Just weeks before the Utah Democratic Party was scheduled to elect a new leader in 2017, seven female activists accused one candidate — the party’s former vice chairman and treasurer — of multiple incidents of sexual misconduct.

Soon after, Rob Miller dropped out of the race and left the party.

Now, Miller wants to run again for chair and even spoke as a candidate at three county conventions last week in rural Utah. But the party says it never received his campaign paperwork by Saturday’s deadline and that he is therefore ineligible to run.

“I believe it’s a lie,” he told The Salt Lake Tribune. “My [online] application was sent in before we went into Spanish Fork Canyon [on the way to the Carbon County convention Saturday].... It went through just the same way it went through when I filed for another candidate.”

Miller said Tuesday that he planned to speak with the Utah Lieutenant Governor’s Office to see what his options are; Justin Lee, the office’s director of elections, told The Salt Tribune it has no authority over a private organization like the Utah Democratic Party.

It’s possible Miller could contest his ineligibility for chair with the state party, in which case Alex Cragun, the organization’s executive director, said it would be up to the rules committee to determine whether he could run.

The allegations against Miller, outlined in a letter sent to former state Democratic Party Chairman Peter Corroon just weeks before the 2017 party convention, alleged he had kissed and hugged women without consent, stroked their hair without permission, pulled down his pants to show Mormon undergarments and turned one supposed job interview into a date invitation. After the signed letter became public, two male Democratic activists joined the seven women to say they had also witnessed inappropriate behavior by Miller.

Miller denied all the allegations, calling them a false, last-minute “political ploy” by women who wanted to elect a female leader at the state Democratic Convention. Since then, he contends the party has continued to work against him, setting up a “kangaroo court” in a trial that left him with no rights or ability to defend himself.

That trial never came to fruition. The first complaint the letter signers filed was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. After they refiled the complaint, the party again found it did not have authority over Miller but allowed the letter signers the opportunity to appeal that decision in a trial. But both parties ultimately requested that proceeding be canceled.

Jennifer Miller-Smith, one of the original letter signers, was present for all three of Miller’s speeches Saturday and said she was disappointed that the party hadn’t done more to prevent him from running.

“I am not surprised that Rob Miller attempted to run for state party chair,” she said. “I predicted this for months and months and there’s no reason, in fact, why he shouldn’t, because the state party has not moved forward on this issue.”

In an effort to close “loopholes” in its old policy, the party adopted at the end of last year new anti-harassment rules clarifying that anyone who has voluntarily resigned a position with the state or any county Democratic Party in Utah after a complaint has been filed and before it has been resolved can still be investigated.

But Nadia Mahallati, who crafted and requested those policy changes, said she believes the party could have done more and should have adopted stronger amendments she’d proposed.

“It shows a lack of leadership from the state party,” said Mahallati, who is currently running for party vice chairwoman. “They had been told time and time again by me and other people that ‘This is a real possibility [that Miller could run]; something needs to be done.’ And over and over again, [they said], ‘Nope, there’s nothing we can do.’”

After his long history and contentious exit from the party, Miller remains unaffiliated but said he still has his “Democratic values.”

“I still love the majority of the delegates and the people that I served for all those years," he said. "I think it was more of a freedom of free speech to go out [to the conventions] and kind of say what’s important here and also to get myself on the public record. I’ll tell you this: I had no intention of ever becoming chair of the Utah Democratic Party when I filed.”

Instead, Miller says he wanted to speak to the rural communities he’d had a good relationship with during his tenure, to talk to them about some of the issues facing the party and to impress upon them the importance of choosing good candidates for top party leadership posts.

While Miller says he didn’t find out until he arrived in Carbon County that his campaign paperwork hadn’t gone through, he was allowed to speak to delegates as a candidate at that and two other conventions that day in Emery and Sanpete counties.

