From Manufacturing Fishing Lures For Export to Six Months of Training To Become An Expert in Promoting Community Reforms

No one needed more 'on-the-job' training after almost two years than District 4 Councilmember Jennifer Duff who's always had a steep learning-curve when she assumed office in a very close-squeaking defeat of contender Joe Brown.

Vice Mayor Duff Accepted Into Complete Streets Champions Institute

Post Date:08/25/2021 12:56 PM

https://www.mesaaz.gov/Home/Components/News/News/7682/16

• Lead Vice Mayor Duff joins the 2nd class of the Complete Streets Champions Institute. She will attend virtual learning sessions over the next 6 months to become a champion or expert in promoting community reforms to create safer, more accessible streets in Mesa for all users

Vice Mayor Jenn Duff joins the second class of the Complete Streets Champions Institute. The Champions Institute is a program created to help motivated local elected officials from across the United States define, design, build and evaluate Complete Streets in their communities. Smart Growth America (SGA); the Active People, Healthy Nation Initiative and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity support the program.

I am honored to be accepted into the program to learn more about Complete Streets and share innovative ideas with my colleagues, staff and residents that will help create safer, more accessible streets in Mesa for all users,” said Vice Mayor Duff.

Over the next six months, Vice Mayor Duff and her peers will attend virtual learning sessions with national experts and former local elected officials in the areas of public health, policy, street design and project implementation. After completing the program, the “champions” will be experts in promoting community reforms to create safer streets for all users, including pedestrians, cyclists, transit riders and motorists.

SGA provides Compete Streets Champions with continuing support as they serve their communities. Graduates of the program also act as emissaries to other local leaders, sharing their expertise and ideas to grow a national network of leaders who will build and expand activity-friendly routes to everyday destinations in the U.S.

“We are pleased to welcome Vice Mayor Duff to the second class of the Champions Institute,” said John Robert Smith, Senior Policy Advisor at Smart Growth America. “Her commitment to position Mesa to become a more accessible, equitable, and economically viable community for all residents was compelling.”

The Champions Institute program is funded through a cooperative agreement with the CDC’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity.

Contact: Kevin Christopher
(480) 644-4699
Kevin.Christopher@mesaaz.gov

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Nuro: Driver-Less Auto Robo Delivery Units Plans on Production Facility in Nevada

A Report from The Verge: "The company is relatively unknown compared to its rivals in the autonomous vehicle space, mostly because of its focus on delivery and not ferrying human passengers in robotaxis.

Still, Nuro has made incredible progress on the regulatory front, becoming the first company to receive a special exemption from certain federal safety requirements and recently getting the green light to charge money for its deliveries in California.

Nuro is building a factory and test track in Nevada for its autonomous delivery robots

The self-driving startup is dramatically expanding its footprint

By Andrew J. Hawkins@andyjayhawk Aug 26, 2021, 2:00pm EDT

“This is a significant moment for Nuro,” said Zhu, Nuro’s co-founder and CEO, in a statement. “Building on our tremendous momentum—including strategic partnerships with industry leaders such as Domino’s, Kroger, and FedEx and operations in three states—we are now able to invest in the infrastructure to build tens of thousands of robots.”

Nuro, the autonomous delivery startup founded by two ex-Google engineers, announced a dramatic expansion of its physical footprint. The company said it will spend $40 million on the construction of a manufacturing facility and test track for its fleet of self-driving robot vehicles. Both facilities will be located in Southern Nevada, which in recent years has become a hotbed for manufacturing and testing for the future of transportation.

Nuro, which is valued at $5 billion, was founded in 2016 by Dave Ferguson and Jiajun Zhu, two veterans of the Google self-driving car project that would go on to become Waymo.

It is one of the few companies to be operating fully driverless vehicles — that is, vehicles without safety drivers behind the wheel — on public roads today. Its R2 vehicle is about half as wide as a compact sedan, shorter than most cars, and there’s no room inside for human passengers or drivers.

