Byline: By Ryan Konig and John Nemo, The Arizona Republic
One of the cartoon hands bobbed upward toward the listing for Paradise Valley's town
council, seeming ready to burst if a surfer didn't hit the link soon. Another animated
hand, facing sideways, curled its index finger back and forth rapidly, hoping to direct
attention to the town's population figures and elevation.
Cheesy cartoon graphics and council listings are just part of the ''NAILEM'' Web site (www.nailem.org), a page dedicated to keeping Arizona's neighborhoods informed of the doings of local and state government.
NAILEM, the Neighborhood Activists Interlinked Empowerment Movement, is a statewide coalition of neighborhoods that lobbies the Legislature for pro-neighborhood legislation.
With links such as ''NAILEM Alerts,'' ''How your congressman spent our money traveling last year'' and ''Saturday Night Anti-Drug Peace Marches'' on its home page, it's obvious the group intends to pound any straying political leaders back into shape quickly.
The most interesting aspect of the site is a search engine that enables surfers to nail down local government officials in more than 150 Valley cities and towns with ease.
Need Scottsdale Mayor Sam Campana's phone number? How about her fax number and mailing address as well? What's that, you also need names for all the council members in Carefree and Cave Creek? They're all right there, in a neatly detailed set of columns. Just follow the spastic set of hands pointing the way.
Although the NAILEM site is easy to use, many viewers will find it even more comprehensive than the very legislative bills and listings they are trying to look up.
Creator Richard Fox of west Phoenix is behind the mountain of information. He said he spent many days mining the Net for World Wide Web pages containing information about any of the nation's 50 states.
''I was looking for a model, something to help me create a Web site that can be used by anyone in Arizona to get information about their elected officials,'' Fox said. ''And I simply couldn't find any, at least none that were comprehensive.''
So Fox created his own from scratch.
NAILEM, which may be the first such page of its kind, provides incredible amounts of information, including:
--> Updates on bills being considered by the Arizona Legislature; the date, time and place for meetings regarding the bills; names and phone numbers of the state's lawmakers; and an explanation of how visitors can call up and read bills over the Internet.
--> Bulletin boards for neighborhood associations that want to post updates on community activities and scheduled meetings.
--> 101 things people can do to improve their communities.
Fox created the page on behalf of the organization, which was co-founded by Donna Neill and Paul Enniss, two northwest Phoenix neighborhood leaders.
The page has been nailed with only about 2,300 hits since Jan. 1, however.
''My biggest concern is that all this work has gone into creating this page but people don't yet know that it exists,'' Fox said.
Most surfers will know rather quickly that a bevy of information on their political leaders exists once they stumble upon Fox's page. The links are simple, and the site's concept is clear. Now if he could just get those excitable hands to stop shaking . . .