending a sales guy to a meeting for corporate America. Think of the impact that could make."

Think of how wasteful corporate america is? No wonder they have to outsource to compete.

Equal Time?

[C3ntaur]

While I don't have a problem with the concept of government organizations selling advertising per se, I wonder what happens when the buyer has a political agenda. Will equal time/treatment/space/pricing be given to those that oppose the current administration's agenda, or will it become a propaganda machine to further cement their holding of power?

Re:Equal Time?

[dave420]

That's the conflict of interest that can't be allowed to even be a factor in government. Just having the doubt that it could affect their allegience means something is horribly wrong.

And yes, of course it's a bloody co-incidence. What is this, kindergarten? sheesh.

wow, before my sarcasm meter kicked in....

[CFD339]

I almost fell into that trap.

For those playing the home game, The Anonymous Coward is referring to comments from the pro-MS crowd about how open source software is a danger to the security of the nation -- contrary to accepted security doctrine.

FYI: Most firefighters are volunteer, "On Call" -- all but the biggest cities.

In most cases, we spend more time each year training as the cities keep cutting funds.

Re:wow, before my sarcasm meter kicked in....

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah... most are volunteer fire fighters only because the small town commies won't pay them like a good capitalist would. They are ruining our country.

Re:So... (At what point.....)

[Anonymous Coward]

It "will" happen about 1960 (minus 20 years( WW2, the "military /industrial complex") to plus say 10 years (when "billionaire started to mean what "millionaire" had meant before)). OTOH, considering the historical "trusts" (Rockefeller, Carnegie, Mellon, etc.) maybe 1880 to 1910 would be a better estimate of when the above-described change "will" take place.

Advertising is not automatically a bad thing

[Lord Bitman]

(you turds)

Re:Advertising is not automatically a bad thing

[dave420]

No, but it implies a responsibility to the sponsors. When you're discussing government, that's ridiculous. They are supposed to represent you, imparially. Not some corporate entity.

Re:Advertising is not automatically a bad thing

[Lord Bitman]

responsibility to the sponsors.. yes.. the responsibility to keep the site up and running, and displaying ads. Horrible thing for a government web site which is trying to stay up and running to do.

A local view

[BCW2]

My father in law lives in Phoenix. Since the income from the ads won't lower his property or sales taxes, he thinks it sucks.

Re:A local view

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this country run a deficit (too lazy to look and not an American)? Most do so why would you assume there would be tax breaks?

Oh that right, goverment debt and perpetual deficit is OK. Start teaching your children NOW!

Re:A local view

[BCW2]

Most counties are forbidden by their state laws to run a deficit. Most States in the US can't run a deficit by their own State Constitutions. An increase in income should be offset by a tax break. Of course they will find a stupid way to waste it.

Most Americans would bitch less about taxes if the money they sent in was spent wisely. Most is wasted.

Re:A local view

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I'll take your word for that. Seems like a good law, in fact we have it in my province.

If that is in fact a fact, I totally agree with you.

Of course the law makes no sense when the feds (just like ours in Canada) can run as large a deficit as they like and then pass the cost on to the states/provinces who pass it on to the cities.

Here in Canada the cities have very little power. Different in th US? (I think it may be but not sure .. I've just seen lots of movies ;-)

Re:A local view

[Bull999999]

Most Americans their money unwisely so I'm not suprised that the US government also spends unwisely.

What's the big deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Our politicians are for sale, so why not our web pages too.

So what?

[lunartik]

They put ads on city buses too.

Re:So what?

[dave420]

Are the busses in the Judicial, Legislative or Executive branches again? I forget...

It doesn't take a genius to realise this is buying government. In the rest of the world, that's called corruption, and a horrific conflict of interest. The government is indebted to the sponsors. If they piss off the sponsors, they aren't going to get their funding. Can't you see how potentially bad that could be??

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

They put ads on city buses too.

Not all "city" buses are run by the government. (The city where I live outsourced the whole shebang a few years ago to a private firm.)

Re:So what?

[RobertB-DC]

It doesn't take a genius to realise this is buying government. In the rest of the world, that's called corruption, and a horrific conflict of interest.

I agree, it is indeed buying government. On the other hand, I don't think it can be raised to the level of "corruption", as long as there's complete transparency. That doesn't mean transparency when it's convenient, it means warts-and-all. These things can go wrong, and the only way to keep the politicos and the suits honest is to keep a microscope on them.

