roymilleraz

Abolish school districts
In the April 4th Arizona Republic the article by Joanna Allhands she explains “Why consolidation (of school districts) won’t really help our schools.”. She is right. School districts are a needless bureaucratic layer between students and the taxpayer. Joanna was on the right track, but she just failed to suggest the next logical step. The districts should not be consolidated; they should be abolished, and the schools should be funded directly. The money should go to the school principals who know best how it should be spent. (An even better idea would be to tie the funds directly to the student, but such a move yields other complicating issues.).

Why Do We Regulate Home Inspectors?

Today (April 2) I had another lesson in the folly of occupational licensing. I attended a meeting of the Governor’s Regulatory Review Council (GRRC) where the subject for the entire meeting, over an hour and a half, was taken up with how many hours an assistant to a home inspector, called a “parallel inspector,” should have to serve before advancing to the next level of regulation. This subject is one of several that comes under the purview of the Arizona Board of Technical Registration (BTR). I learned early in the meeting that this very small part of the BTR mandate had required the attention of GRRC several times since June of last year, and that it was one part of a longer regulation that required GRRC approval.

During the meeting I learned that there are three schools that teach home inspecting and that each applicant must complete 84 hours of instruction and then serve in this “parallel inspector” role for five years and make 250 home inspections. Part of the reason for the length of the meeting was that one of the school operators had filed a complaint about the regulations. There were extensive discussions about both the 250-hour requirement and the five-year requirement. One interesting fact, among many, is that BTR does not evaluate the work of the inspectors, only that they complete the inspection, i.e., check all the proper squares.

Part of the GRRC responsibility is to ensure that the BTR rule changes comply with the requirements of ARS 41-1030. Another part is to ensure that the BTR rules comply with ARS 41-1033(g) which asks whether the proposed rules are burdensome or unnecessary.

Although I had not planned to testify, I became frustrated after about an hour and turned in a comment card. I simply suggested that, instead of spending over an hour debating this minutia, the GRCC should spend ten minutes discussing whether we should be regulating home inspectors at all. The GRRC chair said that was not in their purview. But I thought to myself: “Don’t we have a Republican Governor who wants to reduce regulations, and don’t we have Republican majorities in both houses? What is the obstacle?”

After the agonizing hour and a half debate and discussion, the GRRC decided that the proposed BTR regulations do comply with ARS 41-1030 but that they are overly burdensome, i.e., failing ARS 41-1033(g). Therefore, GRRC decided to amend the rules to leave the 250-hour requirement in place but to lower the time requirement from five years to three.

If it does not boggle your mind, wondering whether we should be regulating home inspectors at all, here is a final thought: This GRRC meeting required the time of five GRRC board members, three GRRC staff members, two BTR staff members, one attorney for the GRRC, one attorney for the AZ Attorney General, one school inspector operator, one volunteer member of the BTR Rules and Standards Committee, and about ten others in the audience whose mission was not clear to me.

This situation is completely insane. Why don’t we deregulate this whole realm and let all these people do something productive with their time??

PS During my working career I held four different occupational licenses so I have a first-hand knowledge of how wasteful ALL of these regulatory schemes can be.

Ryan Randazzo’s piece in Sunday’s Arizona Republic (March 31-“ASU grad shakes up cannabis industry”) was well done but has a couple of significant omissions. Near the end of the article Randazzo quotes drug warrior and Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk, as saying that, “If we were to get rid of drugs, we could almost get rid of crime.” This is nonsense. First, drugs have always been with us and always will be. Second, it is not the drugs that cause crime but rather the drug war which Polk steadfastly supports. Most drugs are cheap substances and, except for making them illegal, would not require criminal drug cartels to produce and distribute. While drug use will not go away, most crime would go away if drugs were decriminalized.

Drug warriors also support draconian measures on the distribution of legal opioids. This simply drives users to the black market and causes deaths from overdoses and impure drugs. The drug warriors like Polk are indirectly causing the deaths of many innocent people.

But that is not all the harm they cause. Polk was the most vocal opponent of the recent attempt to decriminalize marijuana. I believe that the biggest donor on this campaign was himself a producer of fentanyl, the most harmful of all the drugs in use today. The suspicion by some of us for why he supported the anti-marijuana campaign was that he did not want the competition from marijuana. This kind of hypocrisy by these drug warriors should have been noted in the article so that readers get a clear picture of where the problems are in dealing with drug use.

So, you know, like, this is, sort of, a letter to the editor, right? (If anyone does not understand the message they are welcome to contact me.)

Admit it, you have been irritated more than once when you had to park a long distance from your destination and someone else pulled into a handicapped parking spot at the front, got out of the car with no apparent disability, and walked briskly to the front door of the business ahead of you. It happens too frequently. These days almost anyone can be thought of as disabled or handicapped by some doctor and get a sticker for their car or a temporary window hanger.

This situation has gotten completely out of hand. The answer is to go back to what handicapped parking was meant for, that is, people in wheel chairs. (That is why the marking for these parking spots is a wheelchair.) Besides ending the fraud, we would also free up many parking spaces because they would only be used by the truly deserving.

Does any sincere thinking person believe that we need the government to regulate people who want to blow dry hair? No! There is only one group who seeks this regulation, and that is the government regulated cosmetologists. I submit that the cosmetologists do not seek these regulations in order to protect consumers from evil hair blow dryers but rather to protect their fellow cosmetologists from competition. Where are the courageous legislators who should be counted on to stop this nonsense? There have bills in the last two legislative sessions that have died. Do we have a conservative, free enterprise legislature that believes in letting people work? Nonsense. We have legislators without backbones who cave in to special interest groups like cosmetologists.

