Start of Cell Phone Service Savings

Yesterday, we were finally able to meet with representatives of the County’s single biggest cell phone service provider. By right-sizing service plans and consolidating under one account for this provider, taxpayers will save over 20 percent or $32,622 a year off the $161,783 cost of service.

We will be doing a similar review and adjustment with the rest of the County’s cell phone providers, as well.

Energy Overload

Yesterday, Friday, I was in the Ada County Courthouse as darkness fell and a smiling sliver of moon appeared in the southwestern sky. The view from the fifth floor balcony was stunning.

Also stunning were the number of lights blaring at full blast in the cavernous, but by then nearly empty, government facility. In one of the darkened courtrooms, a stack of sophisticated electronic equipment peered back at me with its numerous twinkling pilot lights, every one of them attesting to the fact that it was all eating away at precious energy resources and property tax dollars.

We all need to try harder to do our part to cut down on energy use and its accompanying cost to taxpayers.

Putting Things in Perspective

The Idaho Statesman’s Nick Jezierny had an article in the March 25 paper about the potential bidders for Les Bois Park.

We have expedited the RFP (Request For Proposals) process in order to try to accommodate the horse owners and allow for a racing season this year, but kept it long enough to allow for competition. We expect to award the contract on April 14, a week after the bid opening on April 7.

To put the Racing Commission’s comments in the article into perspective, Nick might want to write a follow-up story that identifies that entity’s funding sources. If I recall correctly, their sole or major source of income is a share of the revenue collected by the racetracks and Les Bois Park accounted for something over 90 percent.

Downtown Boise Multi-Modal Transit Center Motion

Why I Voted No

Recently, I’ve had two opportunities to cast a vote in support or opposition of one or both of the proposals being considered for a “multi-modal” transit center. I put “multi-modal” in quotes because it remains unclear to me where the transit center would differ from a bus depot. I have yet to figure out where, other than having a parking lot for vehicle-to-bus connections, and a bike rack, multiple modes of transit are represented. Someday there is supposed to be a prohibitively expensive trolley car in the vicinity that loops around downtown, but that doesn’t really qualify as mass “transit.”

I believe that most of us want mass transit so everyone else can take it and leave the roads clear for us! Although I do not feel we should get rid of the bus system, we do not have the population numbers or density to support a major mass transit system at this time. We need to continue to support park-and-ride lots, carpooling, and vanpooling, but we also need to explore new and creative ideas, such as shuttling people in smaller vehicles on an as-needed basis.

At the March 9 meeting of the Downtown Policy Advisory Committee (D-PAC) the board voted 3-2-1 to recommend to the Boise City Council that both the 10th Street and 11th Street (Site H) proposed sites be given further consideration. Three members voted in favor, two of us voted against the motion, and Ada County Highway District (ACHD) Commissioner Rebecca Arnold abstained since she will be taking action on the issue in her ACHD position.

These are some of the factors I took into consideration when I voted no:

• At that March 9 meeting, the “Multi-Modal Center Candidate Site Evaluation Matrix” was passed out. The document provided the pros and cons of each of the two sites, contrasted with doing nothing with the existing downtown bus transfer site. Green dots were used to indicate the least impact or greatest benefit, yellow dots to indicate mid-range impact or benefit, and red dots to indicate the greatest impact or least benefit. When I assigned point values, 3 to a green dot, two to a yellow dot, and one to a red dot and added them all up, the 10th Street site earned 41 points, Site H had 41 points, and doing absolutely nothing calculated out to 42 points. In other words, the evaluation matrix seems to indicate that there is slightly greater benefit (and surely less cost!) to doing absolutely nothing than in pursuing either of the two proposed sites.

• In addition, it was revealed that a total of 22,000 post cards were sent out to members of the public to get their opinions. Sixteen thousand post cards were sent to the people living closest to the sites, and the other 6,000 were sent to those folks who were thought to be interested parties. In response, only 187 people voiced opinions – both positive and negative – about the two proposed sites. In contrast, when the Ada County budget survey was put online last Monday, with little fanfare, nearly 500 people had already responded by Friday. Surely there are a group of people who are passionately interested in this proposed project, but it appears to me that the number is limited.

• The 10th Street site had vocal, organized opposition, so it makes little sense to pursue it, but Site H costs three times as much money. As a taxpayer, I am troubled by that fact.

The Boise City Council took action on the transit center proposal the following evening, March 10. They voted three-to-two to drop the 10th Street site and pursue Site H, while pushing Valley Regional Transit to identify other sites for a transit center that would better serve the community's needs.

