idaho legislature

In Idaho, just about everywhere you look these days are legislators and legislative staff muttering dire warnings about how much next year’s state budget is going to have to be cut when the legislators go back into session in January (in their shiny newly renovated Statehouse, though that came from a different budget).

“Idaho’s Medicaid program could see a shortfall so extreme it’d have to eliminate 23 percent of the health benefits it provides to the state’s poor and disabled,” says Betsy Russell in the Spokesman-Review.

H1N1 report

When I was a junior in high school, Gerald Ford was President, and amid fears of a swine flu epidemic, I joined thousands of other schoolchildren getting mass vaccinations. Honestly, at this point I don’t much remember the details; I get too mixed up with my memory of reading the vaccination scene in The Andromeda Strain, which I read about the same time. (I didn’t, incidentally, wind up with Guillain-Barré Syndrome.)

Now it’s 2009, Barack Obama is President, the swine flu epidemic is much more of a reality than in 1976, I have a fourth grader, and mass vaccinations are going on again.

Here’s some things you might want to know, based on my experience at one of the clinics.

new economy

Let’s say you’re a worker, either on your own or for an employer, who finds themselves bopping all over the Treasure Valley on a daily basis. Maybe you’re a real estate agent, a developer, a startup, a mortgage broker, a public relations person, a legislator, a lobbyist.

Maybe, even, a writer.

Anyway, you find yourself setting up shop in coffeehouses, libraries, maybe even in parking lots from your car, in-between traveling and your various meetings. You know by heart which restaurants offer free wifi, where you can plug in your laptop for a while, and just how long you can hang out in a coffee place before they start getting testy at you.

Meanwhile, you’re trying to work, hoping nobody spills their double-shot white chocolate mocha on you, and attempting to conduct business over the cell phone squished into your shoulder over the noise in the room without contributing too much to it yourself.

This is where VengaWorks wants to come in.

Opinion: Technology

The big news event out of Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter’s Innovation Summit today at Boise State University was the announcement of a $5 million grant to Micron to help it develop light-emitting diode (LED) technology. While the money was awarded by the state, it comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), commonly referred to as the federal stimulus package.

Otter, as well as Scott DeBoer, Micron’s Vice President of Process Research and Development, praised the announcement as supporting green technology, as well as providing new jobs for Idahoans.

“Through our 30-year history, the success of Micron and the state of Idaho have been closely tied,” DeBoer said.

That’s the problem.

idaho legislature

What do gas, water, electricity, telephone service, and health care have in common?

Right now, nothing. But if a Boise State University professor has his way, health insurance in Idaho could also be regulated by a public utilities commission (PUC), which the professor said could result in better service for less money.

However, the legislators in Idaho’s health care task force interim committee, which heard about the proposal yesterday, expressed concern about several aspects of the plan—with some saying it didn’t go far enough.

public transit

There's a Northwest city. The population of its metropolitan area is 272,000. Government is one of the larger employers. It has a major university with a large, popular football team, in which the entire state takes pride. And as described by Wikipedia, "The city is also noted for its natural beauty, activist political leanings, alternative lifestyles, recreational opportunities (especially bicycling, rafting, and kayaking), and focus on the arts."

The city isn't Boise. It's Eugene, Ore. And it has one major difference from Boise: it spends four times as much per capita on public transit than Boise does.

What does that look like? [more]

public records

Want to do a public records search on email messages from your state legislator?

Chances are, you won't be able to, even with the recent move toward transparency in government.

Even states that do have an email retention policy in state government -- and many of them don't -- often don't require legislators or members of the executive branch to comply with it. (We already know that's the case for members of county government.)

This is becoming an issue in Idaho now because the Moscow-Pullman Daily News is engaged in a tug-of-war with Representative John Stevenson, R-Rupert, over email correspondence with Moscow City Councilman Walter Steed, having to do with water rights. Washington is going through a similar issue. [more]

local food

Late at night.

A car door slams. The sound of running feet, followed by a thump on porch and running feet again. The car speeds away.

A light flashes on in the house. The front door opens, and a wail of despair as the resident sees what the vandal has done.

Yes, it’s National Sneak Some Zucchini onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Day. [more]

Food/Agribusiness/Health

A group of people got together to watch the agfood documentary Food Inc. the other day. The showing was in Boise, and the people were a married couple who lives on ten acres in Ada County, near Kuna, and their son; a single mom who lives on one acre near Kuna in Ada County and a married man who lives with his family on the Bench in Boise.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Food Inc. – like similar documentaries before it, such as Supersize Me and Fast Food Nation -- isn’t getting to the people who *need* to see it, but is, as the film itself describes, “preaching to the converted.” The married couple with a child – David, Tracy, and Christian -- have raised their own beef and have a garden. The single mom, Sharon, has a garden and uses community-supported agriculture (CSA) to provide most of the family’s meat and seasonal vegetables. The married man, Matthew, and his family have six raised vegetable beds in their front yard. [more]

Travel

We hadn't asked for the GPS with the rental car -- we certainly hadn't paid for it, and we had our folder of Google Maps all ready -- yet there it was. And while we'd used them in the past -- what self-respecting geek hasn't? -- we hadn't used them in several years and were curious about how the technology had improved.

The first time it sent us in a direction we knew was wrong, though, we were a little worried.

But that was nothing compared to the time it tried to send us up the river.

Literally. [more]