Boone, Ia. -Poor and elderly people may soon go without legal representation in Boone County. Boone County Legal Aid, which for 31 years has provided legal services to those who couldn't afford them, will close in February if a $10,000 grant from Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino is not awarded. The legal service is one of the few programs in Iowa that offers legal representation to those who qualify without turning to the state for its services. "It is a very sad situation, but that's the fact," said Alan Schroeder, city attorney and supervisor of Boone County Legal Aid. For the past two years using money mostly from the city and county, Schroeder has upheld the outfit alone, taking on about 60 clients a year, and settling cases that range from domestic abuse to bankruptcy. He also has a private practice. If the legal service closes, he's unsure where his clients will go. The city of Boone gave Schroeder $6,300 in July to resolve pending cases, said Kathy Berg, Boone's finance officer. Without that, the program might already be closed. "All governments are having problems with finances," Boone Mayor George Maybee said. "No one else stepped in. The county didn't. The state didn't." Donovan Olson, chairman of the county Board of Supervisors, said the board quit funding the legal service in July because it felt the county didn't need it. Drake University ended its funding after the 2000 spring semester "for a variety of reasons," Suzanne Levitt, the law professor who oversaw the program, said via e-mail. Olson said Schroeder must prove Prairie Meadows is the primary money source for the board to grant the program any more money. Schroeder ran the program without the help of law students or Drake, which had provided as much as two-thirds of the money in some years.

Question: "How much was given to Schroeder to resolve cases of which prevented the program to be closed?"

OPTIONS:
- no
- yes

Answer: "$8,500"

Response: no

The Legal Services Corp. (LSC), a quasi-governmental agency that provides legal aid for the poor, would receive $329 million in fiscal 2004 under President Bush's proposal - the same amount requested in 2003 and approved for 2002 and 2001. If approved, the hold-the-line request for LSC means its budget would erode with inflation for another year, but it could be worse for the organization: Many conservatives fought for years to do away with the LSC altogether, saying legal services attorneys were spending too much time fighting for liberal causes or pursuing politically charged cases against the government instead of representing the needy. Opposition to the organization has cooled since 1996, when Congress approved restrictions (PL 104-134) on the sorts of cases federally funded legal aid attorneys can take. (1996 Almanac, p. 5-36) Republicans cut the organization's budget deeply in 1996, but its funding has recovered slowly. Last month, in the omnibus spending bill for fiscal 2003, the Senate added a onetime increase of $19 million, which, if approved in the final version, would bring the LSC budget to $348 million. The money would go to help states, such as Michigan and Ohio, that lost money when the organization redistributed its funding based on census counts made in 2000 of poor households. If the extra money survives a conference with the House and makes it to the president's desk, LSC supporters may try to include it in the organization's fiscal 2004 funding. The federal government began funding some programs to provide legal assistance to the poor in the late 1960s; the Legal Services Corporation was created in 1974 (PL 93-355). LSC gives nearly all its money to state and local agencies, which provide civil legal assistance to those whose income is less than 125 percent of the federal poverty level - $11,075 a year for an individual and $22,625 for a family of four. Funding for legal services goes to defend needy clients in domestic violence cases, custody cases and other such matters, according to LSC. Since 1996, lawyers who receive money from Legal Services have been prohibited from such activities as lobbying legislatures, filing class-action suits, participating in political demonstrations or strikes, pursuing abortion-related litigation, representing illegal aliens or prisoners, or defending public housing tenants evicted because they were charged with selling drugs

Question: "What year did the Republicans cut the LSC's budget?"

OPTIONS:
- no
- yes

Answer: "2004"

Response: no

Renewable Energy Resource Sunlight Sunlight can be used to heat homes. It can also be used to produce electricity. This conversion is made possible by solar cells. However, solar energy may not always be practical. Some areas are just too cloudy. Example Solar panels on the roof of this house generate enough electricity to supply a familys needs. Moving Water Falling water can have a lot of energy. Its energy can be converted into kinetic energy. This energy can turn a turbine and generate electricity. The water may fall naturally over a waterfall or flow through a dam. A drawback of dams is that they flood land upstream. They can also reduce water flow downstream. Either effect may harm ecosystems. Wind Wind is moving air. It has kinetic energy that can do work. Wind turbines change the kinetic energy of the wind to electrical energy. Only certain areas of the world get enough steady wind. Many people also think that wind turbines are noisy and not very nice to look at.

Question: "What are the sources of kinetic energy"

OPTIONS:
- no
- yes

Answer: "Kinetic energy comes from either moving water or from wind"

Response: yes

And William Martinez, 28, who cut his medical school studies short because he couldn't afford the $39,000 in loans after two years of graduate school and four years of college. Martinez works two jobs as a physician's assistant and supports his elderly parents and 8-year-old son. Uncommon Good has a 22-member board of doctors, lawyers and representatives of Christian groups and is recruiting mentors. One goal is to get the state Legislature to pass a law to provide loan forgiveness to medical professionals and lawyers who work with the poor. Mintie said she hopes her organization can be a national model for other professions. She is trying to bring legal aid services to the Inland Valley -- the closest legal aid office is in El Monte and represents 700,000 poor people throughout the San Fernando, San Gabriel and Inland valleys. "Unless the legal aid is in the community, you can't say you are serving the poor," Mintie said. Neal Dudovitz is the executive director of Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County, the legal aid office in El Monte. He sees attorneys new to poverty law leave all the time because they can't afford the salary with their law school debt. "She's really opened a lot of eyes in terms of having people understand how the educational debt is limiting and reducing the services that are available to low-income communities," Dudovitz said. "Nancy is light years ahead of the curve on this stuff. Very little is being done practically to solve it." Mintie, her colleagues say, could have made a lot of money in private practice. "She's very kind and pleasant," said Julius Thompson, 45, an attorney at Inner City Law Center and an Uncommon Good recipient. "But she's also a woman on a mission. When she sets her sights on something, she's a formidable force."

Question: "What is the reason Neal Dudovitz sees so many new poverty law attorneys leave?"

OPTIONS:
- no
- yes

Answer: "Low salary"

Response:
yes