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Joan Barron's Blog
Monday July 26, 2010
Posted by: Joan Barron at 1:02PM EST on July 26, 2010
County Commissioner districts -- the good and the bad CHEYENNE -- Laramie County voters this year will be asked to increase from 3 to 5 the number of county commissioners.
Of perhaps more importance, they also will be asked to establish 5 county commission districts.
Currently Laramie County commissioners --- and all the county commissioners in the other 22 counties -- are elected at large.
The 2 separate questions will be on the November general election ballot. This means voters can approve the increase in commissioners but not the districts.
Wyoming has 8 counties with 5-member county commissions. Sweetwater County will be the 9th when voters elected 2 more commissioners in November and they take office next January.
But Sweetwater county votes didn't adopt the district system. The driver of the Laramie County ballot issue is M. Lee Hasenauer who led the signature collection effort beginning in January.
With the help of volunteers, he gathered enough signatures from about 5,000 registered voters to get the twin questions on the ballot.
"The timing is very good," Hasenauer says, because Laramie County is on the cusp of a boom from the Niobrara oil shale play and wind energy
development.
At the same time the county's population is growing and is likely to total 100,000 when new census figures come out.
Another justification for the expansion is a county budget that could be approaching the $100 million range and could use the eyes of 2 more
commissioners.
The county's population is centralized in Cheyenne which has 28,000 registered voters. The rest of the county has only 14,000 registered
voters.
Adding districts will give the south side of Cheyenne, for example, its own representative on the county commission board.
Hasenauer said the communities of Pine Bluffs, Burns and Carpenter in eastern Laramie County can elect their own representative, as can
residents in the districts in north, south and west Laramie County.
"I'm really in favor of the districts," Hasenauer said."I'm really pushing the districts because you want to hold them accountable on the issues."
County commissioners usually run mostly on name recognition, he said. Hasenauer said his involvement wasn't provoked by any dispute with the county commissioners.
He said he did not file for county commissioner because he didn't want people to say that was the reason he wanted to change the system.
Hasenauer, who lives in north Cheyenne, said the only resistance to the ballot proposition is coming from the current county commissioners.
Laramie County Commission Chairman Jeff Ketcham said he objects because of the costs.
While Hasenauer said the timing is right because of energy activities, Ketcham said the timing is wrong because of the dampened economy.
He estimated the expansion would cost more than $130,000 for salaries equipment and additional staff.
"I'm not sure we can afford it," Ketcham said. The county has a hiring freeze and a pay freeze and has to deal with higher health care costs and retirement system contributions, he said.
The three commissioners, who are paid $40,000 a year, voted in May not to take a pay raise.
The district system has its flaws. A resident who doesn't like dealing with one commissioner now can go to the other two.
With districts, Ketcham said, the resident who disagrees with his or her representative, isn't likely to get much help from a commissioner who
represents a different county district.
Perhaps the strongest argument against the district system is that three is no guarantee that South Cheyenne, for example, would get its own
representative, Ketcham said.
Cheyenne will still be the population center. Since the each of the districts will have a piece of Cheyenne, another critic said, it is possible all 5 all five commissioners will be from
Cheyenne.
Hasenauer believes the proposition will pass. He pointed out he already has 5,000 votes from the people who signed the petitions.
Thursday July 22, 2010
Posted by: Joan Barron at 3:25PM EST on July 22, 2010
Republican candidates for the offices of governor, auditor and state superintendent of public instruction plan to attend a statewide Republican candidates forum and debate August 5 in Torrington. The event, sponsored by the Goshen County Republican Party and the Goshen County Republican Women will be held at the Fine Arts Auditorium at Eastern Wyoming College . It will begin at 5:30 p.m. with an informal "meet and greet" .in the lobby with refreshments furnished by the hosts. The debate will begin at 6 p.m. with the candidates for governor, followed by the candidates for state auditor and state superintendent of public instruction. KGOS/KERM will be broadcasting the entire Forum/Debate live beginning at 6 p.m. The event is open to the public and there is no admission charge. For additional informationcall Doug Chamberlain at 307-532-1559 or contact doug@maddenbrothers.com
Tuesday July 20, 2010
Posted by: Joan Barron at 2:43PM EST on July 20, 2010
So far most of the mineral companies appear to be keeping
their purses zipped until after the gubernatorial primary election is over
and they know where to invest their political action committee dollars.