“I haven’t been to a Democratic event ... since the convention, which I went to reluctantly,” Miller told Carbon County Democrats. “But I wanted to stand up and look people in the eye and let them know that I’m not Brett Kavanaugh. I can’t say that I’ve never been inappropriate in my life. I don’t have the calendar that clears me. Men have to do better. If I ever hugged somebody or kissed them on the cheek and made them uncomfortable, I truly am apologetic.”

“You were always available for Carbon County,” someone can be heard telling Miller after his speech in a video sent to The Salt Lake Tribune. “I think you would make a great state chair.”

Miller-Smith said it was “surreal" and “disappointing” to hear Miller’s speeches and see the largely positive reception he received in rural Utah after he suffered no consequences for his actions from the party.

“I mean, our culture is always changing and we have our state party race right now but ... it looks like harassment has no consequences right now,” she said.

The Utah Democratic Party’s elections will take place June 22 at Park City High School. Candidates for party leader include current Chairwoman Daisy Thomas, Becky Moss, Jeff Merchent, Kathie Darby, Salt Lake County Democratic Chairman Q. Dang, Robert Comstock and Wayne Holland, a former three-term state party chairman.

Lake Havasu City, Arizona • An Arizona county attorney wants to investigate allegations of unspecified voter fraud during last year’s municipal elections in a rural community on the Arizona-Utah border that is home to a polygamous sect.

Today's News-Herald in Lake Havasu City reports that Mohave County Attorney Matt Smith is requesting $8,000 in county funds to investigate. Smith declined to provide specifics about the allegation but says he'll share more at a county board meeting on April 15.

Members of a polygamous group called the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS, kept control of the town council in Colorado City, Arizona, during the 2018 elections.

Colorado City Vice Mayor Anthus Barlow says the potential investigation is a surprise and deferred questions to the county, which oversaw the election.

Mohave County Recorder Kristi Blair declined to comment.

Spring has barely begun, but water is thundering out of the Wasatch Mountains’ reservoirs as dam operators clear room to receive the liquid assets stored in a snowpack that is up to twice its normal size.

In coming weeks, that snow will turn to water and pour down canyons, bringing both the promise of increased supplies and the peril of flooding.

Water managers like to see the snow stay in the mountains as long as possible, but that can lead to floods if the weather quickly warms. Utah’s big snowpacks will continue growing at the upper elevations under a weather pattern that is expected to bring more snow and cooler temperatures through the end of April, according to speakers at Tuesday’s monthly water supply meeting hosted by the National Weather Service in Salt Lake City.

“High-elevation sites are going to continue to gain and the lower-elevation sites are really starting to lose,” said Troy Brosten, a hydrologist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service. “Now that we have the snowpack, we are worried about how it might come off.”

Coming after Utah’s driest year on record, the snow loads around the state cheer water managers like Scott Paxman, assistant general manager of the Weber Basin Water Conservancy District. But they will have a tricky balancing act in dam operations this spring, holding back sufficient water to ensure full reservoirs deep into summer, when water demand is highest.

“It’s a fine line,” said Paxman, whose district operates a string of reservoirs on the Weber and Ogden rivers, including Pineview at the top of Ogden Canyon. That drainage is expected to produce stream flows 163 percent of average this year, according to weather service hydrologist Brian McInerney.

“Right now, there is well over the volume in the snowpack that would fill that reservoir, even if it was empty,” Paxman said. “We try to forecast what releases we need to do to fill the reservoir, but we don’t want to flood [Ogden] Canyon either.”

In other words, the district wants to maintain enough room in Pineview so that it will not be forced to discharge dangerously high flows down the narrow canyon filled with homes. The reservoir, with capacity for 110,000 acre-feet of water, is about 60 percent full, and the district is releasing about 800 cubic feet per second, trying to match the volume coming in from the Ogden River’s headwaters. Paxman expects that flow to be increased in the coming days.

“We like to see the warm and cool because it prolongs the runoffs and decreases the chances of flooding,” Paxman said. “A lot you can’t anticipate. That’s why we have to keep room in the reservoirs so we can control those flows. We anticipate all our reservoirs to fill. It was a great year.”

