It's Not Us, It's UTA
Dear Esteemed Utah Transit Authority board members and BFFs: You know we in the Legislature love you, and we promise that, no matter what, we will still play golf with you, go to Jazz games and take international trips together. But here's the deal. Some riders think they need better service, like at night, on weekends and on holidays. And you think that the only way to get that is to raise the sales tax for transit by 45 percent. Well, you have to realize that we are mostly a conservative Republican group, and raising taxes is not good for our platform. We have thought long and hard about this, and have come to the painful conclusion that UTA must come into the fold and become a government agency. We understand that your bonuses will suffer, and it's possible you will lose some friends in development. Unfortunately, our venture into the public-private domain is a failure. Please understand, and visit our website to contribute to our campaigns. Yours forever, the Utah Legislature.
Take Our Guns
Just as the nation is moving toward a kind of civic education that might make students more docile, students and faculty at Utah State University were making noise. They were protesting the cancellation of blogger Anita Sarkeesian's speech because the college refused to pat down the audience for weapons. You've got to love Rep. Curt Oda, who says Sarkeesian was overreacting to a vicious death threat and that people should be able to open carry on campuses. Never mind the constitutional tension between the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness and the Second Amendment. This is Utah, where guns trump life. And it's the only state to block campuses from restricting guns.
Like It or Not
Leave it to Realtor czar and former Senate President Al Mansell to light a fire under the prison relocation folks. Saratoga Springs just gave an enthusiastic thumbs down to a prison in its city, but Mansell, in a Deseret News piece, says he thinks the state needs to push harder. Developers like Mansell are salivating at the thought of building on the Draper prison site, and want to get the prison gone. Tooele County, in fact, was split on locating a prison there. But where will it go? The relocation commission has a list of 27 locations, but it's not telling what they are. Obviously, transparency would result in controversy, given that the thinking's already been done on this issue.