For an example of a corporate-slash-government partnership gone way wrong, check out the ERCOT scandal unfolding here in Texas. I submitted an article about a privacy-related aspect, but it was rejected (so please cue the world's tiniest violin for me).

Or is it....

[phazethru]

Just when you thought that pages on your local government's website were the last bastion of the advertisement-free WWW

www.google.com

And that is why I use them. No bloat.

Re:Or is it....

[tisme]

dude, you do realize that Google DOES have sponsored advertisements right? Sure they are not very invasive, but who says the government website's ads will necessarily be invasive? I don't get the logic...

Re:Or is it....

[phazethru]

Hmm. Yes. But not on their front page, which is why I linked there. Though your argument makes sense since every search has sponsored links. Point taken.

But also, the plans for the site in question seem much more invasive than pure text ads. But again, those are plans, they seem to be starting out small and working their way up

as seen on their website

[stagl]

This site is best viewed when using Internet Explorer.
Your using: Netscape5

Maybe they need the money for increased salaries of their web guys. Seriously, let's get some standards put in place. (and a spell checker :)

Ha ha hee hee ho?

[LDoggg_]

Come on.
Everyone from Phoenix remebers that it goes:
"HoHo!HaHa!HeeHee!HaHa!"

Go ahead and call the 5th largest city in the country a disaster because its in the middle of the desert. You can even make fun of the Good 'Ol Boy sheriff.
But never under any circumstances disrespect the greatest TV show of all time!

Re:Ha ha hee hee ho?

[Anonymous Coward]

And for those of you not from Arizona, see Wallace and Ladmo for a glimpse into our childhoods.

Not so: It's either ads or taxes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ads are good for covering costs, however they are also completely inappropriate for any service rendered by state authority. I'm not into US or Arizona or this particular county legislature, but if somebody would be able to promote itself on government owned web site, while somebody else couldn't, the whole thing could be seen as a governement endorsment of certain business. This in my eyes would be alost like Bush renting the White House lawn for McDonalds arches. He might be a monkey, but certain things event this monkey can't afford to do.

If the county wants to render public service, they can cover the costs with taxes or with fees. I don't expect it to be free beer, but I'm certainly disgusted by something that could be seen as a government endorsement of a particular business. If they want to put ads on it, they should spin off a privately owned company and be done with it.

How could I know the burgers were a health hazard? I've seen their advertisement on the gov. site, so I thought you checked them out... With all the lawsuits galore, this is just behind the corner.

Maybe it's just me, but government and advertising really don't mix together.

Anonymous Cowards Unite

hard decision...

[tisme]

It is hard for me to decide on whether to be for or against this.

I think I would totally agree that the Government should have advertisements to raise revenue IF AND ONLY IF there is a "non-advertisement" text only version for website that is available on a splash page, before any advertisements are viewed.

If you look at other government events, they often will partner with other commercial entities, heck even government literature is often sponsored by third parties who are partners. What is the logic behind making websites sponsor/partner free if we accept government sponsorship in other areas?

Frankly, if we have a choice not to view the advertisments (through a text only version for example) then I think I support advertisments.

Re:hard decision...

[gerardrj]

I'm torn also.
I dislike that while I'm forced to sit in the MVD, that I also have to be subjected to advertisements on the overhead screens and banners. It will be interesting to see if the government ever gets sued for "suggesting" a particular company in this way.

But... I like the idea that perhaps my property taxes will not go up as fast, or *gasp* go down, if I (and others) click on these ads on a regular basis.

My problem with ads in government is that if the government forces me to a particular place, real or virtal, to complete a required task then they should not use that compulsion to sell me to advertisers. When this is the case, how much longer will it be before my driver's license carries a corporate logo and slogan on the back? How much longer before I take the Coca Cola Exit #42, or drive on the Pepsi Interchange?

They are the government. They have the unique ability to legally take any money they need. If you need corporate money to run the county, then raise the county income tax on corporations. There is zero reason to pander to these companies and exchange services to get revenue from them.

Re:hard decision...

[dave420]

We're talking about a company giving money to a branch of the government that can actually make decisions regarding law. That means the government has to be nice to their sponsor, or they lose their money. Surely those facts alone spells danger to you. I'm no alarmist, but that's frowned upon in, oh, the rest of the world. The government is for the people, not companies.

