Dear Editor:
I want to commend your summer intern Caleb Diehl for a fine season of writing, and thank your management for hiring such students. I do not know Caleb personally. He was kind and polite enough to chat with me, one old enough to be his grandmother, as we waited for the finishers of Jupiter Peak Steeplechase. One year out of high school and with just the right words, he conveys the essence of an event in a captivating way.
I just read his "Guest Editorial" on the Rockport Fire, Aug 21-23 edition. I don’t live close enough to be threatened by the flames, but close enough that I took a photo of the smoke moments after it ignited. I’m sure many others in the same, safe position, had this event in the forefront of their thoughts. Although we might have the same general notion, how many of us could express it the way Caleb did? "Even secular commentators wheel out the phrase (act of God) to try to explain the inexplicable. Investigating a lightning flash for a reason traps us in myopia, scanning a wasteland for details."
Maybe this style of writing is not what newspapers look for when they hire staff. In my perfect world, they would. Thank you Caleb, for making my summer just a little bit better. I’d say good luck in the future, but to paraphrase Seneca, "may your preparation meet opportunity".
Becky Yih
Park City
(Editor’s note: We feel the same way. Friday was Caleb’s last day before returning to Lewis and Clark College for his sophomore year where he was just promoted to an editor’s position at the school paper.)
Sportsmen unite to preserve Book Cliffs
Dear editor:
We sportsmen are pretty passionate about what we do. That’s why we spend so much time, money, and energy to fish and hunt in places that we know and love.
Even if we live in big cities, many carry with us small town values: love of faith, family, and country; knowing and appreciating the value of hard work and determination. If there’s a downside to that, it may be that we’re too quick to trust. When someone looks us the eye and tells something, we tend to believe them. Handshakes and a man’s word still matter to us.
That’s why we sportsmen aren’t happy with how the State Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA) treated us and our community last week. We’ve been working for many months with Congressman Rob Bishop, Governor Gary Herbert, and a whole bunch of people to break up a log jam when it comes to the management of public lands in Utah–to find a common sense deal that allows energy development to move forward and that helps fund our schools while still conserving the places where we love to hunt and fish. SITLA has been a partner in that process–or so we thought–until they held a closed door meeting last week and voted to lease the heart of the Book Cliffs Roadless Area for energy development, just days after they joined us on a tour of the area to highlight its wildlife values and to underscore its importance as a potential linchpin in any deal.
That one act of double-talk threatened to unravel the whole deal, a deal that requires the open and honest participation of all concerned.
Thankfully, we sportsmen have friends who realize the importance our members and the hundreds of thousands of us who call Utah home. Those who represent us in Washington–Congressmen Bishop, Stewart, and Chaffetz–as well as those who represent us here at home in the Utah legislature and Governor’s Office, have all reaffirmed their commitment to move forward with an open, honest, and collaborative process. We look forward to working with them to resolve long-standing arguments over the management of our public lands, and we value their leadership on this issue.
We also understand that the energy company, Anadarko, is caught in the middle of this debacle, and may not have been aware that the Book Cliffs was such an important component in the land exchange discussions To their credit, when they learned of the significance of the Book Cliffs to this process, they and the Western Energy Alliance stepped forward and offered to help find a solution that would allow them to move forward with exploration and production in many locations while still protecting areas with the highest value to sportsmen.
We hope SITLA follows Anadarko’s lead and re-engages in this process in a more honest way. Join us in an effort to solve some of these issues once and for all–a resolution that benefits not only sportsmen, but school children and everyone else who values and relies on our public lands. We may not agree on everything, but if we work together, the broad outlines of a principled compromise can and will take shape.
We can get this done honestly, fairly, openly–because that’s the way we work.
ron Bateman
President
Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife
Ryan Benson
President
Big Game Forever
Bill Christensen
Regional Director
Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation
Miles Moretti
President
Mule Deer Foundation
Casey Snider
Utah Coordinator
Trout Unlimited
Ken Theis
Utah Coordinator
Backcountry Hunters and Anglers
No Truth and A Lot of Taxation
Letter to the Editor
The Wasatch County Council, acting as the Wasatch County Fire Special Service District Board, decided to hold two separate meetings in August as their required truth in taxation public hearing for their proposed 80 percent tax increase. Since the Council chose not to release a detailed budget for the public, many fiscal questions were asked of them at the first meeting on August 7. Councilman Capson offered to come back in two weeks to answer them all. That did not happen. The citizens showed up again, but the answers were not given. As a result, some citizens have filed a referendum petition to put this 80 percent tax increase on the November 2014 ballot, for the citizens to decide if a tax increase is appropriate.
The vote of the board to raise taxes for fire service approximately 80 percent without answering well thought out questions was a clear notice to the taxpayer that the public hearing resulted in NO TRUTH and A LOT of TAXATION. You were elected to work for and represent the public taxpayer. Requiring the taxpayer to return to another meeting where you promised answers and didn’t deliver would constitute a poor performance evaluation from your bosses the taxpayers. Please take the opportunity to use this evaluation as education to assist you in correcting your work duties. A copy of this letter will be kept on file in your personnel record.
Gary Oliverson
Kamas