The company plans on producing its third-generation vehicle at its Nevada facility

The R2 is an updated version of Nuro’s original R1 prototype, with around 50 percent more capacity (which translates into about 18 more grocery bags). The company plans on producing its third-generation vehicle at its Nevada facility once it is fully operational in 2022.

Nuro’s new manufacturing facility will include 125,000 square feet of space and 80 acres of property development.

Image: Nuro

The new 125,000-square-foot factory will have the capacity to build “tens of thousands of delivery vehicles,” Nuro says. The vehicle’s powertrain, which includes the electric motor and battery, will be made in the US by BYD, a Chinese company that is one of the largest manufacturers of electric vehicles in the world. Nuro says it will develop all the autonomous software and digital infrastructure “from United States-based servers to ensure safety and privacy.”

Nuro says its $40 million investment will translate into $2.2 billion of “economic impact”

Nuro says its $40 million investment will translate into $2.2 billion of “economic impact” for Nevada within 10 years and will result in the creation of 250 jobs.

In April, the Reno Gazette Journal reported that Nuro will receive $170,519 in tax abatements over 10 years from Clark County.

In exchange for the tax break, the company will create about 60 jobs within five years at an average wage of $28.80 per hour, the paper reported. The company also applied last September to receive an estimated $500,000 in tax abatements over a 10-year period from the Nevada Governor’s Economic Development Board, a spokesperson said.

Once the company’s manufacturing facility is up and running, Nuro will need a closed course to test and validate its vehicles safely. (As an example, Waymo uses a former Air Force base in central California which it originally leased in 2012.) Nuro said it is “taking over” 74 acres of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway to build a “world-class, closed-course testing facility that will allow sophisticated development and validation of its autonomous on-road vehicles.”

 

 

 

Spotlight Excellent Idea: Synergy / Support Open Sourcing Public Code While Helping Support Techdirt

If the public funds something, it should be available to the public by default.

Sponsored Promotion

 

"Recently, following our announcement that we have removed all Google ads and tracking code from Techdirt, a reader reached out to us with a novel (and greatly appreciated!) proposal for supporting the change and our ongoing reporting while also helping out a good cause: buying an ad — not for their own benefit, but for that of a public interest campaign that aligns perfectly with our own values. That's why you see a new banner in the sidebar on the site, encouraging our readers to sign an open letter put together by FSFE calling on the EU to pass a law requiring all publicly financed software to be made available under a free and open source license. . ."

It's not an everyday thing to do this and to bring extra attention

Support Public Code, While Helping Support Techdirt

Thu, Aug 26th 2021 11:40am — Leigh Beadon

Techdirt from the synergy dept

 

Sponsored Promotion

This reader purchased the ad with their own money, as a way of helping out both Techdirt and the FSFE campaign — and we think this is such an amazing and generous idea that we wanted to call extra attention to it with a post.

We've written about this same issue of open sourcing publicly funded software in the past, when the White House began embracing the idea and then unveiled an official open source software policy — but the fact is it should be the norm for all governments that use taxpayer money to develop software. If the public funds something, it should be available to the public by default.

And, of course, we also want to call attention to this campaign as a way that you can support Techdirt. As we said in our post about removing Google trackers from the site, these kinds of reader-friendly changes also take away some of our revenue streams, and increase our reliance on you, our readers, to support us directly when and if you can. We're extremely grateful to all the readers who stepped up and gave us a tip through our Friend of Techdirt option in the Insider Shop, or engaged with one of the many other ways to support us — and now this one generous reader has showed yet another option, and one that allows you to support Techdirt and the public interest at the same time.

So we encourage everyone to sign the open letter to help demonstrate that this kind of campaign works. Moreover, if there's a campaign or an organization out there that you think aligns well with Techdirt's values and readership and that you'd like to support while helping us out in this way, please get in touch and let us know.

We don't currently have fixed rates for direct ad purchases like this, and instead prefer to come up with custom solutions that fit your budget and needs — so don't hesitate to reach out and let us know what you have in mind.

Thanks again to all our readers, and today especially to this one reader who came to us with this excellent idea!

Filed Under: ads, open code, open licensing, open source, publicly financed software
Companies: techdirt

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