People on /. cry blue murder when MS gives schools free software, yet don't raise a finger in protest when a local government is openly accepting direct funds from a company entity. Double standards? On slashdot? Never! :-P

Re: Ads work

[xiando]

Google ads actually work. They's why they are present on all smaller websites, blogs etc, simply because authors see a small renevue by using them. So get used to it..

actually might be appropriate

[bobalu]

If you think about it, anyone looking for info (say you're thinking of moving there) might appreciate some links to local real estate agents, plumbers, etc.

Obviously there's room for graft and abuse, but I'm from NJ so I guess we're used to that. (bada bing)

Interesting ...

[duncan bayne]

Libertarians like myself are always looking for ways to fund Government, other than compulsory taxation. Perhaps this is one such way?

You don't know Phoenix...

[GI Jones]

Obviously, you don't know much about Phoenix history. Phoenix has been a rich place of agriculture with plenty of water to sustain multiple cultures throughout history.

The prehistoric Hohokam Indians first settled the area about 300 B.C. and dug a system of extensive irrigation canals for farming. This system included over 300 miles of major canals, which took its water from the Gila, Salt, San Pedro and Santa Cruz rivers. This water was then used to support thousands of acres of farm land. Much of Phoenix still uses the canals dug by the Hohokam.

The Phoenix area has sustained many cultures for many centuries. Phoenix has quite a few "renewable" sources of water and desert land is quite fertile and supports many crops including fruit, lettuce, cotton and hay.

Arizona produces enough cotton a year to provide at least one pair of jeans for everyone in America. Also, it is very likely that the Iceberg lettuce that you enjoy in your salad comes from Arizona. If you enjoy fruit salad, Arizona is one of the top producers of melons in the U.S.

Not to leave out the carnivores, 534.9 million pounds of beef comes from Arizona cattle per year. Getting hungry? Let's finish things of with dessert... if you have some cookies, you need milk... over 350,000 gallons are produced in AZ each year.

While it is true that Phoenix has outpaced its local resources and requires supplementary services to survive, it is far below that of much of Southern California. After all, what major metropolitan city can support itself agriculturally? I think that our neighbors in Las Vegas and Southern California are much worse off.

Just because Phoenix is in a desert, doesn't mean that it isn't naturally livable. Actually, your dire assessment of the area would lead me to conclude that the fact those of us who life there aren't dead yet, is proof enough that someone is doing something right.

Having lived in Georgia, I can say, from experience, that Maricopa County services are so much better than those of DeKalb County. The fact that my driver's license doesn't expire until I am 65 is reason enough to offer props. You have no idea how many hours I've spent waiting GA DOV lines to renew a license. In Maricopa, nearly every government service has an online component and information is only a click away: http://www.maricopa.gov/

Just my $0.02,

Re:You don't know Phoenix...

[Jeffrey Baker]

The Hohokam had a peak population of less than 50,000 people, and their society collapsed. Some people think the Hohokam society collapsed because their irrigation technology overextended the population, which was then wiped out by drought and poor soil management. I see a parallel with Maricopa County. Yes, technology allows 4 million people to live in the desert. But in adverse conditions, the Maricopa County society is just as apt to evaporate as the Hohokam did 600 years ago.

Re:You don't know Phoenix...

[Anonymous Coward]

And the reason the Hohokam disappeared? Drought. And flood. It's a horrible place to pretend that agriculture works.

And where there IS agriculture, there is unpicked fruit because there isn't enough cheap labor do to so. Check out any of the fruit stands on Southern, west of I-10, where they sell fruit bagged in Texas and Florida, while unattended orange groves drop fruit on the ground just across the street. Now, thanks to Arcadia, we have "roof rats," which feed on the uneaten citrus that rots on the ground.

Except for....

[Anonymous Coward]

Something never mentioned about Sheriff Joe outside of the county is the fact that several people who have died in custody in restraints have created multi-million-dollar losing lawsuits. He gets sued, and sued and sued for all the people he and his officers have injured or killed. The settlements have cost the county millions. There's the $1.38 BILLION lawsuit for the toilet webcam he put up. Not to mention his publicist, who makes over $120,000 a year just to make sure his face gets on the evening news, no matter what he does. And let's not forget his smear campaigns.

