20050205 UT County Central Committee

Summary of Meeting in a slightly different format. Comments by US Representative Cannon as well as the other attending UT Senators and Representatives.

When Action Who What
2/5/2005 9:02:40 AM CallToOrder Marian Monnahan Welcome
2/5/2005 9:03:00 AM Prayer mike
2/5/2005 9:04:50 AM Pledge Melanie Zimmerman
2/5/2005 9:05:05 AM Business Marian Monnahan Melanie zimmerman – chair in alpine; Lincoln day dinner is causing me ulcers; some legs. Couldn’t be here. Chris Olson is here. Jim Tracy Sherriff; Chris Cannon snuck in.
2/5/2005 9:05:35 AM Business stan Lincoln Day is 1 week from today. Sold out 60 tables and have 14 people on the waiting list. There is a core group that supports the party, but there are a high quality of legislators according to business, so businesses buy the tables. The money gross is 100k and net 70k. All the money goes to the election since we are all volunteers. All the money goes back to the candidates.
2/5/2005 9:07:40 AM Question ? Will we move to larger venue
2/5/2005 9:07:59 AM Answer stan We have just had some good sellers and have 25 people vs. 5. The upside of the issue is that we sold like gang buster. We may need to up the price or expand the venue next year.
2/5/2005 9:08:39 AM Motion ? We thank the committee and call it a great success.
2/5/2005 9:08:59 AM Business Marian Monnahan Parley is the chair and he will be the moderator and introduce people. Chris and Parley will work on order. Please come up all legislators. Lorie, Brad, Jim Ferrin, Parley, and Chris.
2/5/2005 9:09:59 AM Business Parley Hellewell Welcome to this Saturday morning meeting. We would like to mention what we have introduced and please ask questions. We would like to be done by 11:00. We will hear from Congressman Cannon.
2/5/2005 9:10:56 AM Report Chris Cannon Thanks for your kindness with our family issue. This is going to be an interesting year with the Senate. .We are very curious to see what he is going to do. There are 8 democrats running in Red states this year. We have made a lot of progress in getting our NE people to understand Utah. The colorado river and delaware river compact is in my group. We reviewed the issue and have assisted them. It is working well. Issues that relate to the internet are of interest to us. VOIP and other sales tax on the internet. The iProvo project is really remarkable. Y’all ought to be looking to the internet phone service.
We have a problem in America with Healthcare. I have a friend that is angry since in medicine when there is an advance in medicine the prices go up vs. going down. The government is the reason for the increase. We will start pounding on this issue. We spend 10 billion/year just on cancer research that is not being spent well. Thank you for being here.
2/5/2005 9:15:05 AM Question ? What about the mexican government housing issue.
2/5/2005 9:15:31 AM Answer Chris Cannon There constitution requires that they not limit any one from travel. They therefore are not stopping people from traveling to the US. Mexico has now put out a training manual on how to survive walking across the dessert. They are trying to help their citizens be more safe when they are illegal.
2/5/2005 9:16:32 AM Question ? Who published it.
2/5/2005 9:16:45 AM Answer Chris Cannon Mexican government.
2/5/2005 9:16:52 AM Question Chris Cannon Bill that would stop the funding of Legal Services corporation. I am over this one. The legal services corp. has changed itself around. We are watching them like a hawk. Last year was my first work with them. They were strange. They are out of the business of being offensive now.
2/5/2005 9:18:01 AM Question ? Where do we stand on the CO river compact?
2/5/2005 9:18:18 AM Answer Chris Cannon We did the compact and now we are in serious difficulty. It will not be readjusted. CA has decided to get their house in order. The amount of water that is used in So Cal. Is phenomenal. They will have to pay for what they use. We need to use our portion of the water. There will not be any more readjustments.
2/5/2005 9:19:25 AM Question ? Collecting attornies fees for suits. The ACLU has funded itself with winning against the BSA. Bill for damages only.
2/5/2005 9:20:04 AM Answer Chris Cannon There are a number of ways to get fees. There are a lot of abuses. I am not aware of any bills that have come before us, I am not aware of one. There is a lot of focus on this question right now. Asbestos reform and medical malpractice is going to happen. We need the federal government to pay the businesses who are sued by the government. The government had a list of 500 names and did not reimburse the company that had to interview all the people.
2/5/2005 9:24:34 AM Question ? nafta and cafta
2/5/2005 9:24:38 AM Answer Chris Cannon How much sovereignty do we give up is the question. We are dominating the trade of the world. No one is going to tell us what we do. The real concern is what we do to subordinate ourselves to the other agreements.
