Katharine Biele

Miss: Press Play Let’s just say it would be awkward for The Salt Lake Tribune to note former staffer Bryan Schott’s big win. Schott was apparently fired—according to the Utah Legislature, at least—because he offered to buy banned books for kids. I mean, who wouldn’t? But that’s beside the point. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has revived Schott’s lawsuit against the Legislature over its refusal to grant him a press credential. So no, it isn’t over, but this is one more notch in the belt of MAGA’s effort to suppress free thinking and, of course, a free press. Schott, publisher of Utah Political Watch, doesn’t have a big organization behind him. He’s on his own, making him vulnerable financially and professionally. The fact that he was denied press credentials—after covering the Legislature for years with other media—has been called “viewpoint discrimination.” They don’t like what he’s saying, and very few local outlets have covered the issue. Meanwhile, The Pentagon has barred journalists from its press office for similar reasons and an historic ship bearing the message “Save the Clean Water Act” was taken out of the New York Harbor parade. In America, we shouldn’t be sanitizing everything according to one point of view.

Miss: Arch Rivals Let’s talk about Donald Trump’s Triumphal Arch and the bad taste it leaves for America. We know the president envies the French and their historically golden vision of life. That has been a main motivator in his push to build a bigger and better arch in Washington, D.C. So why is another arch reportedly coming to Utah, a state where gold is less important than coal and where premium open space is revered? No doubt the sculptor, Sabin Howard, was dumbstruck by the pushback from the Capitol Hill neighborhood, and perhaps the larger Salt Lake community. The proposed Grand Liberty Arch and its companion tomahawk-waving statue have just given Howard grief, in the way the Box Elder data center did for officials there. Not that the two projects are the same—except that both lacked significant public input. With the emphasis on autocracy, public input is anathema—even as the sculptor himself insists that people just don’t understand art. That may be true, but it’s also condescending.

Hit: Me, Myself and I The best part about Sen. Todd Weiler’s new position with the Sutherland Institute is all the Monday morning quarterbacking. Sutherland Institute has been around since 1995 as a conservative think tank that focuses on family and limited government. On one hand, it supports school vouchers. On another, it decries partisan gerrymandering. The institute has run through as many presidents as it has policies, and Weiler—R, Woods Cross—will now have to navigate the think tank’s politics while working as a Utah senator. “A sitting senator should not be paid to lead an organization whose purpose is to influence public policy,” said patient advocate Christine Stenquist. Maybe, but it’s happened several times before. Former Sen. Howard Stephenson ran the Utah Taxpayers Association, and the late Sen. Ed Mayne also ran the Utah AFL-CIO. One internet commenter who “likes” Weiler, asked if he would give up “snarky Twitter Todd,” and Stephenson wondered if Weiler is really aligned with Sutherland’s values. We’ll see who influences what when Weiler’s center-right politics meets Sutherland’s far-right.

Hits & Misses

Miss: In the Zone There’s no question that Salt Lake needs more housing. The issue is how, where and when. The latest is a 15-story midrise building across from Trolley Square. And when they say “midrise,” they mean something smaller than the Empire State Building. The building would house condos, which apparently has created great glee from the City Council. The problem is what exactly that means. One housing advocate, Cindy Cromer, was disgusted, partly because the city would have to change both zoning and the master plan. “There’s no sense to work on a master plan if the language is just completely ignored,” she said. An Instagram comment noted the “increasingly frequent habit of developers asking for zoning exemptions and master plan changes for individual owners and specific... parcel zoning.” And while the Council seems thrilled with the tower’s ownership component, for-sale units often go to buyers who then rent them out to other tenants. “The city is naïve,” Cromer said, adding that, in her opinion, there’s no predictability, no protection for view corridors and no assurance of affordability.

Hits & Misses

Miss: Church and State If you are a longtime Utahn, you probably remember the Deseret News’ Church News, a special edition that came with the newspaper. Now that so much has gone digital, you need a special subscription to get the official LDS word. So it has been up to other news organizations to cover The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in more secular ways. The Salt Lake Tribune has taken this mission to the max and offers up church news that, frankly, most people don’t care about. Remember a front-page story on Mormon underwear changes? This week, the Trib featured a lengthy story about which LDS are the most devout in the world. Another story talked about an LDS graphic novel and another, with wider interest, on Utah County prosecutors not alerting church lawyers if bishops back defendants. LDS author Carol Lynn Pearson got front-page coverage while the death of a well-known Latino businesswoman was relegated to an inside page. Utahns are interested in religion news, but might find more interest in how it affects state and local politics.

Hit: Here Comes the Sun Barring waterboarding our elected officials, it seems unlikely that they’ll recognize climate change any time soon. And why do we even mention it? Let’s start with a report from May, when solar became Utah’s top source of energy. Fox13 did ask Rep. Celeste Maloy what she thought and got the same tired talking point—“all-of-the-above” approach. This, despite the Trump administration’s disdain for alternate energy sources. The Salt Lake Tribune came out swinging on its editorial page. “(Gov. Spencer) Cox and other state leaders should … be confident that they are holding the vast promise of renewable energy in their back pocket.” But when you talk about pockets, officials see only dollar bills coming from risky bets on nuclear and of course, the administration’s strange love of coal. Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment’s Brian Moench, who rarely holds back, asks the governor if he thinks we’re stupid, especially with the bet on nuclear. That, of course, is a rhetorical question.

Hits & Misses

Miss: Power Play When Utahns elected Spencer Cox as governor, they did so because of his big brain, knowing it would spare the people from thinking too hard. And so it is with the state’s newfound love of nuclear energy and its $1.8-million billboard campaign touting the benefits. As if billboards aren’t themselves a blight, so is the propaganda they espouse. The state’s elected officials simply cannot bring themselves to belittle fossil fuels in any way. We’ve heard that they can be made clean and safe, and so all’s well. And apparently investing in solar or wind energy threatens to pique the negative interest of Donald Trump. “Utahns need to hear —the dangers, tradeoffs—not nuclear industry promotional pablum that distorts or diminishes the reality that nuclear power is not clean and certainly not safe as these ads claim,” said Downwinder advocate Steve Erickson. And while he and other environmental groups seek relief from the Federal Trade Commission, we’ll be left wondering if bananas are dangerous.