Best of all, there's the people that work for him, like the corrupt David Hendershott, a man so fat that he once had to be cut out of a car with the jaws of life- a vehicle that had been impounded by sheriff's office, in fact.

Believe me- Sheriff Joe comes across as a hard-hitting lawman, but he's corrupt, morally bankrupt, and out to make a splash rather than fix the problems in his jails. Unfortunately, more money is spent in litigation and settlements than should be, taking officers off the street.

Re:Except for....

[l810c]

I don't doubt that he may go overboard once in a while. But the ACLU article is a joke, this is from the very first paragraph:

known internationally for the degrading chain gangs and other harsh policies introduced by its infamous sheriff

'degrading chain gangs'?!? Boo-effing-hoo, their criminals they should work to pay off their debt to society.

As for the webcam lawsuit, that was in 2001 and I couldn't find anything about it's current status.

And there's this rebutting most of the rest.

Re:Except for....

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if it *is* true that SO's insurance premiums haven't gone up, it's because the deductible has gone up from $1 million to $5 million and over $30 million has been paid out in settlements.

The guy is a nutcase, and an expensive one at that.

Re:Except for....

[Anonymous Coward]

The amount of money that Sherriff Joe has already cost the county in legal fees and wrongful death suit judgements (as well as wrongful termination suit judgements) exceeds all the pink underwear profits and 'savings' brought in from chain gangs, etc. by several orders of magnitude.

Here are some facts compiled in August 2000 by the Phoenix New Times about the fiscal responsibility of our beloved sherriff:

Arpaio was $8 million over budget for the last fiscal year. In the last few years, he has boosted the top echelon of his department, adding high-ranking -- and highly paid -- staff. He now has nine deputy chiefs, one chief deputy and six civilians who are paid deputy chief-level salaries, costing taxpayers a total of more than $1.6 million. That's compared with the five command staffers who earned a total of $300,000 in 1993. Arpaio's command staff is three times larger than that of the Phoenix Police Department, a substantially bigger agency.

Yet last year, Arpaio told 64 detention officers that they wouldn't receive the modest $1,000 raises given to other sheriff's employees. In a memo, the sheriff said the department "did not have the funding" to cover $64,000 in raises. Still, Carol Munroe was hired a month later to direct Arpaio's new "animal welfare" programs. She makes $61,000.

Arpaio is now asking the county board of supervisors for $1.2 million, up from $600,000 last year, to subsidize a fleet of leased take-home vehicles for more than three dozen favored staffers. No other county department provides take-home vehicles for similar-grade employees.

Last September, Arpaio supported a move by chief deputy David Hendershott to collect retirement pay as well as a hefty county salary. Hendershott retired as a peace officer and was rehired the next day by Arpaio as a civilian in the same position at the same salary. He gained $51,000 in annual retirement pay in addition to his $120,000 a year salary, a salary that had already doubled over the previous three years. His unprecedented pay raises -- seven over three years -- increased Hendershott's retirement pay about $25,000 a year.

Four years ago, the state auditor found that Arpaio had misused more than $122,000 of taxpayers' money from the jail-enhancement fund. Arpaio used the money to pay for a private attorney in a constitutionalist lawsuit against the county and for videotapes of his own television appearances, among other things.

Since 1996, more than 2,600 lawsuits have been filed against Arpaio, including more than 850 by inmates. Payouts have totaled in excess of $16 million, while more than $35 million in wrongful-termination suits are pending. The death of Scott Norberg, who was choked to death by detention officers, cost the county $1 million in private-attorney fees, plus $8.25 million in settlement costs. In June, an appeals court upheld the payment of $1.5 million to Timothy Griffin, who suffered a ruptured ulcer after being refused treatment by jail medical staff.

Although taxpayers pay only the first $1 million of any settlement, with insurance companies picking up the rest, insurance company representatives have warned the county that because of the conditions of the jails, the number of lawsuits and what they feel is shoddy defense in many of those cases, cost to the taxpayers in the form of premiums will most likely skyrocket when the county's insurance contract ends in two years, according to two high-ranking county officials.