2/5/2005 9:25:30 AM Question ? What is the status on the bill to increase compensation for military that are killed in action.
2/5/2005 9:26:01 AM Answer Chris Cannon Currently they have a 12,500 death benefit. It is not significant now. It is going to go up to 250k. This would cover anyone who is active duty. It is appalling that we have had such a low death benefit for so long.
2/5/2005 9:26:58 AM Business Parley Hellewell We will start and have them talk about bills and save questions until the end. 2-5 minutes each. Please introduce yourselves.
2/5/2005 9:27:45 AM Report Jeff Alexander “District 62 NE of provo and through River Bottoms. Focus is on the budget area. As we have been looking at the issues I want to hold back the growth of government this year. Our delegation is in line with that. We believe that we are moving a little to quick, based on the governors budget, we are spending the money to quick.
We want to measure blocks of money for transportation issues. We are looking at the task force that is looking at growth. They were looking at what cities will really be needing to do in the future. The next 10-15 years runs 4bill-10bill that we might need. We have pulled off the table 85 million of the current funding and 30 million of future building projects. The key before was having a reserve and we need to rebuild it.”
2/5/2005 9:30:39 AM Report Curt Bramble State Senator from district 16. We are in our district now. I will yield to questions.
2/5/2005 9:31:02 AM Report Daw From South orem look forward to your questions.
2/5/2005 9:31:17 AM Report Becky Lockhart This is my district that that I represent. Benjamin, Palmyra, lake shore, Provo and Springville. You will see that I have some bills dealing with transportation and health.
2/5/2005 9:32:08 AM Report Lorie Fowlke District 59. I am one of the newbies. I have heard from many of you. I have a marriage resolution that defines defintion. I have also been working on limitations of the payday industry.
2/5/2005 9:32:51 AM Report Jim Ferrin NE corner of Orem, Lindon and PG.
2/5/2005 9:33:05 AM Report Margaret Dayton Parts of Orem and Provo. I am impressed that you are here to follow the issues. My biggest issue is NCLB.
2/5/2005 9:33:38 AM Report Mark Madsen New senator, 3 weeks and having a good time. Senate district 13 – the rest of UT County and Tooele. We had lots of family events planned this morning. Instead of seeing the Bald Eagles today we are here. I am involved in a couple of things that have been good so far. I am looking at helping Home Schooling parents and controlling arbitrary discretion from Schools. We are joining 21 other states to be allowed to have loaded guns in a car. The bigots are pretty upset with me now.
2/5/2005 9:35:30 AM Business Parley Hellewell We will limit your questions. One from each side. State name and come to mike
2/5/2005 9:35:53 AM Question Ron Zacharias dist 59. There would be someone who would present bill to deny services for illegals. What are we doing about that? Our drivers licenses are unacceptable for re-entry. John Valentine didn’t say who was doing it, but he said someone was.
2/5/2005 9:37:14 AM Business Parley Hellewell Does anyone know.
2/5/2005 9:37:21 AM Answer Becky Lockhart I looked at all the titles and didn’t see anything. We are looking at waiving in-state tuition and it is in review. I have not reviewed the titles in the senate.
2/5/2005 9:38:13 AM Question Marian Monnahan Combining or not combining tres. And secy.
2/5/2005 9:38:34 AM Answer Curt Bramble We have several bill numbers that we are trying to focus on. Citizens and lobbyists know numbers. There is a bill under my name to combine assessor and treasurer and I opposed it since I am a CPA. I havea a problem with that. The bill just adds one word to the statute.
2/5/2005 9:40:06 AM Question Merrill We are concerned about the credit union bill on the hill. We have seen the battle going on for a while.
2/5/2005 9:40:38 AM Answer Jeff Alexander We have found that everyone wants to move to higher ground on this issue. I feel badly that the league of credit unions have chosen to portray it as something it is not. We can’t take away your credit unions that are federally chartered. The resolution this year asks Congress to deal with an issue. As the financial institutions task force came together to talk about exempt and non-exempt status. The NCUA accepted applications to grow their size. Credit Unions have become a big business. The federal charter made itself grow extra large, so the resolution is asking Congress to review the NCUA. We are asking them to go back to the original purpose. UCCU has expanded in to 4 counties and they are ver large. A judge ruled in December that the NCUA needed to review itself. This is not bank vs. CU. The smaller credit unions can’t compete against the largest CUs. Perhaps a new association for the small credit unions since they are being controlled by the Leagues.
