[Davis County Watch: Guest Bloggers] Why I yelled at Tyler yesterday

by Natalie

Let's say there is an honest, hardworking family, living below the poverty limit, because the head-of-household works somewhere that refuses to pay a living wage. Unbeknownst to this family, someone has accessed their bank accounts and is taking $25 a week from them.

When it is discovered, some people get angry that this poor family has not been receiving enough, and has then had money stolen from them. They believe that we should continue to fight for a living wage, so hardworking families can achieve their full potential. Others believe that this money being stolen from this family just goes to show how they really were receiving enough, and now, with that extra $25 a week,they should be able to do a lot more - maybe they're actually receiving too much? If they survived without that $25 a week, maybe they don't need it.

The situation regarding the embezzlement from the Davis School District is much like the analogy above. It depends on your perspective. I think Tyler's perspective is wrong.

Many of us believe that our system of public education in Utah is being slowly starved to death. The powers-that-be believe that our teachers are worth less than teachers in neighboring states, and should teach here without leaving or complaining, because they love to teach. And that we should have only the highest qualified people teaching, when the wages in Utah are so low, comparably. They believe that sharing textbooks and not being able to bring them home to do homework is acceptable, and that children can learn to read in a class with 28 other children, or can learn trigonometry in a class with 44 other students.

This is why I took offense at Tyler's comments - the question isn't that we can do more with less - we already know we can. Our luck is running out. We shouldn't have to do more with less. Those are OUR CHILDREN in those classrooms. And the accused embezzling is bad, and it makes me angry. But the attempt to starve my children's school in the name of unfunded federal and state mandates, getting even with the teacher's union, competition, so-called parent choice, or even asking the school district to do more with less is wrong. Should the district be responsible and accountable for the money it is given? Yes. Is the district given enough? No.

The days where Utah could have a great education system, regardless of the amount spent per-pupil, because of dedicated teachers and involved parents are coming to an end. There is a crisis on the horizon. It cannot be solved only with money, but money is definitely part of the solution. To imply that it is not is naive. And offensive.

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Posted by NatGo to Davis County Watch: Guest Bloggers at 11/27/2006 08:20:00 AM

[Davis County Watch: Guest Bloggers] North Salt Lake is going High Tech...

I've read some controversy about the new electronic sign that is going in in the roundabout as you head up the hill. The controversy was over having something so distracting in the center of an already confusing non-intersection.

My concern is also with placement. Why in the world would the city put a sign that is supposed to announce important city-related things in an area where huge portions of the city will never see it, or even possibly be aware that it exists?

It's not something that you could see easily (or read at all) from highway 89, if you happened to be coming into the city that way. It's obvious that no location would ideal for all city residents, but placing it at the CITY BUILDING sure would have made a lot more sense.

I hate to get into "the hill people" versus "us low landers" types of arguments, but this seems a case where the city council was not thinking about all of the people they represent. I know there are good, honest people on our city council, but it is interesting that there are no city council members living below orchard drive. Seems like "us low landers" need to get a little more involved...

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Posted by Allie to Davis County Watch: Guest Bloggers at 11/14/2006 02:17:00 PM

[Davis County Watch: Guest Bloggers] Can't decide who to support for State School Board?

Well, you're not alone. Chris Barden's campaign director wasn't sure, even after he'd taken the job with the Barden campaign.

Ben Horsely (who, incidentally, is a staffer for Rob Bishop) received a payment of $1,400 from Barden on September 22nd for his campaign director duties. On September 28th, he came to a meet the candidate event I had organized for Kim. I asked him if he supported Kim. He said he wasn't sure - that he'd just come to get some information to help him decide which candidate to support. I hope he's figured it out. Kim Burningham is the best choice for Utah's schools.

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Posted by NatGo to Davis County Watch: Guest Bloggers at 11/02/2006 08:35:00 AM

A Letter to the Editor...

Posted by: Allie

Editor:

A recent news story about Rob Miller, a Democratic candidate for the Davis County Commission mentioned my endorsement of his candidacy. Since then, our County Clerk, Mr. Steve Rawlings, has asserted to various and sundry folks, based on that endorsement, that I am not really a Republican. I’m not aware that the County Clerk determines who is or isn’t a Republican, but I believe his concern about that story to be symptomatic of a larger and more serious problem which afflicts Davis County government.

