GRAMA Queen
Lesson No. 1 on how bad laws are made: Base them on one bad person. That's just what the Logan Municipal Council is about to do. It's all about shutting down one man's penchant for seeking government records. Brady Eames "has submitted 127 GRAMA requests to Logan city since July 2017, has appealed to the mayor of Logan 19 times and appealed to the State Records Committee three times (all three appeals were denied)," the Herald Journal reports. The operative word here is "denied." The state's Government Records Access and Management Act allows cities to charge for public records, but it never encourages them to be open, to create a public portal online, or to simply grant a request. Eames has taken the requesting business too far, but now, it's likely the public will suffer. The city wants to create a common email address for requests, which might be a good idea. It's where those requests go from there that's the problem.
Hobophobia
You just have to wonder—if it's this hard to develop a long-abandoned mall site, how are we ever going to site homeless shelters around the county? It's taken a decade to finally get to the demolition stage for the old Cottonwood Mall—but not without a lot of angst, legal wrangling and public outcry. So consider the "plan" to place smaller homeless centers around the state. Yes, there are three now under construction, including one in South Salt Lake, which is none too happy about it. While there are legitimate questions, the NIMBY factor is overwhelming. Did you know that hobophobia is a real thing? "It is an irrational and persistent fear of homeless people, bums or beggars," according PsycholoGenie. Just ask the Inn Between, a hospice for dying homeless people, what kind of welcome it's received.
Highway to Hell
Thank you Salt Lake Tribune for counting the ways people who drink are flummoxed by the law. Things like you can't go to your favorite "dining club" anymore because it's now a bar, and you know, the kids will be forever altered by the sight of alcohol. And, oh, the signs! "This premise is licensed as a bar, not a restaurant." And then there's the Zion Curtain, designed to keep kids from seeing a drink being poured. In Utah, we must protect ourselves from ourselves. Most evident is the prominent attempts by the governor and other sadly misinformed individuals to scuttle the medical cannabis initiative. The thinking here? If you start with something non-hallucigenic that comes from something that is, well, it's a slippery slope to hell. Stay away from booze and pot, and go for the Zanax. It will make you forget the silly laws.