2/5/2005 9:40:44 AM Answer Curt Bramble I support the issue. There has been a lot of misinformation. If the BSA left their charter then the original creator needs to review and deal with managing the intent. Congress needs to review it. I serve on the rules cte. We will pass it out to the floor this week. This is not a bill to tax CU’s it is about sending review back to DC. Any one that thinks it is improper is mis informed.
2/5/2005 9:45:59 AM Question George King Dist24. I work for Zion’s Bank and am a member of 4 credit unions too. You can belong to a lot of them. The CU’s that are exempt, the taxes that are paid by banks go directly to the school fund?
2/5/2005 9:47:41 AM Answer Curt Bramble The different taxes they pay do go to different areas. Property tax, sales tax, and
2/5/2005 9:48:38 AM Answer Jeff Alexander There are specific taxes. All CU’s don’t pay the school tax. We are just asking the NCUA be reviewed by Congress.
2/5/2005 9:49:11 AM Question Chad Bunn Last wed. I attended my community council meeting and the #1 topic was the lands trust. Larsen Elem. Received 1500 their first year and this year is at 12k. We are all up in arms about the limit
2/5/2005 9:50:38 AM Answer Daw I had to mention something here. Chad was my companion and he just about ran someone down in a mall parking lot on our mission. There was a bill passed that was almost unanimous in the House that was going to lift the limit. I will let the good senator talk about it.
2/5/2005 9:52:01 AM Answer Chris Cannon The key is having more money in the fund. We have groups out there that are trying to control the lands. All western states get taxed at a higher rate and are reimburs. At a lower rate. We are going to have a lot move on the federal level for trades.
2/5/2005 9:53:11 AM Answer Becky Lockhart I was in support of raising the cap. The competiting interests were local control of the money. Some wanted to allow for the local school boards to be able to control how the money is spent. Perhaps 12 million is too low, but there might be a time to cap. 10 million that is taking off for supplies above the 12 million.
2/5/2005 9:55:34 AM Answer Jeff Alexander I would like to build on that. Many of the testing needs and remediation need to be improved. Instead of just buying new things I would think it would be better to see the education improve.
2/5/2005 9:56:12 AM Answer Margaret Dayton I am glad that the counties are so thorough in their review of the money that is spent. I like the number of hours that are spent. The concern is asking whether we would like to cap at what level? Perhaps the Councils would have more budget that the Local School Boards.
2/5/2005 9:57:48 AM Answer Curt Bramble The issue has been mis informed. Some say that if the cap is removed the money goes somewhere else. So, we talk about 12 million, 10 million, then money goes to WPU. I expect to see an amendment to raise the cap to 15, 20, 25 million. Putting a cap in place later will not happen due to entitlement. We need the money spent by elected officials. School elections are not real. We are more comfortable incrementally increasing the cap vs. removing it.
2/5/2005 9:59:49 AM Business Aaron Tilton D65 House seat Springville, Mapleton, Spanish Fork. I am running a bill to address driver’s license for illegal aliens. You will see more about that and I will let the press conference deal with that. Money from the Municipal Utilities are non-audited at this point.
2/5/2005 10:01:41 AM Question Steven Lighthouse There are a couple of bills about the election of state board of education to be more partisan
2/5/2005 10:02:30 AM Answer Jim Ferrin I guess that is mine. I have a bill in the rules cte. It won’t go anywhere and here is why. I like open vote. Some say that public education should not be political.
2/5/2005 10:03:10 AM Yield Chris Cannon Requested that people contact their legislators and deal with the partisanship that happens to exist.
2/5/2005 10:03:46 AM Answer Jim Ferrin “Having a non-partisan election is about getting people in that would not get in during and election. I have debated this with them. With all due respect to Mark Cluff the question is, do you know anything about the people that are running. Partisan is about knowing something. The bill won’t get advanced because it would be the 3rd year in a row that we would be trying to change this.
The system was “”rigged to get these people in office””, so let us let this change for now so that we don’t raise any problems. The bill will stay in the rules cte. I have chosen not to fight them on this issue. It is an issue for another day.”
2/5/2005 10:06:02 AM Question Steven Lighthouse Thanks for sponsoring the bill
2/5/2005 10:06:18 AM Answer Becky Lockhart We have 3 people who have been elected to the state board. We did not have a unanimous vote for the tax credit and we are wondering how this is going to work. Since the people in there are doing good things.
2/5/2005 10:07:21 AM Question Mary Moster You all are good people. The use of federal money for r&d for medical things. Almost every issue has come up as an issue between government and private enterprise, transportation, education, medical, housing. Government money skews the system. The same is true of education, public vs. private. My suggestion/question is: how many of the things you work on is free enterprise OR socialism (social security).
