Dramatic Times
There are politics in everything, but you don’t really expect your boss to make political threats. That’s what happened when David Siegel told his 7,000 employees that some of them would be out the door if Barack Obama wins the presidency again. Siegel’s Westgate Resorts manages properties in Park City. If it’s hard to feel pity for Siegel, a profligate spender, there are some who think he’s right on. Take a reader comment on the Siegel story at DeseretNews.com: “If Obama wins, the day after the election will be forever known as ‘Black Wednesday,’ for all the businesses that will be forced to close, and all the families that will lose their livelihood. And the day after that will forever be known as ‘Red Thursday,’ the day the regime uses its deliberate homicide of private industry as an excuse to nationalize all industry, declare martial law, make us all slaves of the government and take its best shot at killing off America.”
Sweet Victory
It’s good to know that even the most powerful force in Utah—the LDS Church—will listen and heed small voices. The church decided to ditch plans to build a nine-story building in its expansion of Provo’s Missionary Training Center near Brigham Young University. Neighbors went ballistic at the thought of a high rise in their backyard, and were not happy that the issue became an ecclesiastical one. More than anything, neighbors wanted to be included in the decision-making. Apparently, that will happen now, and expansion dialogue will continue. After all, there may be lots more missionaries now that the church has lowered the eligible age.
Lesson Not Learned
Here comes the education
establishment again
pretending it’s fixing a
problem without addressing the elephant
in the room. Some key legislators were just thrilled at the opening of Innovations High School in Salt Lake City because, wow, kids could just get online here and work to their hearts’ content and only have to spend four hours a day on campus. The problem is that Innovations just popped up. It’s not a charter school and somehow managed
to avoid all hoops that other district programs had to negotiate. Maybe it’s about money. There were concerns that for-profit online companies were siphoning bucks from the district. But while the idea of more and better online learning has merit, the district’s other high schools aren’t being brought along, and remain in the virtual dark ages.
About The Author
Katharine Biele
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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