Davis Animal Control Fees Keep Rising

I paid $12 to have my dog licensed last year (2011) in Davis County and now it has increased to $15 in 2012.
I'm pretty sure it was only $10 in 2009 and so in three years my fee has risen 50 percent.
That seems out of line.
As I deal with more and more loose dogs as I walk about (read my previous blog entries), and see more and more households with 3 or more dogs, I feel I am paying more to support the unlicensed canines around.
You can't tell me that those households I see regularly with 3 dogs have them ALL licensed (because owning more than 2 adult dogs in Davis County is illegal).
I fail to see why animal control can't be more proactive in finding households who I bet never license any of their dogs.
Pay me for a day to find unlicensed dogs and I guarantee I will find dozens, as they are not hard at all to find.
The Davis County Commission needs to put pressure on Davis County Animal Care and Control to be more proactive in finding unlicensed and loose dogs.
I'm not even sure Davis Animal Control has to appear before the County Commission when they decide to raise their fees!
Since I also seem to be seeing less of Davis County Animal Control roaming around my area, I think that department needs some real scrutiny in what they do and don't do.
(It also appears to me that ever since the Davis County Sheriff's Department took Animal Control under its wing, that fees have risen and yet loose dog problems have escalated.)
Perhaps if I rode around with animal control for a few hours I'd feel differently, but I have to carry pepper spray and a stick anytime I'm out walking in my Layton neighborhood, because there are more loose dogs than ever.
I was also attacked and bitten by a loose dog 2 1/2 years ago ... I've been accosted by 3 other sets of two loose dogs since then ... and had numerous other encounters with solo loose dogs.
Davis County Animal Control's fees are regularly rising, as well as getting more complicated -- in a long list -- and for what, when I see more problems than ever?
I say to Animal Control -- stop raising your fees and go after those who never license their dogs.
The solution is not raising fees, or expanding them into many niches, it is figuring out how to better enforce the existing ordinances.
Enough said.
(Above photograph is of my properly licensed and contained dog.)

What the Utah State Legislature Should Pass...

The 2012 Utah State Legislature is in full session and here are several of my dream bills that I would love to see proposed and then approved as law ....
1. End completely the Utah State law requiring a front license plate. The majority of states now have no such law. Also, most new cars are simply not made to have a front plate used without a lot of hassle.
In addition, despite their lobbying for keeping this law in the past, the Utah Highway Patrol DOES NOT enforce this law anyway.
Only the downtown Salt Lake City meter maids or Hill Air Force Base police enforce this law.
As such, at least one-third of all Utah vehicles currently lack front license plates.
Let's save money and resources and quit making front license plates and change the law.
2. Create a state law that requires that all state administered colleges and universities in Utah absolutely to have to accept and recognize in full the transfer of any and all class credits from any other State of Utah administered higher educational institution in Utah. No more stupid games. A credit is a credit period. College is too expensive for any credits to go to waste like they in some transfers.
3. Since taxes and funds going to education in Utah is at an all-time high, the legislature should create a task force that looks at ways to wisely save money at Utah colleges and public schools. I know there are smart ways to save money out there ... but likely no one with an outside point of view is looking for them.
4. The Utah Transit Authority has suffered from a host of serious accidents in recent years. Some of it may be bad luck, but the Legislature should consider creating a special task force outside of UTA to look for answers and better public education to curb this escalating rate.

Do Not Park on the Street Overnight!

This is one of my pet peeves -- do not park on the street overnight, whenever possible.
Not only is it against the law to do so in most snow-prone cities during the winter, but it looks sloppy and encourages crime and vandalism.
Recently, someone with a BB gun did thousands and thousands of dollars in damages to car windows in various Salt Lake City neighborhoods. The vast majority of the damaged vehicles were parked on the street overnight.
Enough said.

Three Doomed Busineses

This high tech world is changing and here are some of the businesses I believe are on the way out -- and will likely vanish, or change completely, in the next few decades:

1.Daily newspapers.
Their current model of financial income is broken and no one has found any way to re-invent it. Layoffs and downsizing looms at virtually ALL newspapers in the U.S.
With daily newspapers gone, or shrinking, who will cover the news? Say hello to blogging. Sadly, most bloggers won't have the skills or the resources to do much more than state opinions.

2. Photography Studios:
With such inexpensive digital cameras around, this business is already on the ropes and at best -- only the most elite of full-time photographers will be able to make a go of it.

3. The Timeshare industry.
The younger generation mostly has no interest in buying timeshares.
Also, the timeshare industry is simply pricing itself out of business.
For example, RCI, the world's largest timeshare business changes $189 to trade a weekly condo for somewhere else. Their annual membership fee ($89) and the new and insulting "combine despoit fee" (to increase trading power) is another $109.
So, in total dollars, with the average annual maintenance fee that the timeshare owners' have to pay (average is about $700), it now costs $889 to $998 to exchange a weekly condo you own for somewhere else.
Checking the open rental market outside RCI and you can find great places for hundreds of dollars less and so why do you want to own a timeshare, unless you like losing money?
In addition, VRI, another timeshare exchange company (with free membership), charges $109-$129 for its exchange fees and then an outrageous $100-$400 for upgrades in room size.
Again, you do the math and you will see the timeshare prices are rising far more than the inflation rate and are simply making no economical sense anymore.
(And, to make matters worse, the selection of great timeshares, like on the beach, are diminishing. That's because RCI, for example, is reselling some of its best timeshare weeks, instead of putting them on the open exchange market!)