Jail conditions have worsened during Arpaio's regime. Two years ago, consultants hired to study the need for new jails concluded that the sheriff needed to dramatically raise staffing levels in existing jails. Jail reviews continue to show that dozens of posts at the Madison Street and Durango jails still are unstaffed and that critical jail maintenance has been chronically neglected.

In 1996, a Department of Justice investigation found that Maricopa County inmates regularly were subjected to excessive force and received negligen

What's a few supply line problems in the desert?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, now. It's not like a our gasoline got cut off!

Aw, heck. It's not like we have any electrical problems!

I don't know what 2005 will be like. It's a toss up between running out of water, and running out of air. Or maybe running out of smog and ozone. Like I said, it's a toss-up.

Microsoft Kickback?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps this is a way for Microsoft to reward them for continuing to use their products and lock out users of other systems, despite the county's own mandate against purchasing from convicted monopolists?

The fact that the advertising is being awarding by closed bidding makes is what caused me to don the tinfoil hat and start thinking along these lines.

Serum for slashdotting

[Anonymous Coward]

The surest way to prevent getting slashdotted : Design IE-only websites ;)

Microsoft Kickback?

[sydsavage]

Perhaps this is a way for Microsoft to reward them for continuing to use their products and lock out users of other systems, despite the county's own mandate against purchasing from convicted monopolists?

"Gee, Bob, we really like the way you shut down those communist open source advocates from following your own mandates. And we're pleased as punch that you've faithfully upgraded your systems every year. But the icing on the cake is how you've required the users of your system to use an MS operating system to access public data. We'd really, really like to give you a reward for your loyalty to Redmond, but you being an elected official and all, it just might not look good. Now, if your website had some advertising we could purchase... Oh, and make sure there is a closed bidding process for the advertising, so no one actually sees how much we're kicking back to you..."

In the desktop space, yes

[xixax]

ArcGIS 9 can actually be called a real GIS again, 8 lacked a bunch of stuff. I'm not expecting to see a OSS contender any time soon, the pool of likely users is not comparable to something like OOffice or GIMP.

On the web-end OTOH, GIS is a commodity (i.e. WFS, WMS) and the OSS alternatives to things like ArcIMS are very capable, and in many instances much more stable/reliable.

I'm also interested to see where ArcSDE goes, it's chief advntage over things like Oracle Spatial is the tight integration with their other products.

Xix.

Simple solution

[beakburke]

If they start to run out of water, then just send them up to live in the frozen tundra, eh.

Re:fristage postage

[Anonymous Coward]

patriotic members are expected to collect them, just like the new ads.

Best run?

[TKinias]

As the county is one of the best-run in the nation,...

As a resident of Maricopa County for almost twenty years -- and one who has been waiting about that long for a proper public transit system -- I cry Bullshit. Phoenix has a wide variety of things going for it... but good government is not one of them...

The NYC Metro Transit Authority is going to sell..

[penultimatepost]

In a similar move the MTA is thinking of selling the naming rights to NYC subway stations, to plug an alleged 1 billion USD deficit. Thus, we stand to have names like: the Coca Cola Lafayette station or the Microsoft Wall Street Station.

This type of commercialization will not stop.

They chose the right name then

[gosand]

The Hohokam had a peak population of less than 50,000 people, and their society collapsed. Some people think the Hohokam society collapsed because their irrigation technology overextended the population, which was then wiped out by drought and poor soil management. I see a parallel with Maricopa County. Yes, technology allows 4 million people to live in the desert. But in adverse conditions, the Maricopa County society is just as apt to evaporate as the Hohokam did 600 years ago.

So you are basically saying that it will thrive, die, and be reborn from the ashes just to do it all over again? Perhaps they chose an appropriate name for their city...

Re:They chose the right name then

[stud9920]

Perhaps they chose an appropriate name for their city...

Until the BIOS maker sends them a C&D letter...

Why Not? The USPS lets AOL advertise!

[lcsjk]

If the USPS (Postal Service) can give a contract to AOL so that space is allowed for AOL CD's with a USPS sticker, why can't every state, county, city or even the water department office sell advertising?

The USPS says AOL is providing a service by letting people know there is an easy way to get on the internet (or some trivia like that). Note that we pay taxes to support the USPS and a place to hold AOL CD's.

Re:And why not? A voluntary corporate tax.