Utah water managers remain concerned about the possibility of a chaotic runoff, like the one that occurred in 1983. That May, sandbag-channeled floodwaters rolled down Salt Lake City’s State Street and 1300 South.

“How long is the stormy weather going to continue and how is that going to affect peak flows?” McInerney asked. “If you look at the big flood years, it was due to a wet spring that just kept going. If you look at 1983, it was an average year, but they went all the way to the third week of May, and then it started melting. Could than happen? Probably not, but it’s a possibility.”

The threat of flooding is worth the trouble, considering the dire need for a fresh infusion of water into the state’s drought-stressed supplies.

On average, the state’s reservoirs are 65 percent full, and all but a few are expected to completely fill this spring, according to Gary Henrie of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Red Fleet and Steinaker, both fed by streams off the Uinta Mountains, won’t fill, nor will Utah’s largest reservoir, the seriously depleted Lake Powell. It will bottom out at 36 percent of its capacity this month, but rebound to 48 percent this spring.

“It will take 10 or 15 good years for us to top it off,” Henrie said.

The 2018-19 water year will go into the record books as one of Utah’s best, nearly on par with 2010-11, but the dry soils, a vestige of last year’s scarce precipitation, will temper the runoff picture.

“February and March were phenomenal,” Brosten said. Across the state’s hydraulic basins, each of those months added 6 inches of water equivalence to the snowpack, up to 8 inches in some places.

“We have double the snowpack from this time last year. Across the state, we are 139 percent [of the 30-year average] with 21.1 inches of water,” Brosten said, noting that "2011 kept climbing through April and peaked in May. We have more wet weather coming. We could keep climbing and have a similar year.”

Not only is the wet weather continuing, but it also is cooling off as well, according to meteorologist Glen Merrill of the weather service.

“We are going to see snow drop down to the valley floors by tomorrow [Wednesday]. Midelevations could do decent as well. It’s pretty much a statewide event,” Merrill said. The current storm marks a pattern shift that could keep the snow in the mountains even longer.

“The bottom line is the temperatures are going to remain cool, if not very cool for the next 10 days and likely thereafter with periodic storm activity,” Merrill said. "Over the last month, in between storms, we warmed up quite a bit. In this scenario, there’s going to be a higher potential that we won’t warm as much between storm events. At the higher elevations, I don’t see much potential for those sites to lose ground. If anything, they are going to keep climbing.”

So with April’s expected activity, this year’s water story still has another chapter. While the prognostications are good, no one is sure how it will end.

In the Jazz’s final home game of the 2018-19 regular season on Tuesday night, they did a little bit of everything to send the Vivint Smart Home Arena faithful home happy.

Donovan Mitchell scored a career-high-tying 46 points, and added seven rebounds and four assists. Rudy Gobert contributed 20 points, 10 rebounds, and two blocks, while dominating his matchup with All-Star counterpart Nikola Jokic.

And with a 118-108 victory over the Denver Nuggets, they reached a symbolic milestone with their 50th victory of the year, and clinched no worse than the fifth seed in the Western Conference playoffs.

They’ll close out their regular season Wednesday in Los Angeles against the Clippers, then will be off to the playoffs for a third consecutive season. They locked in the Western Conference’s No. 5 seed, but their opponent still is yet to be determined.

Coach Quin Snyder said afterward it was nice to see his two stars step up in a big way after the team’s lackluster performance in a stunning loss to the Lakers on Sunday night.

“Donovan and Rudy allow themselves to be coached. You can say, sometimes, things that are uncomfortable, and you can say them in front of the team, and tonight those guys responded,” he said. “The two of them against the Lakers, they weren’t very good, and they knew it. And for them to come out tonight the way they did …”

Well, quite simply, they were the deciding factor.

They got plenty of help, of course. Derrick Favors returned to the starting lineup after missing four games due to back spasms, and contributed 16 points and seven rebounds. Joe Ingles had another big night distributing the ball, racking up 13 assists to go along with 10 points and six rebounds.

But it was Mitchell and Gobert who did the heavy lifting.