It was not so long ago that our County Commission proposed an unnecessary 138 percent property tax increase, for which the head cheerleader was (and still is) – Steve Rawlings, the County Clerk. I lent my name to Rob Miller’s campaign, because that proposed 138 percent property tax increase was the product of three things: arrogance, hubris, and too many years of one-party government. That tax increase was reduced, but I note a 45 percent county tax increase announced for this year.

Most Utahns – and most Davis County voters – vote a split ticket now and then. I was a Republican legislator in the 1970s, which was a different political age. It was an age of bi-partisanship and cross-party political cordiality, and I think Utah was better-served by that mutual respect than it has been by the hard-edged, personalized, one-party variety of politics that has come to replace it. One of the Cal Rampton Democrats, whose political cordiality I valued, was Michael Miller – Rob Miller’s father. By a twist of family destiny, Rob’s grandparents were two memorably prominent Republicans – Vernon and Helen Romney.

The Republican Party for which I was the Davis County Chairman (in the Jurassic Age) stood for limited government, balanced budgets, and efficiency. That Republican Party would have been mortified at a single year’s 138 property tax increase. It would have been embarrassed at the disparity between the growth rate of commissioners’ salaries (now at $96,000 and a $7,000 vehicle allowance) and the disappearance rate of unincorporated area within the County to virtually zero.

Perhaps adding one Democrat to the County Commission would make it easier for city mayors to reach some meaningful agreements with the County Commission on elimination of duplicative services. It might invite a new assessment of the way necessary county services are provided, and it might even make the commission more concerned about whether all sides of an issue have been sufficiently worked through to assure a balanced and sensible policy decision. Certainly, the sky would not fall, and we might just get better government.

Neither political party has a monopoly on either virtue, vice, or wise policies. Decades of single-party domination tend to produce stagnation and hubris. And 138 percent tax increases.

David R. Irvine

Bountiful

[Davis County Watch: Guest Bloggers] Kim Burningham

Posted by Natalie

As you may know, I am very passionate about public education. I believe that our democracy is strengthened when we have an educated populace. And, so, I advocate for a quality public education for every child.

On my education policy blog, Education in Utah, I am endorsing Kim Burningham for the State School Board in district 5 (South Davis County). I have received an email from Mr Burningham answering many of the concerns that are raised by Christopher Barden on the website Tyler has linked. I have posted it on the blog. Feel free to check it out.

Thanks!

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Posted by NatGo to Davis County Watch: Guest Bloggers at 10/23/2006 09:28:00 PM

[Davis County Watch: Guest Bloggers] Meet the Candidate: Kim Burningham

Kim Burningham is south Davis County's current representative on the State School Board, where he also serves as chair. I am hosting a meet the candidate/walk your neighborhood night for Kim on Thursday, September 28th at 6:00. We'll meet at my friend Jamie's house, chat with Kim about his vision for our schools, and then divide and conquer North Salt Lake. What a great way to get involved and support a candidate who so ably supports public education! Please let me know if you are interested in attending and I'll send you more information. Thanks!

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Posted by NatGo to Davis County Watch: Guest Bloggers at 9/21/2006 10:30:00 AM

[Davis County Watch: Announcements] Blog Organized by Topic

If you will look down the sidebar for Davis County Watch, you will now see seven links under the heading 'Davis County Topics'. I've always wished that Blogger had a feature to allow a person to blog by topic. What I didn't realize is that Blogger does allow categories. It just requires some tweaking. Here is what you'll need if you want to blog by topic with Blogger.

Ingredients:

• At least two blogs with Blogger (One Master Blog and one on a specific topic).
• A gmail (email) account.

Steps to a Topical blog with Blogger:

• I setup my gmail account to filter based on an alias. Let's say that your email address is jane.doe@gmail.com. Any email sent to jane.doe+blogthis@gmail will make it into your inbox. You then setup gmail to forward all emails sent to jane.doe+blogthis@gmail to your Mail-to-Blogger Address (i.e. jane.blog.blogger.com)
• Next I go to my master blog. In my case it is Davis County Watch, and I click on the Settings-->email tab. I fill out my Mail-to-Blogger Address (i.e. jane.blog.blogger.com) and I check publish (now anything emailed to this address will automatically be published to my Master Blog.
• If I haven't done it already I go to blogger and create one or more entirely new blogs. I called some of mine Davis County Watch: Announcements (http://daviscountywatch-announcements.blogspot.com)
• I click on Settings-->email tab for one of my topical blogs. I fill out the BlogSend Address with my alias jane.doe+blogthis@gmail. I do this same thing for each of my topical blogs.