Industry representatives wisely don't want to put all their money on one candidate before the primary election.
The exception so far is a $45,000 donation to Auditor Rita Meyer's campaign from the Building a Better Wyoming Political Action Committee
(Pac).
This is the PAC of the McMurry family who are very much engaged in the mineral industry.
In addition Mick McMurry and Susan McMurry of Casper each donated $1,000 to Meyer's campaign for the Republican nomination for governor.
Meyer's campaign contributions totaled $306,000 and included a $15,000 loan from the candidate.
Rancher and former legislator and Dept. of Agriculture Director Ron Micheli was the first to release his campaign receipts and expenditures
report.
The pre-primary election campaign reports aren't due until August 10, or 7 days before the August 17 primary election.
On Friday, Micheli's campaign issued a brief update with the list of individual contributors to come later.
It showed Micheli with $526,305 in contributions, considerably more than Meyer's.
Micheli's report showed $60,000 in loans, including $50.000 from Ron and Patty Micheli and $10,000 from Matt Micheli.
The two other major Republican candidates, Matt Mead and Colin Simpson, haven't released their reports yet. Neither have the two major
Democratic candidates for governor, Leslie Petersen and Pete Gosar.
Other PAC money Meyer received included $2,500 from the BNSF Railpac, the Burlington Northern committee; $1,500 from WyoD.PAC,
which is the dental association (Meyer's husband, Charlie, is a retired
dentist); $400 from the the pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline
PAC, and $300 from AT&T.
Micheli received $4,750 from WYC PAC, a conservative group whose chairman is a former house speaker Russ Donley of Casper, and $550
from WYWatch PAC, a family values group.
The Wyoming Chiropractic Association is spreading its PAC money around. It gave $25 each to Meyer and Micheli.
And Meyer's smallest contribution came from a nun, Sister Madonna Stehno of Leavenworth, Kansas, who kicked in $5.
Meanwhile, Micheli's campaign is waiting to assess the extent of the damage from the letter he sent in support the convicted Craiglist rapist Ty
Oliver McDowell.
No one knows at this point how it will affect the GOP gubernatorial election.
---------------------- Another campaign, meanwhile, is stalled but for a very different reason. Trent Blankenship, a Republican candidate for state superintendent of public instruction, has been missing from the campaign trail recently.
Blankenship is trying to get back the job he resigned from five years ago to take a school job in northern Alaska. He advised in an e-mail Thursday that he spent four days in the hospital the previous week and still is recovering from surgery.
He did not specify the ailment. He said he hopes to make a push toward the end of the primary election campaign "when I get my legs underneath me."
It's a bad break for Blankenship.
Other Republican candidates for the state superintendent's job include the incumbent, Jim McBride, Cindy Hill, a Cheyenne educator, and Ted
Adams, former Cheyenne school superintendent.
------------------------------ Last week I overlooked Rep. Tim Hallinan of Gillette in a bit about the
absence of physicians in the Legislature. Hallinan served 4 years in the
Wyoming House but unfortunately is not seeking re-election.
With no physician-candidates for the Legislature this year, it will leave both chambers without a doctor to inform colleagues colleagues about health issues. Eight years ago, two physicians served in the Wyoming house, Dr. Larry Meuli of Cheyenne and the Dr. Harry Tipton of Lander, since deceased. The lawmakers next year still will have the help of a non-physician, Sen. Charles Scott of Casper.
