Mormon Monotony | Hits & Misses | Salt Lake City Weekly

Mormon Monotony 

Also: Read My Shurtlips, Sliding By

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Mormon Monotony
Enough already! Yes, it’s a Mormon miracle that two of our presidential candidates are LDS. And we’ve heard, ad nauseum, that there are voters out there who don’t trust them, who still think polygamy is their game and who dispute Mormons calling themselves Christian. Now we have a Salt Lake Tribune poll that tells us Republicans are OK with a Mormon president; Democrats not so much. We have speculation that Mitt Romney will be the next Mormon prophet. City Weekly’s Eric Peterson found long-shot candidate Fred Karger starting a Website of crazy Mormon beliefs, not to be outdone by the Trib’s Peggy Fletcher Stack’s blog setting us all straight on what is or isn’t Mormon doctrine. We live in the hub of Mormonism and that presumes a certain fascination with the religion. But is this the only or all-consuming presidential issue?

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Read My Shurtlips
You gotta love a politician who calls bullshit. That’s what happened with Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and a brief legislative effort to insert the Utah Legislature into a lawsuit to defend House Bill 497, the enforcement-only immigration law. Gov. Gary Herbert is the only named defendant in the federal lawsuit. But that didn’t stop Rep. Curtis Oda, R-Clearfield, from enlisting 18 legislators and an AG wannabe, Sean Reyes, from working outside the system to get what they want. In a Read My Lips moment, Shurtleff said, “Let me make this very clear: It is not happening,” and stopped the effort in its tracks. But first, he managed to take a shot at the lawmakers who tried to thwart the Utah Constitution and Reyes, who he said was just trying to out-conservative Shurtleff’s favorite son, John Swallow.

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Sliding By
The citizens of Draper are holding their breath after the city council unanimously OK’d a settlement deal with Zions Bank over the ill-fated Suncrest development. Zions, since 2009, has claimed that city actions forced the development into bankruptcy and scared off potential buyers. The bank wanted Suncrest Drive reconstructed—too much clay, too much slide potential—but the city balked at the $25 million price tag. Now, in what some residents call a secret deal without public input, the city has agreed to put $800,000 toward an upgraded pump station and to exempt some areas from the city’s geologic protection ordinance. The development will move forward, but possibly with hefty hikes in city taxes. Maybe cities need to be more careful in their efforts to help private developers finance questionable deals.

Twitter: @KathyBiele

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About The Author

Katharine Biele

Katharine Biele

Bio:
A City Weekly contributor since 1992, Katharine Biele is the informed voice behind our Hits & Misses column. When not writing, you can catch her working to empower voters and defend democracy alongside the League of Women Voters.

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