[dave420]

But then that fire department would be indebted to Nike... If a fire broke out in an orphanage and a Nike warehouse, they'd have to go to the Nike warehouse first to save their sponsorship. True, it might never come to that, but the conflict of interest is huge, and should sound alarm bells to anyone even remotely caring about this.

Your example is slightly flawed, as it can make any money-raising activity sound like a great idea. Why not just have the mafia dropping off sacks of money every couple of weeks? That would keep them in hoses for a while...

Kevin Ross's new way to make money?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Maricopa County Assessor just got indicted for selling senior's information to reverse mortgage companies for personal profit, so this doesn't surprise me. Apparently Ross thinks his voter approved salary is too low. Shame on Maricopa County for allowing this on the public's website.

-= Does this not say something ? =-

[Gw33do]

Do governments do this type of thing often ? I mean looking for external money. They get money in taxes and from higher governments, but when they start requiring funds from the private sector should that raise questions?

Donation is common now. Difference is the logo

[CFD339]

I understand your point, but we already get donations from corporations. Its very very common. We also get donations from individuals. We have fundraisers. Remember, its a volunteer small town thing.

The only difference here is the logo. Could we increase donations by allowing the logo?

I don't agree that it would change our indebtedness at all -- in fact if anything it would publicise it.

I know a town with a single large employer -- its no secret that the bulk of that department's equipment is in some way linked to either the influence of the employer on the council or direct donation from the employer.

I'll skip the arguement of ophanage vs. warehouse for a minute and assume that's hyperbole because obviously its always lives before property. In fact, the procedural guides are pretty well known to state something like:

We risk a lot to save lives.
We risk a little to save property.
We risk nothing for a lost cause.

Re:Donation is common now. Difference is the logo

[dave420]

And I understand your points also :)

Governments don't get donations from private entities (parties do, which, again, is horrible). Either way, there's a difference between donations and sponsorship. Sponsorship implies a two-way relationship above the advertising. It's a revenue stream, and as such is valuable to the recipient. Due to that, it's a massive conflict of interest, seeing as the government is responsible (supposedly) to the people and ONLY the people.

It seems harmless when you're talking about the local deli, but if it was a large multinational, they've effectively bought the government.

Re:Donation is common now. Difference is the logo

[CFD339]

I guess I'm just dumb as a box of hammers here. I don't get the implied promise beyond the logo. That effectively becomes the quid pro quo.

Sure, Nike gets advertising, goodwill, and possibly makes more money as a result of the logo on the hoseline -- that's the payoff.

I don't see the conflict.

Same goes for the AZ website. You buy and ad, you get the ad. That's as far as I can see it going.

EXCEPT -- that if government ends up being driven by decisions that generate ad revenue -- THAT becomes an issue.

Re:Donation is common now. Difference is the logo

[dave420]

You're not dumb :) you've proved that much. The difference is that sponsorship implies a long-term agreement. That, to the person being sponsored, is a regular cash income. Because of the fact it's regular, the person being paid doesn't want to rock the boat, and so tries to be as nice to the sponsor as possible. If they piss off a sponsor, they don't return, and other potential sponsors think "hey - they screwed over their last sponsor, so it's not for us." Just like that, the revenue stream is lost.

Of course it doesn't always have to be like that, but the fact of an arrangement between the two entities means it could happen. And seeing as this is a government, the conflict of interests is very important. If they got sponsored by Nike, what would stop them giving Nike special treatment? Nothing. That's the problem.

Still happens all the time

[CFD339]

Not with ads, but with parks, libraries, schools, etc. Companies make donations to cities all the time. Often they get their name on cornerstone or dedication. Small towns are more visible.

This is good.

[Anonymous Coward]

The rest of you nerds can screw off -- I'm a resident of Maricopa county and I have absolutely no problem with the county government offsetting costs in this way. I wasn't aware that this site existed, but the chances of me using it are almost nil... so why should I have to pay for it?

Advertisers help to underwrite all kinds of public services these days. Art museums. Buses. Freeways. Theater. Ballparks.

Get over it!

I dont think it's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I am currently doing a website for the county I live in and well they decided to hire somebody else that will do it for free if they can advertise on the website. So that leaves me with out a job when that time comes. The person that hired me wants me to stay but her hands are tied. Has alot to do with the budget but I am charing half or not even a quarter of what most people charge to do webpages. Just ticks me off. So no I don't think they should advertise