Scott is an expert on health care reform. Thursday July 8, 2010
Posted by: Joan Barron at 4:23PM EST on July 8, 2010
PETA says it will pay more than the $3,000 the state collects from the grazing lease.
Posted by: Joan Barron at 2:53PM EST on July 8, 2010
The animal rights group PETA made an unusual but creative offer to Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal today. land located inside Grand Teton National Park to prod the Interior Department into negotiating a land swap with the state. park on two square miles currently under state grazing lease. amount raised by the grazing lease. The governor's chief of staff Chris Boswell said PETA is showing a great sense of humor. "I didn't kow they had a sense of humor," he said. The governor and other state officials, however, he said, need to have a serious discussion about negotiating an exchange with federal folks, given the seriously high value of the state land..
Tuesday July 6, 2010
Posted by: Joan Barron at 7:15PM EST on July 6, 2010
Many Cheyenne residents are marshaling forces to protest a plan to chop down 46 trees in the city's most popular park -- Lions Park -- to accommodate a new commercial airline for the capital city. The opponents already have placed a sign near the endangered trees with a plea to leave them alone. And they will be showing up for meetings of the Cheyenne City Council. Cheyenne people love their trees. Growing them is tough to begin with. Keeping them alive is a challenge we sometimes lose. I am mourning over a newly dead aspen in my back yard. And I fret over a few rust-colored needles in a giant blue spruce in my front yard. Last week the director of the Cheyenne Chamber of Commerce said the choice is simple -- cut the trees or forget the economic development jolt the city would get for providing companies with large commercial air service. Currently Great Lakes provides air service but only from Cheyenne to Denver International Airport. The newcomer, American Eagle, a subsidiary of American Airlines, would provide regional jets to from Cheyenne Regional Airport to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. The Federal Aviation Administration requires the two-engine aircraft American Eagle would fly to clear 36 feet above the trees or any obstruction and 300 feet from the trees when it takes off. The Lions' Park trees would be in the way. If they are allowed to remain, one option would be for the airline to lighten the load by reducing the number of passengers. That in turn would reduce the airline's income and its ability to become self-sufficient. The state, through the Aeronautics Commission, approved a $1.4 million minimum revenue guarantee to support the airline until it gets its market, meaning when it can support itself. Airlines serving Cody, Gillette and Jackson have the same deal. Since the guarantee is not permanent, it is not a subsidy. Dennis Byrne of the Wyoming Aeronautics Commission said that while the commission supports the air service, the trees are a community decision. Providing air service to Wyoming has been a problem for decades largely because of the small population. This is far from the first dust-up over Cheyenne trees. One case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Terry Rogers lived near the Cheyenne airport. In his yard was a cottonwoods tree. Not an ordinary tree. It was a giant tree. The Cheyenne Airport Board said the tree was too tall. It poked into the airport flight path. The board said the tree must go. Terry Rogers balked and hired Cheyenne lawyer Bernard Q. Phelan to file a lawsuit. Former District Judge Paul Liamos ruled for Rogers, finding the Cheyenne Airport Board had to condemn the airspace and pay Rogers compensation in order to cut down the giant tree. The airport board appealed to the Wyoming Supreme Court. The court ruled that the airspace had been occupied for decades and therefore belonged to the public. Rogers appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. According to Phelan, the city at first didn't respond but complied when ordered to do so by Justice Burger. The Airport Board said that the Supreme Court should not review the case because Rogers had not sought a variance before filing suit. He didn't file a variance, Phelan said, because he and the city attorney informally agreed it would be denied and there were no airport rules adopted to deal with variances. Regardless, the U.S. Supreme Court denied jurisdiction, throwing the case out of court. Later the same year, the court issued decisions on "regulatory takings." "We were so close to getting in the U.S. Supreme Court, but yet so far," Phelan wrote in an e-mail last week. Subsequently, the city received a federal grant to condemn a number of houses to clear the flight path, which is now the Airport Parkway. Rogers' big tree and all the rest are gone.
