I’m pretty appreciative of where we live, but a week like this one really brings it to mind. The powder on Tuesday was incredible, although quickly chopped up. The blue sky the rest of the week was just about as good. The world may be going to hell in a heavily mortgaged hand basket, but I can’t think of a better place to ride out the storm. It’s a scary place out there in the broader world.
For example, I had a downright terrifying haircut in Salt Lake last week. It was frightening on several levels, not the least of which was that the barber cut it a lot shorter than usual. That uncovered a nascent bald spot I had been able to pretend didn’t exist. He also set loose a cowlick that has been contained for years. But the most alarming thing was the conversation. This was not my usual barber. I had been out in the southwest corner of Salt Lake Valley looking at some stuff for the ranch. It was redneck country, and the barber made Rush Limbaugh sound left of Lenin. After a long rant about how Obama was destroying capitalism by fussing with the free markets, he launched into a discussion about the recent increases in the prices of guns and ammunition.
Apparently he feels a need to stockpile guns and ammo just in case somebody tries to force health insurance or tax cuts on him against his will. But the price of ammunition has soared since the election of that “socialist.” Then, with no apparent sense of irony, he demanded that the government do something to regulate the price of ammunition. All of this while I’m sitting there, kind of wrapped up in a cloth, and this guy has a collection of sharp objects, some of them held close to my head. Unless this guy does a lot more $10 haircuts than I can imagine, it seems like he would be somebody who would come out better for the restacking of the chips that is coming at us. I doubt he is making over $250,000 cutting hair next to a feed store. But he’s locked and loaded, just in case.
The Legislature winds up its annual malfeasance this week. On the plus side, the much-maligned private club system of bars will disappear. No drunk driver was ever kept off the road because of the rigors of having to join a private club. Requiring tourists to fill out paperwork and pay $5 to enter a club so exclusive that no one had ever been denied membership was stupid. Thanks in large part to the Governor and DABC Chairman (and PC local) Gordon Strachan, Zion has become a little more normal.
But one rational act is about all they could muster. In the year’s most blatant misuse of legislative authority, the Legislature passed a statute that gives private landowners, in partnership with the military, the ability to avoid local planning and zoning to build military recreation facilities. But only in the state’s less populous counties. When push comes to shove, there is probably only one situation in the entire state where this act would apply Quinn’s Junction. The property owner wants to build an 800-room, 5-star hotel and accompanying movie studio with freeway-ramp views.
After an unreasonably long standoff with County officials on a development proposal, the property owner got Senator Mark Madsen of Lehi (guess which party) to propose legislation that reads like it applies everywhere in the state, but really is a very specific end-run approval for this particular campaign contributor er, property owner. If that sounds like bad government, it is. The Quinn’s Junction location is difficult because of the traffic problem on Highway 248. The proposed hotel is bigger than the Grand America Hotel in downtown Salt Lake, plus the proposed movie studio. It dwarfs the St. Regis and Montage projects, and instead of being at the resorts it is intended to serve, it’s out there in the sagebrush. It’s a Motel 6 location with 5-star ambitions. But under the proposed legislation (it has yet to be signed by the Governor), local government entities would have no say in the project. Local service providers like fire, water, sewer, and local facilities like schools and roads are simply left out of the approval process.
Senator Madsen has effectively wrapped this lunacy in the flag and said that, because it’s for the troops, the rest of us should just buck up and pass a bond issue to build a new fire station, sewer plant or whatever. And the 1,000 or so employees needed to operate the hotel will be living where? A bad project supported by bad legislation and wrapped in the flag is still a bad project.
Tom Clyde served as Park City attorney in the 1980s and is the author of “More Dogs On Main Street.” He has been a columnist at The Park Record for more than 20 years.