In a recent newspaper article, we have an example of the hypocrisy that helps maintain this insane regulatory environment. The article told about a man in Tucson who was giving free haircuts to veterans who ran afoul of the government regulators. Our governor even cited him as an example of over-regulation and suggested that the regulators back off. But, in that same article, we learn that the man has had a religious conversion. Since he has apparently gone to the trouble of spending the time and money to get his license, he now “sees” the need for government regulation. Amazing!

How many more examples of this foolishness and hypocrisy do we need before we end this regulation that prevents poor people from using their skills to earn a living and prevents volunteers from helping others in need?

The whole notion of race is frustrating. It is such an unscientific concept that it is amazing to me how much media attention is paid to it. I suspect that it is for political reasons, mostly on the Left. It is used to create monsters on the Right who are supposed to be racists because they want to give autonomy to some business owners for hiring and college presidents for admissions. It is used by the Left to create victims and to justify all manner of government interventions to correct the perceived racial imbalances.

All this is so foolish because, really, we are all African Americans. Since all humankind originated somewhere in Africa, usually thought to be around the present Ethiopia, the only racial heritage that any of us can claim with certainty is, therefore, African. And, if you were born in America, that makes you African American. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could agree that we are all African Americans and stop fighting the race wars and stop segregating people based on race?

A couple of years ago the AOG tried to get a bylaw amendment passed that would have allowed a single CEO to lead the AOG and the USAFA Endowment. It was a bad idea then and it is still a bad idea. The reasons can be summarized in two points; it results in a return to centralization of power under a few influential grads (mostly large donors) and it perpetuates a lack of transparency in AOG/UE affairs.

First, why do I say this is a “return” to centralization of power. The desire for power is a natural tendency and it was manifested in the AOG several years ago when the bylaws were changed to prevent anyone from running for the board who was not first “approved” by the existing board. I only learned of this when I encouraged one of my classmates to run for the board and learned that he must first be “approved.” This was wrong and undemocratic, but it took a few of us more than a year of acrimonious debate until we got the bylaws changed so that any grad member can run for the board.

But those who like control did not give up. In my opinion, the bylaw change is what caused a few grads who were unhappy with the loss of control to turn to the UE to regain their influence. They have been mostly successful at this because we are now at a point where the UE is nearly the total funding agent for the AOG for any activities that require donations, and most people agree with the saying that “he who pays the piper calls the tune.”

Compounding this problem of centralized power is a lack of transparency. The AOG and its created offshoot, the Class Advisory Senate (CAS), both refuse to allow electronic participation in their meetings, even though this can easily be accomplished efficiently and without disruption. I know this because I participated in both AOG and CAS meetings before they both decided to disallow this participation. And the UE does not even allow “in-person” participation, except in special cases. This essentially means that the actions of the AOG, the CAS, and the UE are not open to over 90% of grads, only to the few who happen to live in the Colorado Springs area or have some special reason for attending.

I have been told that there are problems identifying who is participating electronically. All I can say is that it was not a problem the few times that I participated electronically. My name was clearly shown on the computer screen, so everyone could see who was participating. Furthermore, why do our actions need to be secret? What are we afraid of? What if someone from the press did listen in? What’s the problem? There are some legitimate concerns about AOG bylaw provisions, but I have two responses to that; either change the bylaws at the same time of the proposed change for the single CEO or simply loosely interpret the bylaws. I believe that the applicable part of the bylaws was probably put there to make it clear that AOG board members are “allowed” to participate electronically, not to prevent other grad members from participating.

Another point that grads should consider is the attempt by the AOG to limit the debate. What are grads to do? If one side controls the debate, that side is likely to win. It is no surprise that on the last attempt they got 86% “yes” votes because there was no opposing view. This time, the AOG would not print my argument in Checkpoints or agree to send it with their arguments in favor of the Single CEO, or let me use their bulk mail service to send it myself (even if I paid for it).
Because I think the idea of a single CEO is bad, and because the AOG will not allow transparency in their meetings, and because they will not allow a fair debate, the only effective way to stop this is to avoid voting (because the bylaws require a minimum of 25% participation). This tactic worked last time. Therefore, I must again suggest that the best way to defeat this bad idea is for grad members to refuse to vote on this issue (you can still vote for other items on the ballot).

Roy Miller Col (Ret), Class of ‘67
1529 W Virginia Ave
Phoenix AZ 85007
602-254-4648

Taxpayers should not be required to put another dime into the Suns arena. City governments should not even be in the arena business. For that matter, city governments should not be in the hotel business (remember the Sheraton disaster), or the convention center business (that’s why we “had” to build the Sheraton hotel), or the trash hauling business, or the light rail business, or even the airport business, or the water company business, or the sewer company business (we have over 300 private water and sewer companies in Arizona). This list is large. All businesses run better if business people are in charge rather than government bureaucrats.

And the Suns arena would run better too. And Phoenix would get the tax revenue and avoid the headaches of management and maintenance.

Let’s make the Suns an offer they can’t refuse.

I recently read that in my home state of Minnesota the fastest growing religious denomination is “none.” These statistics are probably similar in the rest of the United States. This is discouraging because I believe that religion provides a foundation for morality, that is, correct behavior. Oh sure, you can learn what is correct behavior by studying the great philosophers, but it is religion that provides the motivation to not just KNOW the right thing but to DO the right thing. This is sorely needed today because we live in a world of relative morality. We have presidents who lie routinely to the American people, and not the just the current president; remember that both President Bush and President Obama lied to us about the government collection of data on all Americans.

If the president can lie and escape any negative consequences, why should the rest of us tell the truth? The answer, of course, is that it is the RIGHT thing to do. And it is religion that motivates us to do the right thing. Attendance at weekly church services is not the only answer but it is a strong indicator of interest, intentions, and commitment. It is something that we should promote.