You can Give a Man a Fish or...

As the three of you who occasionally read this blog may already know I work for a company called Franchise Foundry. Basically, what we do is take small and often young companies with a few units and help them grow using the franchise model. It's a lot of fun and I've really enjoyed working with our team there.

I recently received an email from a company that uses the franchising model to build small community clinics in Africa. The clinics are called "Child and Family Wellness Shops" or "CFWShops" for short. The clinics are primarily funded by The HealthStore Foundation.

For a franchise fee of $500 the would-be entrepreneur purchases a franchise. The remaining $6,000 required to build and supply the clinic is financed at nominal rates and in some cases grants through the Foundation. This $500 is a considerable investment; as the HealthStore Foundation mentions on its website this is usually a combination of life savings and a sale of the family's livestock. The training is completely paid for by the Foundation as well as the franchisee's living and boarding costs while they learn how to run their new clinic.

The reason I find this so exciting is that it's the perfect example of self reliance - a classic conservative principle. The HealthStore Foundation is not giving these people a clinic. They are teaching them how to own and operate one on their own. The administrators are not (well meaning) bureaucrats but truly owners in the clinic with a very real and personally significant interest in it's success.

The time old adage still applies: you can give a man a fish - or you can teach that same man to fish. The clinic franchise model is innovative and clearly demonstrates that conservative principles can be effectively applied to problems which often the progressive side claims we ignore. It's time for conservatives to reclaim these issues.

Air Quality: Utah Gets an 'F'

American Lung Association Report: Utah cities among the nation's worst for air quality

I wanted to follow-up on my earlier convention post. If you remember I had asked Representative Keith Grover if there was anything we could do about the air quality in Utah County during the winter months. He said that because of our geography really the only thing we could do is to move.

I've really never been someone who's been really concerned on environmental issues. And I'm not talking about climate change and polar ice caps, but this one hits pretty close to home. Truth be told Republicans have differed to the Democrats on the environment for too long. I think conservatives should and must engage the other side on issues like this (see also ethics reform).

So, not being satisfied with being told "to move," I promised to dig a little deeper. I didn't have to look very hard - it's almost like the information came to me(!). In today's SLTrib there is a story about a report from the American Lung Association on the very topic.

And the report says....

Utah County

Particle Pollution: F

High Ozone: F

The Wasatch Front really gets pounded by pollution in the winter during short but intense periods of inversion. So during these times our area suffers from some of the worst air in the country.

Of the top 25 U.S. cities most polluted by short-term particle pollution three are in Utah.

1. Pittsburgh, PA

4. Los Angeles, CA

6. Salt Lake City, UT

8. Logan, UT

16. New York, NY

20. (tie) Philadelphia, PA/San Francisco, CA

22. Provo-Orem, UT

So What can be done? Again, I didn't have to look very far. I took a look at a local activist group - Utah Mom's for Clean Air. They had a lot of common sense suggestions - most of them centered around driving.

Now despite the communist conspiracy that is 'light rail' I think that will help make a difference when it is completed. I'd gladly trade my car and a dangerous drive on an icy road during winter for the safety of light rail. It'd be a safer commute and a healthier one.

In the end, I think it really comes down to personal responsiblity and each of us being aware and doing our part during those smoggy winter days.

Convention Summary

You can see the Deseret News summary of the Convention here. If you are interested in the specific results for the county leadership positions you can find them here.

I'm going to keep it simple and just focus my thoughts and takeaways from our breakout meetings with State Senator Margaret Dayton and Representative Keith Grover.

Senate District Meeting

We met with Senator Margaret Dayton for about 45 minutes. I like Margaret but, I thought she did a couple of interesting things. First off she started by writing the toll-free subscription number to the NRA magazine. I'm all for the 2nd Amendment, but I would have prefered her to simply recomment the publication as one she enjoys rather than actually providing the number.

Second interesting announcement; surprisingly she thanked everyone who had encouraged her to run for the US Senate, but announced that she would be running for the State Senate and not the US Senate. Of course she was flattered, but no, just the boring old Utah State Senate. I wish her well in her re-election bid. Rumor is that Greg Hudnall is considering a challenge run, which would make for an interesting race. I'll keep my ear to the ground on this one...

Sen. Dayton did say she hadn't talked to Rep. Fowlke beforehand, but she proceeded to invite Rep. Lorie Fowlke up to the front so we as delegates could get an opposing view from two Republicans on the rivers/private property issue. Maybe it's not a big deal nor her intention, but it seemed like she was trying to put Lorie on the spot a bit. I don't want to get into the rivers issue here, but truth be told, I thought Rep. Fowlke came off well. She was well spoken and her reasoning logical.

My takeaway: Margaret approaches issues ideologically, someone like Lorie approaches them pragmatically. I think both are healthy and needed not only in the Republican Party but government in general. I enjoyed hearing the two perspectives and I'm glad Margaret did what she did (just give a gal a head's-up first next time!).

During our Senate breakout session Lt. Governor Gary Herbert took a few minutes for an update. He was well spoken and took on the issues straightforwardly. The interesting takeaway was to see him distancing himself a bit from Governor Huntsman on issues like civil unions and global warming. Gary was clearly setting himself up for a run at the Gov's spot in 2012. I think he's got a good shot. He was in good form on Saturday.


Legislative District Meeting
Next up was our meeting with Representative Keith Grover. I'll start with my takeaway from this meeting: Keith is definitely coming into his own. It was the most confident I've ever seen him speak in front of a group of delegates.

He mentioned a couple of times how much he really feels he's bound to be responsive to us as delegates and thinks about us when he votes. I believe he does. Keith reviewed a couple of the high profile issues from the last session; One being ethics. Keith said that he feels the ethics issue is addressed every two years when the people vote and that was good enough. I understand what he means, but I think most people (and the delegates sitting around me) feel that more could be done. It probably deserves a separate blog post in the future so I'll leave it there for now.

One delegate from Vineyard asked about the Anderson development end-run around Vineyard to get the County to do an RDA. I blogged about that issue last week. You can read that post here. Keith expressed concern about how important the project is but didn't have much more to add to the previous comments, which included pretty much the same concerns I brought up in my post. It's an important issue for our area.

Since education wasn't a real big issue with the session Keith didn't bring it up in his summary. The question did come up though. There was some discussion from the delegates expressing desire to see more movement towards choice in education and charter school expansion. Also, autism legislation was discussed.

During the winter months we have some of the worst air in the country. So I asked Keith if there was anything that could be done to improve our air quality in Utah County. Keith said he had asked some officials about it and really given our geography the only thing that could be done - was to move. I was kind of surprised that that was the response. Because really, there are things we can all do, but how much of a difference would it make? I'm not really sure. I'm not satisfied with the moving option so I'm going to do some additional research - stay tuned! But in the meantime check out this press release regarding a BYU-Harvard study on the topic here.

My Major Takeaway: I thought there was a lot of chest thumping with each official and candidate trying to out-conservative each other. Which is fine I suppose at an off-year convention. Being conservative is who we are - we all get that. But, I'm a bit concerned that the Party is missing a lot of opportunities for greater discussion on a number of issues people face every day - I-15, Geneva Development, Economic Development, Ethics reform, Education, Environment (just to name a few). Is our Party really in touch with the issues most important to most Utahns?