That's it! Now anytime I publish to my Announcements, or one of my other topical blogs, then that post will be automatically posted to Davis County Watch as well. I basically trained my topical blogs to blog for me on Davis County Watch.

So, what does this mean for you? It means that you can now click on one of the topics in the sidebar and look at just the topics that interest you. If you aren't at all interested in what I have to say, but want to hear from one of my Guest Bloggers, then you can click on that topic. If you like RSS Feeds, then you can subscribe to only the Feed for the topic that interests you.

I haven't worked out all the kinks yet, but things are looking good. I'm sure I could have chosen some better topics. Rest assured I will be adding more. I spent a lot of time moving most of my old posts under one of the categories, and I discovered that it's hard to categorize everything perfectly. For example, I have a category called Creative Solutions that is full posts about people/politicians doing nasty things. In a sense 'creative' has become a synonym for 'nasty'. On the other hand, I've posted some legitimate, productive, solutions that others have proposed there.

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Posted by Tyler Farrer to Davis County Watch: Announcements at 9/19/2006 07:37:00 AM
Update: I should really have given a hat tip for this hack to Oreilly.com

Feed the Hungry, not the Politicians...

This is an email I received today from Pete Ashdown:

President Bush will be attending a fund raising dinner for my cash strapped opponent, Senator Hatch.
In response to this, I am personally buying dinner for up to 150 people at the Alta Club on August 29th at 6:00 PM. This dinner will be financed out of my pocket and will not draw from campaign donations. What I ask of the attendees to this dinner is to make a sizable donation to a charity of your choice that deals with hunger in America. I will have a list of suggested charities at the dinner and my staff will collect and tabulate and send the donations. No charity is coordinating with the campaign on this dinner, they are simply receiving the donations as designated by the attendees.

Senator Hatch, President Bush, Secretary Rice and anyone else are welcome to attend this dinner.

This is not a campaign fund raiser and donations to my campaign will not be funneled to this event or the charities. If you wish to make a donation to a hunger charity in response to this effort outside of the event on the 29th, please let me know.

If you can attend the event on the 29th, please RSVP* by Friday, August 25th. Choose chicken, beef, or vegetarian menu items.

I can't remember how to post an email link, but if anyone is interested in attending the dinner, the RSVP email address is feed-rsvp@pashdown.org.

Also, apologies to Tyler for the hijack. If he didn't want me to ever post anything, he would have taken away the ability, right? :)

Introducing: Education in Utah

Education in Utah is a new blog started by a friend of mine, Natalie, who did a stint as a guest blogger here at Davis County Watch. She'd sent me an email encouraging me to blog on an education issue that had cropped up locally. I don't know if it was because I appeared to drag my feet in posting anything, or if it was my contrary reply, but she decided to blog about it herself.

She's extremely qualified to speak as a supporter of public schooling. She's on about every PTA board imaginable. Plus she's a firebrand, so the posts should be interesting.

This blog should not be confused with Educating Utah.

Pay Pal Donations Accepted

My husband was just looking over my shoulder and wondering why Tyler has the Pay Pal link on his blog. We've clicked on it, and it just takes you to a place where you can donate to the Farrers. So, I'm wondering what Tyler's doing with the money, and also pointing out that Alice and I totally deserve a chunk of the cash he is pulling in, because we have been delightful guest hosts while he has been so busy being the family guy. So, donate today!

Come One, Come All!!!

NSL Independence Day Celebration!

Tonight, July 3rd

at Eaglewood Golf Course

in North Salt Lake

Fun!

Food!

Live Music!

The Best Fireworks Display in the

History of Davis County!!!*

The fun starts at 6:00 - make sure to stop by the dunking booth! All proceeds will go to the American Cancer Society, and you might get a sight of the elusive Allie!

*has not been verified by an independent fireworks auditor

Fog and Illusions

The Mr. and I attended a scout day camp with two Webelos on Friday. One of the classes we attended was called Fog and Illusions, where we learned about.... fog (what causes it) and illusions.

