More Background Noise
November had a bumper crop of Utah strangeness.
First was the three-way pissing contest between Mayor Rocky, the SLC Town Council, and the LDS Church over the Main Street Plaza easement. In a deal brokered by prior mayor Dee Dee Coridini during her term., the LDS purchased the one block of Main Street that passes through their two blocks of buildings to create a pedestrian plaza and place of serenity between Temple Square and the Conference Center. They paid the city $8M. In return they agreed to the City retaining an easement that allows unrestricted public access and thoroughfare through the plaza. The sticking point is that the LDS wants to regulate behavior on the plaza - no swearing, no smoking, no drinking, etc - with the huge issue being no protesting. Now the LDS is unhappy about that and wants the city to give up the easement. Rocky Anderson has a slight problem with that - some little concern about First Amendment rights and all - and believes that the easement is absolutely essential to maintaining public access and the same free speech rights that any citizen has on any other city street or park.
Then we have the case where a teacher of a high school junior English class in a question on a mid-term exam asked the students to compare the precepts of transcendentalism with "The Words of Wisdom" (an LDS book that offers up virtues to live by). The non-LDS kids understandably felt they were at a bit of a disadvantage. And people outside of Utah wonder why there aren't Mormon private schools like there are Catholic and Jewish schools elsewhere. It often seems our public schools are Mormon schools.
Finally there's the mayor of Virgin who claims that "there isn't and never was a $25 fee for people wanting to appear before the town council", despite it being the first rule on the list of regulations for addressing the council at their public meetings. What’s more, even after you pay your fee, the topic still has to be approved by the Mayor. To be sure that you would actually be heard, an issue of the town newsletter suggested that prospective speakers keep their comments “positive”. When the Mayor was asked about this curious fee in a theoretic democracy, his response was "Well, we never actually charged anyone, and if we did I'm sure it was a mistake." When a number of people produced receipts or cancelled checks showing they paid the fee, his response was "Well, it's a fee that didn't have to be paid." So once again the mayor of Virgin proves he and the town council are raving idiots and bald-faced liars. This is the same town that passed an ordinance 2 years ago requiring every household in Virgin to have a gun. Is it the water down there? Is it radiation? Are they all smoking crack? Is there some kind of celestial vortex that attracts lunatics to that part of Utah?