The second-year guard out of Louisville was hot from the outset — draining 6 of 8 shots in the opening quarter for 17 points.

Naturally — after Snyder on Sunday lamented the team’s bad habit of not continuing to do what works — the Jazz lost much of their momentum in the second quarter. Offensively, Utah coughed up the ball seven times, which both diminished its own scoring opportunities and enabled Denver to push the ball in transition. The result? The Nuggets shot 13 of 22 in the quarter and tallied 38 points, making it a one-point game at halftime.

Denver went up a few points in the third, but the Jazz eventually righted themselves. Better ball movement led to back-to-back dunks by Favors, and a five-point advantage.

In the fourth, it was close for a time until Denver coach Mike Malone made a gamble that did not pay off.

Jokic, who will appear on some MVP ballots, picked up his fifth foul of the game with just under 10 minutes to play. Malone kept him in.

Less than two minutes later, Thabo Sefolosha drove baseline, dished to Gobert, and Jokic took a swipe to prevent the big man from dunking. With 8:12 to play, Jokic headed to the bench for good with only two points (on 1-for-6 shooting), five rebounds, and two assists in 16:03 played.

From there, the Jazz started to pull away — a 21-8 run over a late 8-minute stretch sealing the deal.

“We got four or five stops in a row, and for two minutes they didn’t score,” Gobert said. “We really fed off that, and then we got to the line, and we were able to make plays and score, but it was all about our defense.”

Of course, the late offense wasn’t bad, either. Mitchell drew raves from Snyder for being “unselfish” late in finding teammates for key scores to expand the lead: “That’s not common, when you’ve got it going like that, to call someone else’s number or get off the ball.”

Gobert, meanwhile, drew oohs and ahhs from the crowd after getting the ball in isolation at the 3-point line, putting a crossover move on Paul Millsap, and getting to the rim for an and-one.

“We have a lot left in us,” Mitchell said. “Tonight was huge — everybody stepping up and doing their part. … We are just excited to get this thing started in the playoffs.”

Who they’ll start it against remains to be seen. A first-round series vs. the Blazers could have been clinched Tuesday night with either a Rockets victory over the Thunder or a Lakers win against the Blazers, but both contests went the wrong way on last-minute shots.

Now, it will come down to Wednesday’s finales. If either the Nuggets lose to the Wolves or the Blazers fall to the Kings — or both — the Jazz will be heading to Portland. If both Denver and Portland prevail, Utah will be going to Houston to take on the Rockets. The Jazz’s game vs. the Clippers is irrelevant for Utah from a seeding perspective.

The Salt Lake City school board opening left by the death of longtime board member Heather Bennett will be filled by her son.

The Salt Lake City Board of Education voted 5-1 to appoint Samuel Bennett Hanson to serve the remainder of his mother’s term. Heather Bennett died last month at the age of 61. She had served on the school board since 2005, representing Precinct 5, which extends from the Jordan River to 1300 East, between 900 South and 2100 South.

“I am honored to serve briefly in my mother’s School Board seat and enjoyed the opportunity tonight to share ideas with an exceptional group of fellow candidates,” Hanson said in a statement. “Through my service for the remainder of this term, I hope to fuel a robust debate for the 2020 election on the issues that matter most to the constituents of Precinct 5.”

The next election for the seat is in 2020.

Hanson and eight others applied to fill the seat and were interviewed at a board meeting Tuesday.

Bennett was a well-known advocate for children’s education in Salt Lake City. She argued against vouchers for private school tuition, helped write the district’s policy banning discrimination against LGBTQ students in 2010, and supported including domestic partners on the insurance coverage for district employees. She advocated later starts for the school day, citing research that shows students perform better when they’re not up too early.

Los Angeles • Magic Johnson abruptly quit as the Los Angeles Lakers’ president of basketball operations Tuesday night, citing his desire to return to the simpler life he enjoyed as a wealthy businessman and beloved former player before taking charge of this franchise just over two years ago.

