Utah County Commissioner Mtng Attendance

This morning we attended our first ever Utah County Commissioner's Meeting. Since becoming a county delegate we figured it was our duty to go check out our elected Commissioners in action and see if things were running properly and now that the convention is over, we had a bit more time to do so.

Utah County is made up of three County Commissioners who meet Tuesday mornings at 9am. We're rather astonished that the meeting is at 9am when we like many are scheduled to work. Provo has its city council meetings at 7pm when we are more able to attend. We might be able to fathom the 9am meeting time if the meeting were rebroadcast: but there is no rebroadcast of Utah County Commissioner Meetings! We discovered the only venue currently available to citizens of the County for meeting review are agenda meeting notes posted online up to two weeks later after the meeting has taken place. In other words, the review-ability for our elected Commissioners is grossly deficient: THIS MUST BE FIXED!

At today's meeting, Commissioner Anderson was excused for health reasons and Commissioners White and Ellertson reviewed a rather non-controversial agenda approving all the items 2-0. Items of interest included Health Dept Director Miner talking about a aerial mosquito abatement program, a discussion on the Jordan River Commission to have the 18 jurisdictions split a $100K bill making the river a showcase for the state, and Richard Nance presenting the results of the clean-out-the-cabinet prescription drug reclamation of nearly 900 pounds of medication (see detailed Deseret News article).

The meeting also prompted us to chronicle the attendance of our elected officials at these meetings. Below is a spreadsheet using data extracted from the official minutes of the County Commissioner meetings for 2010 (for any corrections plz comment below or see our profile for email address):


From this data we gather the following interesting conclusions:

• Our County Commissioners all have superb attendance at these meetings. This is really crucial as there are only 3 to conduct business
• Joel Wright and Leon Frazier were the only two Commissioner candidates to have attended ANY Commissioner meeting in 2010. We were flabbergasted that Doug Witney had yet to attend any meeting yet was able to knock out the incumbent Steve White at Saturday's convention. We wonder if this glaring absence continues how in November either Republican Witney or Democrat Barratt are going to have any clue on what the issues are or of a smooth transition. We didn't see either at today's meeting nor was Mr. Wright present. We feel it unreasonable to expect perfect attendance during a campaign for a candidate running for County Commissioner, while we do expect some attendance.
• Our elected County Officials appear to be attending as they are able. We feel that all of our elected officials should be making periodic appearances whenever available at our County Commissioner meetings. We also feel there will be times when then have pressing conflicts and should not be viewed as having to attend every meeting. Furthermore, some positions may merit more frequent attendance than others. We feel all the current elected county officials are doing due diligence.

We plan on keeping track of and periodically disclose attendance at the County Commissioner Meeting as a way of doing our patriotic part to keep check on our government.

No vote for quitters?

Tonight on the Sean Hannity show, Democratic Strategist Jacques Degraff on Hannity's Great American Panel made the comment "I don't vote for quitters" in reference to Sarah Palin resignation of the Alaska governorship. Just before the quitting comment he said he had voted for Barack Obama/Joe Biden.

A quick refresh of 2008 is revealing: Obama resigned from the Senate halfway through his first Senate term and Biden resigned TWO MONTHS after being elected Senator.

Progressives want negative labels to apply to their opponents, but fail to recognize the beam in their own eye. If you consider Palin a quitter, you must acknowledge that Obama and Biden are quitters, too. This point was missed by the panel but we saw through the irony: so much for not voting for quitters, Mr. Degraff!

Tax Day 2010: We've More Charity than the VP

The White House released their 2009 tax returns today. We observed that after giving a paltry $3,690 to charity over the past decade Joe and Jill Biden gave a whopping $4820 to charity in 2009 off of an income of $333K.

Although Nacilbupera doesn't publicly release tax returns, we admit to an AGI of less than a quarter of what the Bidens made. From that 75% less income in 2009 we gave in dollars more than 50% over the Biden's record amount to charity. What's more is that we do this year after year. Putting it in a percentage comparison, the Bidens donated roughly 1% of their AGI to charity; we donated about 11%. Not only are we are overwhelmingly more charitable than the Bidens, but we know of many others far more charitable as well.

While we will fight for the right for the Bidens to spend their money as they please, the point is that Nacilbupera has been taught to give and does give. We don't need government to unconstitutionally steal our money from us in order to help others...maybe the Bidens do, but we have a consistent charitable-giving record.

We have noted how the Progressives always want to force their agenda on us. They didn't and don't propose a government-run voluntary charity for the uninsured (for example) because they don't want to put their own money where their talk is. They have to punish us, the charitable givers, the workers of society who produce profit so America can have a strong economy and jobs.

Goodbye Iran, Hello USA!

Today Nacilbupera's honeybunny officially became a naturalized citizen of the USA! Honeybunny was born in oil country, SW Iran, not far from Iraq. She became a political refugee to the USA in 1979 when the Shah was overthrown and Khomeni began his iron-fisted rule as supreme leader both politically and religiously. She has lived and worked continuously as a legal, permanent resident alien in the US for the past three decades, never really even wanting to return to the once westernized, peaceful nation now bent on destroying Israel and the USA. She began toying with the idea of becoming a citizen a few years ago and the idea came to fruition late last year when she sent in her $750 and her application.

Nacilbupera found the Naturalization Test most intriguing. An applicant studies 100 US history, civics, political and geography questions and must answer 6 out of 10 questions correctly. The questions range from easy: "What ocean is on the West Coast of the United States?" to moderate: "The Federalist Papers supported the passage of the U.S. Constitution. Name one of the writers." Honeybunny learned quite a bit in studying for the test; we would put her knowledge above that of the average American on the street, although most unfortunately that isn't the highest bar. The test examines the Constitution broadly, but not specifically. For example, none of the questions deal with identifying the section and amendments which limit the power of the federal government to the states or how the constitution has been misinterpreted by using the commerce clause as justification for just about anything.

The naturalization ceremony held in Salt Lake was thoughtful and inspiring. A choir from a junior high school sang for us as well as a couple of speakers addressed. Judge Samuel Alba, a naturalized citizen from Mexico, presided over the ceremonies and shared his story of being born to migrant farm workers and eventually becoming a District Court Judge. He provided the statistics from the group of 62 newly-naturalized citizens. They were from around the world, a couple of dozen countries represented including the largest representation: 13 from Mexico and 5 from each of India and Iran. Other countries we knew of included Haiti, Dominican Republic, Somalia, Russia, & Azerbaijan. The judge made everyone commit to do their duty and be a voter in the upcoming elections. He had volunteers speak on why they decided to become citizens; an overriding theme was freedom. One turbaned man praised the military's decision in March to allow Sikhs to keep their beards and turbans. (We're not really sure how you wear a helmet and a turban but the beards could be an asset in countries where beards are a cultural norm.)

It bothered us that English wasn't emphasized more. A few citizens were there with interpreters and citizenship documents are downloadable in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Tagalog, and Chinese. While honeybunny is fluent in English, we wondered about the abilities of those few with interpreters. We don't understand the role of an interpreter if citizens are supposed to be able to speak, read, write, and understand basic English. Perhaps our observations didn't reveal a wholly accurate picture.

Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed the experience and highly recommend attendance at a swearing-in ceremony: the new citizens accompanied by their families and friends were friendly, patriotic, and optimistic. We wish them well and hope they will continue their studies of our county and its greatest document: our Constitution. Perhaps they will join us tomorrow in the numerous tea parties scheduled including here in Utah celebrating our country's protest and revolt from unconstitutional overtaxation and oppression.