Solution-Based Government


It’s been quite some time since I posted anything on my blog, not because things are quiet but rather, to the contrary, because it’s been so busy that I haven’t found the time.

These days, I am working on the following major issues:

· Teaming up with Idaho State University, the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare and the Central District Health Department to provide free health screenings by ISU health sciences students to underserved adults in the community in an effort to keep folks with problems from ending up in the costly emergency room at taxpayer expense. I’ll provide more details on this project soon.

· Working with Idaho Senator Mike Crapo and his staff to fight back against the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulation that would require Ada County to add scales out at the landfill at an estimated cost of $1 million to ratepayers.

· Working with community members and legislators to improve the situation with regard to horse racing at Idaho Downs (formerly known as Les Bois Park) including taking a serious look at legislative fixes to reduce the government red tape.

· Learning more about the emissions testing program that the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality is implementing in Canyon County. If our questions about the program are all satisfactorily addressed, Ada County residents stand to save over $1 million a year with the $11 per emissions test price tag.

· Working with colleagues from Eastern Idaho on statewide radio interoperability. In addition we are having conversations about how to deal with the fact that the state is taking more than the 20 percent administration fee from federal grant funds that are passed through to local agencies, such as our own Ada City-County Emergency Management organization.

My approach to these issues is to try to find workable solutions that limit government regulation and decrease costs to taxpayers and ratepayers. I call it, “Solution-Based Government.”

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