Johnson didn’t tell owner Jeanie Buss or general manager Rob Pelinka before he stepped in front of reporters about 90 minutes before the final game of the Lakers’ sixth consecutive losing season. Los Angeles was 37-44 heading into its game against Portland, missing the playoffs yet again despite the offseason addition of LeBron James.

“I want to go back to having fun,” Johnson said before fighting off tears. “I want to go back to being who I was before taking on this job. We’re halfway there with LeBron coming (last summer). I think this summer, with that other star coming in, whoever is going to bring him in, I think this team is really going to be in position to contend for a championship with the growth of the young players.”

Johnson didn’t directly tie his decision to the future of Luke Walton, but the third-year coach was widely expected to be fired by Johnson. Without using names, Johnson repeatedly mentioned Buss’ affinity for Walton, who was in place before Johnson got the job in February 2017, and Johnson’s desire not to cause upheaval between the owner and her chosen coach.

“(On Wednesday) I would have to affect somebody’s livelihood and their life,” Johnson said. “And I thought about it and I said, ‘That’s not fun for me. That’s not who I am.’ And then I don’t want to put her in the middle of us, even though she said, ‘Hey, you can do what you want to do.’ I know she has great love for him and great love for me.”

Johnson also said he is tired of being investigated or fined by the NBA for tampering when he comments on basketball on Twitter or even speaks to another organization’s player.

Johnson, a longtime broadcaster and beloved basketball figure before moving into the front office, has been investigated four times for tampering after everything from a joking comment about Paul George on Jimmy Kimmel’s talk show to his response to an email sent to him by Philadelphia’s Ben Simmons.

“I thought about Dwyane Wade retiring (Wednesday), and I can’t even tweet that out or be there,” Johnson said. “Serena Williams called me a week ago and said, ‘Will you mentor me and be on my advisory board?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I’m going to do that.’ So when Ben Simmons called and we went through the proper channels and they made me look like the bad guy out of that situation, but I didn’t do anything wrong ... I was thinking about all those times, all those guys who want me to mentor them or be a part of their lives, and I can’t even do that. I had more fun on the other side.”

Johnson mentioned other teams’ irate responses to his perceived tampering as another factor in his desire to get back to his regular life. Johnson has many thriving business interests along with ownership stakes in the Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles FC.

“Also what I didn’t like is the backstabbing and the whispering,” Johnson said, later clarifying that he didn’t mean within the Lakers, but around the league.

“I don’t like a lot of things that went on that didn’t have to go on,” Johnson said. “I hope that after (the season ends), the Lakers can head in the right direction, which we are. Injuries really hurt us, but I enjoyed working with Jeanie.”

Johnson was hired along with Pelinka in February 2017 when Buss dismissed her brother, Jim, and GM Mitch Kupchak. The Buss children’s father, Jerry, had long envisioned Johnson in a powerful role in the Lakers’ front office, and Jeanie shook up her franchise in the midst of its lengthy decline.

The Lakers have missed the playoffs in each of their three springs since Johnson and Pelinka took over. They’re finishing this season with their best record in six years, but they were eliminated from playoff contention back on March 22.

The 16-time NBA champion Lakers had never missed the NBA playoffs in more than two consecutive seasons before this six-year drought.

Johnson and Pelinka, Kobe Bryant’s former agent, didn’t know each other before they were paired by Buss, but Johnson said he worked well with Pelinka. Johnson also pointedly refused to say whether Pelinka should remain as the Lakers’ general manager, saying the decision rested solely with Buss, whom he repeatedly called “my sister.”

“She doesn’t know I’m standing here, because I knew I would be crying like a baby in front of her,” Johnson said.

Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 118-108 win over the Denver Nuggets from Salt Lake Tribune beat writer Andy Larsen.

1. Donovan Mitchell in control with 46 points

There are a lot of possible “best” Donovan Mitchell games, but this one stands up with the rest of them. There’s the obvious point that he tied his career high in points, so of course it should, but I thought he also did a very nice job of attacking while being in the flow of the offense.