Monday June 28, 2010
Posted by: Joan Barron at 2:55PM EST on June 28, 2010
Thirty percent of Wyoming voters consider themselves part of the Tea
Party movement, according to a new Rasmussen Reports poll.
Sixty two percent of state voters say the movement is good for the country.
And 70 percent of Wyoming voters favor an immigration law like Arizona's.
In all three cases, support here is higher than the national average, according to the new survey of 500 likely Wyoming voters. It was
conducted June 22 and released over the weekend.
Regarding the governor's race, four Republican major candidates as expected hold solid leads over the top two Democratic challengers.
The report noted that the candidates for the August 17 primary election still are not well known to many Wyoming voters.
The poll matched the Republican candidates, Matt Mead, Rita Meyer, Ron Micheli and Colin Simpson against Democrats Leslie Petersen and Pete
Gosar, but not against one another.
Meyer and Mead came out a tad ahead of Micheli and Simpson. Meyer received 51 percent support to Petersen's 23 percent and led Gosar 52 percent to 23 percent.
Mead received a 49 percent to 22 percent lead over Petersen and 52 percent to 23 percent over Gosar.
Micheli led Petersen 47 percent to 27 percent and Gosar 46 percent to 28 percent.
Simpson's margin over Petersen was 47 percent to 27 percent and, over Gosar, 46 percent to 28 percent.
In each match-up, between 11 and 14 percent of the voters favored some other candidate while between 12 to 15 percent were undecided.
Experienced politicians say Wyoming voters won't get serious about the primary election until after August 1.
Posted by: Joan Barron at 2:16PM EST on June 28, 2010
Unless you are a licensed professional in Wyoming you probably are not interested in the fees these people must pay. Since these state licensing boards must be self-sufficient, the fees must cover the cost of carrying out board business. Because of the economies of scale, small groups of professionals can have dues higher than fees charged by large member boards. Podiatrists, for example, pay license fees of $400 per year. Although 28 are licensed in Wyoming, fewer than 10 practice here. Physicians licensed by the state Board of Medicine pay an initial fee of $400 to $600 and then an annual renewal fee of $250. About 2848 physicians are licensed in Wyoming but only about 40 percent practice here. Physician assistants pay an initial fee of $200 to $300 and then an annul renewal fee of $100. The Animal Euthanasia Board has fewer than 20 licensees who currently pay a $200 fee every two years. The fee enables members to obtain a DEA license to obtain medications to put down animals. Another small board will be getting organized soon. After years of opposition from the medical community, lay midwives got their own licensing board through a new law passed by the Legislature last winter. Members of the Wyoming Medical Society and others had been concerned about the safety of home births and the level of education required for lay midwives. A major concern was high risk pregnancies and emergency transportation of home-birth mothers who experience complications. After meeting with the lay midwives to address these concerns, the medical society dropped its opposition as a group. The new law prohibits a lay midwife from attending a home birth if the pregnant woman has any of a long list of medical conditions. It also requires lay midwives to give advance warning if she must move a patient to the hospital because of birth complications and to bring along complete records. Now that the lay midwives are about to have their own board the question is the amount of individual dues. Veronica Skoranski , who represents 17 Wyoming professional boards , warned legislators earlier this year about the potential problem. Lay midwives do not make a lot of money. They feel they have a calling to provide home births to families who want them. They also believe the number of home births will increase with the new licensing law. Skoranski pointed out that other states also have independent boards. Unlike Wyoming, they also have large populations. Colorado, for example, licenses 50 to 60 lay midwives. Wyoming won't have that many. "I don't know how they will be able to support a board," Skoranski said. The Wyoming Board of Midwifery won't issue licenses until July 2011 so there is time to look for a solution. Historically the Legislature has never appropriated state general fund money to support professional licensing boards. Skoranski said one answer is for the state to provide free space to the boards. That move could save the boards $3,500 per year. Also, if the boards were consolidated in one location they could save money by sharing staff and equipment. The boards currently are scattered all over Cheyenne. Skoranski is in the Bank of the West Building. The Board of Nursing is on 18th Street and Pioneer Ave. The Board of Engineers and Professional Land Surveyors is in north Cheyenne and the Board of Professional Geologists is in Laramie. Rep. Jack Landon, R-Sheridan, the chairman of the House Committee on Labor, Health and Social Services, said he is aware of the problem but has no solutions yet. "That is on our radar screen," Landon said. "I'm going to continue this conversation for various strategies so that the number in a group shouldn't cause such high fees that they will prevent people from practicing." Monday June 21, 2010
Posted by: Joan Barron at 2:54PM EST on June 21, 2010
CHEYENNE -- Gov. Dave Freudenthal's comment last week that reporters
are giving Republican gubernatorial candidates a pass is not
totally deserved.