2/5/2005 10:09:43 AM Answer Margaret Dayton That was well stated and thoughtful. How careful are we to adhere to republican platform. It is a disappointment that we are usually united here in UT County. We believe that the role of government should be limited. Thank you.
2/5/2005 10:11:04 AM Answer Chris Cannon You talked about government vs. enterprise. But there is also local vs. federal. There was a concept of wards that were introduced early on in cities. I really love this local leg. Group because they are moving in the right direction.
2/5/2005 10:12:02 AM Answer Jeff Alexander This is where you need to keep in touch with us. It is so easy to get in to session for 45 days to be flooded with lobbyists. We only see people that are interested in specific issues during the session. Please get the message to us from You directly.
2/5/2005 10:12:52 AM Question Mike McGee “Leg for dist 57. We have a problem with ‘big boxes’/walmart moving around the county. We are bearing the expense of transportation burden.
We grow in to spending levels and used to entitlements.
The thing that would help drop 2 bills for every 1.”
2/5/2005 10:15:24 AM Answer Curt Bramble “We are mostly repealing and modifying/fine tuning laws that are already on the books. So we are not writing new laws.
The taxpayers association and members of business don’t’ get along. We were asked to limit Redevelopment Agencies (RDA). There is a group of people that provides large incentives to these companies to come in, they have not done anything illegal. We need to reign RDAs back in. There are 2 bills to review this right now.”
2/5/2005 10:17:59 AM Answer Becky Lockhart On the transportation we as a task force talked about this a lot. We have the problem with the State controls but does not develop the Eagle mountain road. The impact of Eagle mountain is on the city of Lehi. And the State says ?? UDOT only has the power to control and talk about impact and require developers to build up a local area. But they don’t have to mandate the flow development further from the local development. The state does not want to impose impact fee. We are looking at jurisdiction transfer to the local area. State St. is a patchwork of jurisdiction in Salt Lake and it is strange. We are looking at this and trying to decide who really should be in charge of what road. Once the locals are accountable for more mileage, they will make better decision. The locals are afraid of it. They think that we won’t give them any money. That doesn’t make sense, the state will give money.
2/5/2005 10:22:17 AM Question mike mcgee The Cabelos in Lehi will be the #1 tourist attraction according to some people and so the development in Lehi needs to make its decision.
2/5/2005 10:23:15 AM Answer Becky Lockhart SR92 has been a problem for a long time and we neeed to work it out soon.
2/5/2005 10:23:30 AM Question Jerry Ottley Is there any information on this transportation.
2/5/2005 10:27:08 AM Answer Becky Lockhart ” Is there anywhere on the leg.state.ut.us you can go to task force. You can go to the second year report and review the 6 pages. Sen. Walker is running the policy bill for jurisdiction. WE want to move to an objective vs. politcal process for project priorities. It will talk about Tolling. We will also need to talk about revenue that is 85 million being set aside. The task force was finished with it’s work and we knew that 7 billion would be needed in the next few years and we asked for 90 million of growth money in the next 2 years. We also looked at increase in registration and titling fees. I think the bill will come out without the fees. House18.
We also talked about corridor preservation in SL County We pushed it through cte yesterday. We need to buy the corridor now so that the $ doesn’t go too high.
You can see the information on the web”
2/5/2005 10:27:39 AM Question Jerry Ottley I have to say something about sales tax. Very regressive, lower income and more children. Abomination of sales tax on food. I am concerned about Gov. Huntsman comments. It hurts the economy when people have to spend all their money to live. It is my mission to get some help in this regard to decrease the sales tax on food. Sales tax effects decisions made on local level as well. Tourism doesn’t help business but does not keep economy here.
2/5/2005 10:29:56 AM Answer Curt Bramble I appreciate the concerns. Streamline sales tax will be delayed one more year. We are waiting for congress to get off the dime.
2/5/2005 10:30:31 AM Answer Chris Cannon We will hold that in my cte for a long time.
2/5/2005 10:30:42 AM Answer Curt Bramble We will wait for federal action. We have talked about income, sales, property tax. 50 bills already before us. There is a cte that is going to review this completely. Looking at food exemptions and other.
2/5/2005 10:31:37 AM Question Illene Baker I have the same concern as others and want to address the concen with disabilities population. 20% of the pop. Are people with disabilities, some hidden. Mr. Ferrin is on the education appr. Cte. Vocational training comes under you and I understand they have submitted something to you regarding centers for independent living. What is going on with it?