My family has been talking about the Culture of Fear lately, so this letter to the editor in today's tribune caught my attention.

It is so frustrating to me that there are leaders in our country who would keep us all in a fog, and distracted by illusions. As long as we are captivated, distracted, and then polarized by contrived issues, we are controlled, and the real issues can be conveniently pushed aside (until catastrophe strikes).

Would you rather worry about flag burning and an avian flu pandemic, or affordable health care for everyone.

I know what our government would rather have us worry about. Fear controls.

The Incredible Shrinking Sheena

This is is no way political, but Sheena is from Davis County. She's a good friend of my younger brother.

She's an inspiration to anyone who is afraid to work hard for something.

Senator Bennett and the Flag

Woods Cross Citizen has an interesting post about the United State Senate's most recent vote on Senator Hatch's flag burning amendment.

I was intrigued by both his post, and the comments it attracted...check it out.

I posted comments on his blog, but I will repost my comments here. I think this is an important discussion to have.

I said, in part:

I am a Utah Republican, and I happily vote for Senator Bennett every 6 years! I think he is doing a great job representing me. I rank him at the top of our delegation. I, personally, respect the constitution too much to amend it willy-nilly. Are we in any way threatened by flag burning? I don't think so. I find the practice abhorent, but a lot of protected speech is abhorent. I think losing our right to disagree with our govenrment and protest each others' and the government's actions is too valuable. So, I think flag burning is bad, but I also think if you want to do it, I want to be able to tell you how angry it makes me.

I also find the practice of voting in favor of something you don't support just so you can call in favors later abhorent and dishonest, and I am glad that Senator Bennett stood his ground. I appreciate his integrity in this matter.

I guess we'll have to disagee. Isn't free speech great?

Technical Difficulties:Sorry about the pinkeye page

My apologies. Here I am sitting in the Hospital, amazed that I have some free time, and I notice that in switching the blog to pink, I broke my comments. People wouldn't have noticed since they could make comments, but the second I switched back to my regular format everything would have been a mess. So, I'm partially switching back, and I'll try to repost those newer comments that will inevitably go missing anyway.

Sorry again.

-The Management (Tyler)

Davis County Elections

Here are the results of the Republican Primary and the School Bond Election.

County Commission "B"
Number of Precincts 220
Precincts Reporting 220 100.0 %
Total Votes 18984
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Micheal L. Deamer 8382 44.15%
Louenda Downs 10602 55.85%


County Sheriff
Number of Precincts 220
Precincts Reporting 220 100.0 %
Total Votes 19390
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Bud E. Cox 9945 51.29%
Todd Richardson 9445 48.71%


State House of Representatives #19
Number of Precincts 29
Precincts Reporting 29 100.0 %
Total Votes 3695
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Sheryl L. Allen 2350 63.60%
Mark D. Jacobs 1345 36.40%


State House of Representatives #20
Number of Precincts 22
Precincts Reporting 22 100.0 %
Total Votes 2110
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Ronald W. Mortensen 679 32.18%
P. A. Neuenschwander 1431 67.82%


Propostion #1 For the Issuance of School Bonds
Number of Precincts 220
Precincts Reporting 220 100.0 %
Total Votes 24500
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOR 19371 79.07%
AGAINST 5129 20.93%

So...I think things turned out well. Mostly because it would no longer be effective to call myself a Sheryl Allen Republican if she was no longer in the picture. What's your reaction? Also, are primaries a good thing? Many members of the county Republican party think they are too costly and divisive, and that they should be avoided at all costs. What do you think? Chat among yourselves...

A very short post

If I could, I surely would

A REALLY LONG POST BY ALLIE (they won't all be so long I promise)

I had a friend tell me once that Davis County is a vortex. People who are born here never leave.

I can understand why. Davis County is a wonderful place to live. I grew up in Centerville and have only lived in other places during the time I was at Utah State and the less-than-one-year I spent in Idaho Falls while my husband finished up at Ricks (BYU-I, whatever, it was Ricks then).

This is my home, and I have a sincere interest in preserving the quality of life I have had here. Since today is election day, I’ll remind all of Tyler’s readers to vote. If you don’t vote you don’t get to complain if you aren’t feeling represented.

Representation is often a problem for me.

