2014 Weber County Election Update: A Couple of Informative Stories Via The Standard-Examiner

We've also provided a link to our own handy pre-election candidate information page, for those readers who'd like to dig a little bit deeper

With the Utah Elections looming in under 14 days, we'll augment our 2014 election coverage with two excellent stories appearing on the pages of the Standard-Examiner this week.

First, Cathy McKitrick provides this candidate overview, briefly providing thumbnail sketches of most of the candidates appearing on your November 4, 2014 Weber County Ballots:

• Weber legislative races in play, but county slots mostly settled

Notably, regarding Medicaid expansion, one of the biggest issues in Utah this year,  Legislative District 8 candidate Gage Froerer's approach to the issue is pretty typical of the rest of the GOP candidates, who seem to be reading from the same script, a script no doubt authored by those out-of-state political meddlers, American Legislative Council (ALEC):

Froerer favors a work requirement in order to access Medicaid services and also questioned the federal government’s ability to reimburse the state’s costs into the future.

In our view the Democratic Party candidates generally adopt a more sensible and humane approach, we think, as is expressed by Legislative District 9 candidate Steve Olsen:

“... [A]ny unbiased examination of the facts are clear that simple Medicaid expansion would have been the smarter fiscal choice (as the Governor’s blue ribbon committee reported),” Olsen said, “and the only reason we didn’t do it was because the name ‘Obama’ was attached to it.”

Seems it's only paranoid GOP candidates who are obsessed with possible "freeloaders," we guess.

And here's a story quote which we believe stuck out like a sore thumb:

Attempts to reach [Legislative District 10 candidate Dixon] Pitcher by phone were unsuccessful and he did respond to emails.

Pitcher isn't much interested in participating in an election campaign, we suppose.  If for only that reason alone, we believe his Democratic opponent, Eric Irvine (whom we've already endorsed for a variety of other reasons), deserves your vote, in Legislative District 10,

P.S.: Regarding the Weber County Government races, it's a shame that so many (GOP) candidates are running unopposed, and that Weber County voters don't have more choices,  we'll add.

Next, Ms. McKitrick also provides a particularly robust story, concerning  one of the four proposition-type measures appearing on November ballots, i.e., Weber County Proposition 1. Read up, folks.  This is by far one of the most informative election writeups that the Standard-Examiner has carried during the current election cycle:

• Weber County voters will determine if RAMP tax gets renewed

Our take? This ballot measure ought to be approved by Weber County voters with a hearty slam-dunk.

We'll also helpfully provide our own handy pre-election candidate information page, for those readers who'd like to dig a little bit deeper:

• 2014 Weber County General Election Candidate Roster

The floor's open for you comments as always, O Gentle Weber County Forum Readers.