I took notes at a political gathering of about ten local representatives of the county. Any misinformation or misspelling is the fault of the note taker. Sponsors of the event: Women’s legislative counsel and Utah Valley Hospital. Senator Henderson was not present due to health.

This is a submission to my caucus corner occasional blog.

Bills:

– Future event: Orem Feb. 21st 6 pm Orem high school growth of Utah 6 pm.
– Reps from Utah County control very many key positions in the Senate.
– Brad Daw: Working on finding different ways to help medical patients to be better patients. Want to shop and see how much a medical or service will cost. Want to unit different government software tools. Dept. health tracks insurance claims across the state. Public employees create a shopping tool for PHHOP clients. Finding a way where we can take the tools and merge the data together.
– Marsha Jenkins: (district 51): has a daylight saving bill. House bill 66. Put this proposal in the 2020 ballet. Propose putting a nonbinding question on the ballot to ask six questions. Do you prefer keeping off daylight savings time? If the legislators choose a different time would you prefer to stay on the status quo?
– Propose adding autoimmune (I think) disorders to be added to medical help.
– Grady Bramers: (alpine/cedar hills). Management of 26 K lands a year (I think) transfer lands from BLM control to state control. A lot letting Utah do this has been in books since 1926. Requires a report what would be the best use of lands. And appropriate enough money to tend to them.
– Francis Gibson: Mapleton, Spanish Fork, and Springville. Is the majority leader in the house. Working on a tax credit for air pollution equipment. Business is taxed a higher rate for pollution control equipment on their business. Bill to not be charged extra tax for things that clean the air.
– Kevin Stratton: (Orem, Provo, Lindon). Optimistic we have a bright future. Congress Curtis has a bill to follow Utah’s example. Concerns: make sure we are engaged in the political process. The drift toward socialism is a great concern to me. He serves in areas of natural resources such as water and public lands. Serve on the water development commission and aquaculture committee. Things in our favor: 1. Friendly administrations allow more state liberty in public lands. 2. School community council bill – $2.5 billion. That should shoot to school community councils. It will give them more local control. We need more sources and influence. Need to have more local control related to violence, abuse, and pornography. 2. We have water issues. Been festering for the last 50 yrs.
– Brad/Robertson bill: state constitution public schools should be free. Except for fees allowed by legislation. The average cost of school fees is $125 per student. Prioritize education.
– Norm Thurston: (Provo and Springville and bit of Spanish Fork). Two issues 1. We need to resolve the initiative process. Make process concentrated to have a citizen’s option count. 2. Prescription drug pricing. Trying to help Insulin-dependent diabetic encounters faces a high cost of insulin. It is excessive where other drugs are not.
– Val Peterson: stem cells> get money to education specifically Math and engineering education. Work on getting more money for an engineering education initiative. Business coming into Utah needs engineers.
– Brambell: tax policy bill and business regulations, ethics initiative.

Q&A:

– Q: Senate bill 34: affordable housing and transportation: we are in a housing crunch. Some want to strip our cites to conduct their own zoning. Cities should have that power. LADMA: provides authority to determining zoning.
– Q: Senator bramble: how to fix giving too much power to a judge. Our responsibility is a balanced budget. The constitution gives redistricting to the legislator. Any citizen can post a lawsuit if they don’t think redistricting plan fits the statute. Have real standard one person one vote. I feel restrict commission should be kept.
– Q: Senate bill 65. Rep Stratton: fix Medicaid expansion prop 3 will bankrupt us. Med expansion won by 700 votes. There are checks and balances in place. Need to have long term vision of paying for Medicaid. We are asking for some exceptions from our federal counterparts. We want to help people help themselves. We need safety nets. The proposals are set to go to the house does not go into effect 2021. A challenge is going from 100 to 130 % increase coverage. Projections of expenses is not normally accurate to the height that is a reality.
– Bremmal? 27K a yr. is the federal poverty rate for a family of 4. We have 45K who are on private insurance they get federal money and fed money to pay premiums. The insurance plan costs $25 a mo. The gap means are adults are 100% in poverty (I think). Traditional Medicaid is disabled; child or pregnant low-income mothers are currently covered. Senator christen bill is to cover adults. We need to live within our means. Every state that has passed Medicaid had 25 to 50 % more growth in expenses than anticipated. NV is 56 Million short.
– Q: Peterson Gov. Herbert advocated for computers in work. Can also do technical options for non-college careers. Bill to add programming code training in class. Applied signed class offers a 12-week coding class. Silicon slopes> guy who started Adobe com. What can Utah do to attract progress? He said to clean up the air.
– Q: The best idea to impact our air pollution problem. Norm: geography is our biggest problems and the second thing is the increased population. Things that work A. Tier three fuels. Different types of cars with a different mix of fuel. B. individuals behavior what we do each day. Reducing cold starts. Combining your trips and reduce idling. C. some ride bike to front-runner to and from work. Citizens’ engagements are the biggest contributor. Our populations has grown to nearly 3.1 million. We have reduced pollutants to 50%. Gibson: air is 53% cleared then air in 1950. Legislator decisions need to think in the long hall. Feel should not be taxed business who installs clean air equipment. Woodburning stove> incentive Cole stove and extended rebate to replace the stove. We live in a bowl of mountains.
Melva’s SiFi ideas for pollution: have big balloons float in the sky that are directed by drones. The balloons have pollution collections on some adhesive surface that gather pollutants from the air. Bring down the balloon scrape off the filth off their surfaces and put them back up again.

– Q: Can you explain how to modernize sales tax. Robertson. Our economy has been changed the tax on goods has been declining. The current trend is paying someone to have lawn done by service, rather than buy their own mower and od their own lawn. Sales tax needs to be balanced toward a service economy. Tax items that haven’t’ been taxed before on a broad economy. Norm: our state tax code connects back to federal. When trump tax rebate took place state not yet do a full refund. Bramble: federal taxes went down and the state tax went up. The big challenges are what to and what not to tax. For example, We don’t tax cosmetic surgery. Challenges are to know how to tax things. Challenge on how to administer.
– Q: discuss the press conference for more representation for Utah county. There is a discussion to change the form of government for the county. There are structure problems on how the county gov is set up. When Utah county rises in a population of 700 K we become a class 1 county. We are then entitled to a seven-member council, who work part-time, rather than 3 full-timers. Rep suggests we get a study started to see what would be the best system. Encourage citizens to contact the county commission to start that study.

Closing statements:

– Brabjle: prop 3. When people vote for Medicaid expansions, ask: does it meet with (Senate bill 96) with the state constitution.
– Citizens stay involved.
– Stratton: there is a separation of powers. It is a sound constitutional principle. And other sound principles are citizens’ representations. We need to realize that Utah county will soon become the biggest county in the state. We need to concentrate on building the new.
– There are people long before us who put the states in its current state. Today’s leaders are building for Utah in the future. Make a decision based on budget and your future lives.
– Women are self-selecting not being involved in politics because of child care. He votes that funding be directed to child care for mother legislators.
– How can citizens help; try to understand that challenges gov reps face? Have mercy to legislators’ decisions. Need to come to an agreement that is best for everyone. Everyone feels their idea is the right answer.
– Brad: against assisted suicide bill. Happy to stand in the account on how we vote.
Future meetings:

– Feb 9th 7:30 bills and beagles. Ebo school district
– 9 pancakes and politics at a hospital.

– Feb 23 eggs and issues
If you have anything to add or to correct, please do so in the comment section of this blog.