I’m a democrat. We’re rare creatures in this part of the world. Stare all you’d like, I’m used to it. I promise I don’t bite. It’s not like I’m a super-liberal-crazy-democrat (just wait until I talk about labels later). I’m really a normal, rational person, so it frustrates me there are often so few who admit to sharing my views. So few, in fact that often times the officials I elect to represent me, don’t. I can’t fault them (most of the time), they are busy representing the majority (no one has figured out yet that the world would be a better place if everyone listened to me).

(Here’s where I talk about labels) If you didn’t know I was a democrat would you be more likely to listen to what I had to say? Would you dismiss my words and say I'm one of those-crazy-democrats? (If you do it’s okay, we can all change. I regularly have to remind myself that republicans are not evil :) ) Last year during the election my husband and I had long talks with his brother. His brother was concerned that our “politics” were leading us astray. We assured him that our faith in our religion was secure. We also found this great article by Kathleen Gurr This brother is a good man, so where did he get the crazy idea that you can’t be a democrat and be religious? His parents certainly never taught that. I don’t think most parents purposely teach it. It just seems to be something that kids pick up from "unintentional teaching".

The wonderful thing about a democracy is that we don’t have to all agree, we can even disagree with enthusiasm, but we can still respect each other’s ideas and beliefs. Even when the issues are divisive, we have the power to choose whether we will be divided or not. There are two examples that come to mind…

First, Walmart in Centerville. There are many who are very upset and feel like their city leaders put greed above the desires of the people. Perhaps, but is it really worth hating over? Is it disappointing? Of course. Is it the end of the world, not quite. Life will go on and people will adapt (although hopefully not to the point of actually shopping there).

Second, the possible North Salt Lake name change. Would I be disappointed if it were to happen, yes. I think it is a waste of money. I have heard people call certain members of our city council unkind names. I have heard many people talk “us against them”, (them being the people who live up on the hill). Why do we need to be divisive? When can we figure out that it’s okay to disagree, and it is possible to do it without hating people or labeling them in a way that diminishes what they have to say so that we don’t have to feel threatened.

So we have a couple of choices, we can sit back and do nothing and be acted upon. If that is our choice, we have forfeited our right to complain (as far as complaining is a “right”) about it later. We can also get involved and try to bring about our desired result. In the case of walmart, my desired result has not occurred, although construction has been postponed. I am disappointed, but life goes on and it’s not worth being miserable over because then I would be miserable all of the time, and where’s the good in that? In the case of the NSL name change, it is not too late to get involved. As far as I can tell, the name change is not on the agenda for tonight’s City Council meeting, Natalie can correct me if I am wrong.

We as citizens of this great country have the opportunity to vote (unless you are a democrat at a republican primary of course) and to be involved. When we sit back and do nothing, we give our power over to people who may or may not act in our best interest.

Enough Rambling, Go vote.

Natgo:Congratulations Are In Order!

As you can see, the blog is pink. This means that Tyler has turned the blog over to the two of us so he can celebrate the birth of their new baby with his wife Erin. Congratulations Farrer Family!!! I hope all is well with Erin and the baby (and with Tyler and Morgan, too). Al and I will try to keep the ship afloat in his absence. We're lucky - we'll get to post on the primary election and bond election results, and we'll probably take some time on our respective soap-boxes. If the Tribune doesn't publish my most recent letter to the editor, you might even get that here, too. I hope you'll stick it out and that Davis County Watch will remain the fun debate it's always been.

Also, the evil part of me hopes they didn't have time to vote, but I promise, I'm repenting right now.

Announcement: Introducing the Davis County Watch substitute bloggers

I'm going to try something new.

Frequent visitors of this blog may have noticed two new names listed as contributers to Davis County Watch. Allie and Natgo. Here is what I have in mind.

I will be taking a short (probably week-long) hiatus from blogging, while my wife has our second child, but during a critical political time for this county. I just can't let this blog sleep while I'm away. I've asked my blogger friends to pitch in and help me out for a week by throwing in their own views on politics in the county. I will be brief on introductions-only to say that they are my neighbors, have a stake in what happens in the county, and that their views are worth reading. They lead their own lifes, and have a unique perspective. Please give them every courtesy. Keep your language respectful, for there are ladies present!

I feel a little like I'm sending the Bat-signal when I do this, but I will signal my departure by changing the theme of the blog to a vivid pink. When I return, the color scheme will return to normal.

Bloggers, please, watch for the signal!