The two-term Democrat who will be leaving office on Jan. 3 next year
singled out Ron Micheli of Fort Bridger for failing to be specific on how he
would reduce the size of state government or curb spending..
Freudenthal said that in 2002 all the gubernatorial candidates endured
hard questions about what they would do about the economy and
everything related including government programs and spending.
After reading about various candidate forums and panels, he said he was
surprised at how the 2010 crop of candidates for governor were able to
skate away without taking any specific positions.
He wants to know where Micheli and the others would cut a budget that
already has been pruned by 5 to 10 percent.
A former Casper Star Tribune editor would have agreed with Freudenthal's criticism of the news media.
"Pin 'em to the wall," was his policy.
But that was a less polite era in newspaper history.
Micheli, who is the candidate Freudenthal definitely does not want to
succeed him, issued a statement on Friday on his ideas to eventually trim
state government.
Zero-based budgeting, incentives for employees to save their agencies
money, and appointment of fiscal conservatives to run state departments
and agencies is his three-pronged approach.
Without naming anyone, Micheli said "It is not surprising that those
invested in this spending spree and excessive growth of state
government are now attacking me."
That's always the case when conservative fiscal policies are proposed,
he added.
In his new statement, as his critics are sure to point out, Micheli still isn't specific
about where he would cut spending if that is his intent.
Anyway, I say Freudenthal's criticism of reporters may or may not be
deserved partly because the venues for candidates are limited in their
ability to elicit specific answers.
In panels, questioning can be fragmented because each reporter
participant usually has a different query and there is seldom any follow
up.
So you get a mishmash of responses on different topics.
Audience questions can be sometimes be provocative but again they can
range widely from wolves to wind energy to a fuels tax.
Debates can be electric or excruciatingly dull.
I am not referring to this crop of candidates in particular.
But in general the quality of a debate or an interview for that matter,
depends on the willingness of candidates to go "off message" -- to detour
from a set campaign speech.
For many candidates, veering from the rehearsed sound bite is to venture
into perilous territory, to risk the dreaded gaffe.
One on one interviews can be enlightening.
But again, much depends on whether the candidate is willing to be
specific and forthcoming or continues to hide behind the script.
If he or she is not, the reporter's recourse is to advise readers or listeners
of the candidate's refusal.
To be fair, the GOP candidates, or most of them, have announced some
of their positions early on. They were polled early this year on a wind
energy tax, for example.
Their policy statements were overlooked or buried by the anti-federal
government clamor that dominated the first weeks of the campaign.
Maybe we'll all get better at specifics in the weeks before the August 17
primary election.
Micheli's plan for zero-based budgeting has been suggested off and on
for years but the Legislature never picked it up..
Also Micheli's idea to give employees incentive to find savings in their
agencies has been rolled out before.
During the Sullivan's money-strapped administration, the program
boosted employee morale although it didn't save millions of dollars.
The rewards for employees were small.
One was lunch with the governor in the state cafeteria in the Herschler
Building.
That's when the budget was really, really tight.
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