Collar-less Dog Trend

My on-going encounters with loose dogs continues ...
Out for a walk on Feb. 1, 2012, me and my dog run into a loose pit bull. Fortunately he was friendly (but I had my metal pole and pepper spray out just in case).
Anyway, the dog followed us and 100 yards later, a member of dog's family drove by. The man had to grab and carry the 60-pound dog home, as it had no collar.
No collar? What the hey?
How can any owner of a large dog not keep a collar on their dog?
I just don't understand. Microchip notwithstanding, all dogs need a collar. It helps with I.D. and is an extra safety component for the canine.
I also spotted someone last week walking their dog in my neighborhood without a leash. Again, that's unsafe and not smart. Even a well-trained dog may bolt away at another animal or dog.

Snow Finally Falls in Utah

It finally snowed on Jan. 7, 2012 to end the driest December to early January spell on record in northern Utah.
Yes, 1976-1977 was dry too, but to Jan. 7, 2012 had that period beat done dry.
As I gazed on Ben Lomond Peak, the most dominant mountain in the northern section of the Salt Lake Valley, on the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2012, its summit (elevation 9,706 feet) was almost snow-free.
In fact, snow had melted off its face in the past 4 days.
That was downright unnatural!
I'm not a skier or a lover of snow, but that was almost "end of the world" kind of stuff to be looking at such a dry Ben Lomond Peak in early January, because that mountain is historically one of the snowiest in all of Utah.
Yet now a Jan. 7 snowstorm, likely fueled extra by the warm waters of the Great Salt Lake ('lake effect') has dumped snow there and also in the valley and so the scene is looking much more normal now.
It is not the "end of the world" yet, it seems.

Why N. Utah's 'East Winds' Aren't Always From the East

Northern Utah's "canyon winds," or "east winds" are legendary. Residents will not soon forget the Dec. 1, 2011 hurricane force winds that hammered Davis and Weber counties in particular, causing a massive cleanup and millions of dollars in property damage.
(The damage from these winds was mostly so extreme, because it had been more than a decade since the Wasatch Front had any such wind events and so the damage came all at once, mostly from overgrown trees.)
Although the Dec. 1 winds were the first in 12 years to hit, the winds were NOT always eastern winds and they scoured the Salt Lake Valley.
The key question is "why?"
Although I built my cedar fence strongest on the east side, that was pointless, since strong east winds have never hit my house.
In fact, the Dec. 1, 2011 winds that struck my property were straight from the north. (And they broke 4 posts along my fence's northern side.)
I asked a friend, Dan Pope, a well-known Utah weather expert to address the question on wind direction and why "east winds" aren't always east winds.
His explanation is intriguing and worth repeating, especially since no TV weathercaster has enough air time to provide this much detail.
Dan Pope's answer:
These ... winds were "mountain wave" induced. But, the topography does force the winds to veer with distance; and due to local hills, canyons and location they can change as they move away from the mountains. They also come in rolling as they slam the ground (spinning counter clockwise).
In North Salt Lake, I have always noticed a veering to the north, because the hills by and to the north of Eaglewood Golf Course, that force the eastward track around them to flow southward. These hills are also are northeast-southeast oriented, and with City Creek Canyon on the other side, the winds likely skip over the flat area above Meridian Peak and are pushed away from the hills, protecting some of the upper Bench of North Salt Lake from the worst gusts, while Bountiful, Centerville, Farmington and areas northward are directly in line with the Wasatch Mountains, and the "wave" effect.
When we have these kinds of winds, there is usually a low pressure spinning to our south. The upper level winds come from the east or preferably the Northeast. And, at the surface, the pressure is much higher in Wyoming and lower in Utah. In a low pressure like this, sometimes a little warmer air is wrapped in above the mountain tops. This creates an inversion at 12,000 or 13,000 feet, and keeps any wind from rising--and creates a Venturi effect. Plus, the Uinta Mountains line up directly east of Bountiful and Davis County, so all wind get pushed eastward towards the Wasatch mountains from extreme Northern Salt Lake County and Davis County northward.
Rule of thumb is that winds will be 2 to 4 times higher than at mountain top as they "roller coaster" down the slopes; and they will hit beyond the base of the mountains 1/2 to 3 or 4 miles out towards the Great Salt Lake. Then they fan out, and can go in multiple directions. To the south of Davis County, they fan to the south (a north wind) and northward the can even come in from the SE if a person lives more than 3 or 4 miles from the base of the Wasatch. But, more often than not, these winds veer to the south away from the Wasatch, because the surface pressure is lower to the south.
There are certain locations near the canyons and at the base of the Wasatch in Davis, and counties northward, where these winds can be severe right at the base. Bountiful, Centerville and Farmington, as well as NE Ogden, Brigham City and even Logan fall into this category.