The Craig Daily Press is pleased to introduce Janette Najera to the community as the newspaper’s new graphic designer. Najera will join Jason Strohl and Anna Griffing on the design team.

“We are really excited to have Janette join us as our newest graphic designer. She will be a great addition and we are looking forward to her being a part of our team,” Daily Press Publisher Renee Campbell said.

Najera grew up in Steamboat Springs, where her parents and siblings still reside, and moved to Craig in May after she graduated with an associate’s degree in graphic design from Colorado Mountain College in Glenwood Springs.

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“I’m super excited,” Najera said about her new job. “I like drawing, I like art and designing. It’s my forte.”

DBA is looking for participants for its Upcycle contest

Craig’s Downtown Business Association is planning another Upcycle contest where community members create new items from recycled material.

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The DBA seeks teams of two to five people or business groups to compete in this year’s contest that will commence on Sept. 19 at Alice Pleasant Park along Yampa Avenue.

There are two parts to the Upcycle contests — one where participants can enter an item they made out of recycled material, and the other is a team competion called the Junque Box Build off where teams will have 90 minutes to make something out of a pile of miscellaneous items.

Teams have to pay a $5 entry fee as do those who want to enter a recycled item. Prizes — including a $100 gift certificate — will be awarded to winners.

To enter the contest, contact Karen Brown at the Community Budget Center at 970-824-7898.

Changes to credit reporting rules to benefit consumers

New regulations governing the three credit reporting companies should make it easier for consumers to fix inaccuracies in their credit reports, according to Better Business Bureau Serving Northern Colorado and Wyoming.

Several new regulations stem from an investigation by 31 states and spearheaded by the New York Attorney General’s Office. The Federal Trade Commission settlement involves a $6 million penalty imposed upon Equifax Information Services LLC, Experian Information Solutions Inc. and TransUnion LLC., all of which agreed to make changes to their business practices to make it easier and more effective for consumers to get errors removed from their credit reports.

Credit reports touch nearly every aspect of a consumer’s financial life: Data in the files is analyzed and used to create credit scores, including the FICO score, which is widely used by financial services companies to determine if consumers are creditworthy and to decide how much interest to charge them. Credit reports can also impact an individual’s ability to rent an apartment, get a cellphone and how much they might pay for car insurance.

Highlights of the settlement include:

• More protection for consumers who dispute credit-reporting information.

• A faster mechanism to process consumers’ disputes, including identity theft, fraud or files in which one individual’s information is mixed with another’s.

Some categories of debt may no longer be in credit reports:

• Credit reporting companies are generally prohibited from adding information about parking fines and tickets. Also, medical debt cannot be placed on a credit report until 180 days after the account is reported to give consumers time to attempt to resolve problems with their insurers.

• Credit bureaus must require debt collectors to provide proof of money owed and details about the creditor before debts are added to a credit report.

Ease-off the marketing talk:

• Credit reporting companies can no longer market credit-monitoring services to any consumer during a dispute phone call.

• Consumers must be informed that purchasing a credit-monitoring product is not a requirement for disputing information on their credits reports.

For free copies of your credit reports, visit annualcreditreport.com, a site established by the credit reporting companies and sanctioned by the federal government. If you find any errors, report them as quickly as possible.