2/5/2005 10:33:17 AM Answer Jim Ferrin You can encourage me and know that I am friendly to your cause. I do not know if it has made it in to the main budget.
2/5/2005 10:33:53 AM Question Illene Baker You were talking about roads and transportation. We have another area of great concern with sidewalks. They need to be easily accessible with nice curb cuts. I have a real difficulty on the sidewalk with this issue.
2/5/2005 10:35:18 AM Answer Becky Lockhart Since the 1970s bill development, they are all required to do that. UDOT has plans to work on that issue.
2/5/2005 10:36:08 AM Question Illene Baker From AF district. I am very interested in this
2/5/2005 10:36:52 AM Answer mike mcgee A lot of new money came from the state.
2/5/2005 10:37:10 AM Question mike robinson chair of 46. NCLB is my concern. Patty Harrington serving here is dealing with NCLB issues. She is now the state superintendent with instruction. She is running in to trouble defining a local solution vs. federal mandate. I know that you needed to support the president and those of us here at home who have a better plan. Margaret Dayton is trying to deal with this. Can we work better on this for local control.
2/5/2005 10:38:58 AM Answer Chris Cannon “This debate is pretty much resolved. The DOE will go with what we are involved in here. That would not have happened without Margaret pushing the federal government.
I voted for it for a number of reasons.
1 was president’s plan
2) because it might get rid of DOE
3) why do you need a hierarchy that gets so deep directing your efforts. At what point, how much weight can a teacher bear.
At the state of the Union I mentioned the DOE removal plan would be moved along by the Teachers rising up. The federal government should not be in to education. Maragaret had everyone ready to move away from NCLB and leveraged DC!”
2/5/2005 10:41:43 AM Answer Margaret Dayton “Cman Cannon support a lot of what Pres. Bush wants. We are united on this need to revisit NCLB. The DOE was started in the 80’s and the language was that DC should not reduce control of local area authorities. I have gone back on my own budget a number of times. The DOE is in 6 huge buildings and has 60billion dollars and thought that we could spend that money well. This is an issue that everyone believes everyone should be accountable. They need to know who they need to be accountable to parents and communities where they are. We are on a huge shift with NCLB effort. There are Mental Health, Women’s Right’s, minorities, National curriculum.
I want us to opt out still. The money is only 5% of the total budget.
Chris has been available to us. Patty Harrington has been
“”Implementing a Federal Education”” – State control is still prominent and confirm that NCLB states that we do not have to spend state funds on federal programs. Where there are conflicts, which there are, then the State will make the decisions.
When I presented the bill the Eagle forum and UEA were both for it. Senator Hatch has asked Secy. Spellings of new DOE to come out to Utah. She has stated that she will come to talk to Utah about the issues. We are hoping that she will dialogue, but she is brand new. We are leading out the entire country on this issue. Other states are watching and copying everything that we are doing.”
2/5/2005 10:48:05 AM Question mike robinson constitutional review?
2/5/2005 10:48:23 AM Answer Margaret Dayton We have quoted the laws in NCLB and other law in order to qualify what we are doing. Our own legal council is reviewing as well as some outside firms pro-bono are reviewing this as an issue of State’s rights. This is a crucial federalism issue.
2/5/2005 10:48:54 AM Business Parley Hellewell We have to be out of here by 11:00 or it will cost more money.
2/5/2005 10:50:18 AM Question Laralyn Ebertine “I would like to hear about tuition tax credit forecast.
Something requiring IHC to follow more regulation. We are pretty good compared to the US. More regulations will increase cost.
Jones-pass carol.”
2/5/2005 10:51:47 AM Answer Curt Bramble Jones Mascaro is Dead Before Arrival.
2/5/2005 10:52:14 AM Answer Becky Lockhart Market dominance – Senator Hellewell and we are talking about any willing provider bill. We are running more bills relating to rights of physicians and contracting. We are concerned about doing things that will make it worse. We want to help not hurt. There are a few others. IHC sees the end of the barrel and are concerned about the ground swell.
2/5/2005 10:53:31 AM Answer Jim Ferrin 15 seconds on tax credits. We are bringing it out this week. I imagine people feel strongly about it one way or the other UT County is mostly in favor of it. Others are not. I would encourage you to talk to your specific legislator.
2/5/2005 10:54:18 AM Motion Curt Bramble adjourn
2/5/2005 10:54:25 AM Vote Parley Hellewell AYE (not asked for opposed)
2/5/2005 10:57:31 AM Business True Time