On Wednesday, March 18, the Valley Regional Transit (VRT) Board voted on the same motion that the Boise City Council had approved. I was the lone vote in opposition and now you know why.

Thinking INSIDE the "Box"

Russ Duke, the Director of the Central District Health Department (CDHD) recently met with the Board. He brought to our attention the fact that due to financial constraints, CDHD is struggling to continue to provide approximately 600 meals a day at senior centers and another 600 a day for the Meals on Wheels program. He is trying to assist the Southwest Idaho Area 3 Agency on Aging in finding a different contractor as CDHD, which has provided the service for 34 years, has given them a May 29 deadline to have another meal provider or providers in place. There is no quick and easy solution.

At the time of the conversation with CDHD Director Duke, the Ada County Jail came to mind, where we have a large commercial kitchen and free inmate labor provided by trustees. According to Ada County Sheriff’s Captain Linda Scown, who runs the jail, the facility provides 3200 meals a day at an average cost of 88 cents a piece for the food, plus the cost of supervision from jail staff. I am trying to obtain cost data for staff time involved.

Captain Scown and Ada County Sheriff Gary Raney are willing to consider the use of the kitchen, although there are numerous issues that would have to be addressed first, such as storage, nutritional specifications, etc. The CDHD Board met today, and I presented the idea to them, as well. The Board was supportive of the idea and Chair Steve Scanlin particularly liked the idea of inmates being able to give something back to the community by helping our seniors.

Admittedly, there are any number of reasons why my suggestion of using the jail kitchen and inmates to cook meals for seniors might not work out, but with the economic crisis being faced by government agencies at all levels these days, it is my preference to fully explore unique problem-solving strategies before ruling them out.

Reminder: Contact Information

For new readers, you are welcome to contact me with comments, questions, or concerns at:
(208) 287-7001 (direct dial office)
(208) 362-0843 (home)
sharonu@adaweb.net (messages sent to this address are subject to public records disclosure laws)
sharonu@cableone.net (personal e-mail address)

Save The Date!

The Ada County budget presentation and public hearing will be held on Tuesday, July 21, at 6:00 p.m. This starting time should prove to be more convenient than last year's 5:00 p.m. kickoff. Please attend this hearing to express your views on spending priorities within the Ada County budget. If you think spending should be cut in certain areas, we want to hear that too!

Cell Phone Bills

If you’ve got teenagers, you probably know that cell phone costs can add up. In Fiscal Year 2008 Ada County’s cell phone expenses totaled over a quarter of a million dollars ~ 285 thousand dollars, to be more specific.

As an advocate of zero-based budgeting, I have been looking for specific expenditures to examine in order to cut unnecessary spending. County cell phone plans and expenditures certainly deserve closer scrutiny. I am in the process of doing just that.

I Spoke Up

I spoke up because I felt someone had to do it.

At a meeting of the COMPASS (Community Planning Association of Southwest Idaho) Board on Monday, February 23, I spoke up.

It appears that the major focus of these meetings is to figure out ways to obtain more money, spend more money, get the legislature to pass laws to provide more money for the group(s) to collect and spend, etc.

This year, COMPASS is spending $120,000 to have a private Idaho firm lobby on behalf of the organization’s “more money” position at both the state and federal levels.

Although I don’t agree with the stimulus package, I can appreciate the argument that at the federal level we are better off trying to get our share of public dollars, including stimulus funds, or we just lose out to other states. But at the state and local levels, government needs to feel the same pain that is being felt by taxpayers everywhere.

You get the picture: the economy is on a downward spiral the likes of which few of us have ever seen before, and local political groups are focused on spending money, rather than making do with less. I spoke up and questioned why we weren’t focusing on making do with less.

The argument for the COMPASS Board’s tax-and-spend position for transportation-related projects is that the backlog of needed road and bridge work is so great that we cannot afford to wait and have it accumulate to an even greater level with an even higher price tag. Even so, according to COMPASS Executive Director Matt Stoll, the Board’s Executive Committee is having the discussion about cutting the lobbying expense. I would strongly encourage them to do so.

Budget Cuts

Due to the adverse impacts of a downturned economy, this week, my colleagues and I cut Ada County taxpayers’ $70,000 annual contribution to the Boise Valley Economic Partnership, which is a division of the Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce. We are seeking out other budget cuts that can be made without cutting service provision to the public.

KIDO Radio Time Change

On Saturday, March 7, I will be a guest on KIDO Radio's Northwest Live! call-in talk radio program. The time has been changed to 10:00 a.m.