Pete Ashdown

Due the birth of my daughter on the 11th, I took some time off from the campaign office to spend with family. Although little Greta is very healthy, she still has no respect for people with a schedule. Most of the night is spent attempting to fill her stomach with milk or emptying her stomach of air. Robin and I were both apprehensive of the work we knew was coming with this baby. It was difficult five years ago with our boy Henry and we haven’t gotten any younger. When the alarm rings in the morning, the comforter feels as heavy as a coffin lid.

For those of you who are fans of baby pictures. Here are a slew of ’em.

While I was taking a break, I had the opportunity to visit with people in Uintah and Carbon counties. Whenever I go outside of Salt Lake County, its a real eye-opener to see what is affecting Utahns. Uintah has more mineral resources than any other part of Utah, yet their schools are crumbling. Carbon recently had the “Byrne” grant cut that provided the foundation for most of the drug enforcement in the area. Yet, Homeland Security decided that sending them thousands of dollars of unusable equipment was important. Prescription drugs are prevalent over all other drugs. Much of the distribution could be clamped down by having doctors use a database that verifies the fact that an individual got the same prescription from another doctor recently, but when was the last time our congress debated prescription drug abuse?

The recurring theme is that local governments can do better than the Federal Government at deciding how money is spent. The Feds make up a slow-moving ignorant beast that wastes more money than it effectively saves in cuts. I asked one mayor to name one thing that the Feds do that actually helps the area. He thought for a moment and named Community Development Block Grants and emphasized the that the money is simply allocated and local governments decide the best way to use it. It was stunning to know that not only was this the only thing he could name, it was the only thing they were doing right. From education to land-use to law-enforcement, locals felt they were cut out of the decision process to the detriment of their very lives.

On Monday I was interviewed by KOAL/KARB radio in Carbonville on these and other campaign topics. Now that I’m running WordPress, I will funnel interviews and other audio through an RSS Podcast.