At no point did he say “oh, I’m hot, I should be taking this shot right now.” Instead, he just consistently made the right reads and dramatically took advantage of them.

That highlight video is really impressive. Take a look at 2:12, where Mitchell gets an early screen from Rudy Gobert, and seems to skitter across the court to put himself in position for an easy layup. It’s not that Mitchell’s taking big strides; instead, a lot of very effective small ones get him to where he needs to go. Just like a spider.

Or watch how he sets his opponent up for the screen at 3:02. That’s just a wide-open shot, set up by the quick move to the right, then immediate crossover to the left into the screen.

Or at 3:22, look at the dribble move that is so convincing it gets Torrey Craig to jump high up in the air, even while Mitchell can continue his dribble.

Then there was the 16 free-throw attempts, which were a career-high for Mitchell. Some of that was poor Denver defense, but to be honest, there were some that he knew how to draw: by running into bodies that weren’t in legal guarding position, or drawing a defender up into the air and drawing contact. That, again, shows progress.

Mitchell was motivated to come out with a good game tonight, he said, in part due to Quin Snyder’s coaching. Snyder was furious at his team for playing poorly against the Lakers, especially his two stars. They were coached, they played well on Tuesday, and got the win.

2. Rudy Gobert’s standout contributions

The other star, obviously, is Gobert. He was phenomenal tonight, including doing some things that showed his level of confidence — and ability — entering the playoffs.

This offensive move is brilliant. 98 percent of the time, Gobert will look to his right and hand off this ball, keeping the Jazz’s play going. But he knew that he had a matchup advantage with Paul Millsap, and so he used the misdirection to get all the way to the rim for an and-one. It’s a nice crossover, too. (By the way, look how excited Mitchell is for his teammate here.)

And his blocks tonight were sensational. You can tell Nikola Jokic isn’t used to getting his fadeaway shot blocked, but it was here.

And then to time the jump correctly to block a hook shot from a 7-footer in Mason Plumlee? Blocking any kind of hook shot is nearly impossible unless you’re coming from behind to surprise the shooter, but to get a hand on this? It’s so impressive.

Gobert doesn’t deserve sole credit for Jokic’s ugly 2-point, 5-rebound, 2-assist game, probably his worst of the season. Derrick Favors was also excellent in his comeback game, and I thought about dedicating the second Triple Team point to him instead. But Gobert’s fourth-quarter performance turned a close game into a blowout late.

3. The other games

I don’t know how to explain the string of rotten luck the Jazz got tonight. Are there basketball gods? If so, it would seem the Jazz disappointed them. (On the other hand, the two players above somehow found their way to the Jazz. Maybe the draft basketball gods are different than the getting-favorable-results basketball gods?)

Coming into tonight, the Jazz wanted to play the Portland Trail Blazers, who are missing Jusuf Nurkic, their third-best player. They did not want to play the Houston Rockets, who beat them in five games last season. A Houston win over Oklahoma City or a Lakers win over the Blazers would have sealed the deal.

But no. Sure, the Rockets had a 14-point lead in the 4th quarter, but they immediately gave up a 15-0 run to the Thunder. Sure, they had a four point lead and the ball with 30 seconds to go. Somehow, they lost anyway, thanks to a Paul George three with 1 second left and some iffy play before that. Look at this win probability chart from Inpredictable.

Sigh. We move on to the Lakers/Blazers game. Sure, a Lakers win was improbable, but again, the team the Jazz were rooting for had a 2-point lead with 40 seconds left. And then the Blazers won on a Mo Harkless game winning three after a Lakers turnover. Harkless, a 27% 3-point shooter, scored the Blazers’ final 12 points.

I’m going to be honest with you guys: I continue to prefer that the Jazz play the Blazers in the first round. My preferences on this matter are largely due to my preference to be in Portland for a while over the fourth-largest city in America, Houston. Portland is nice. It has the Portland Japanese Garden, one of the most serene places I’ve ever been. It has Powell’s Books, a lovely bookstore that is an entire city block large. It has delicious Voodoo Doughnuts, fantastic soul food at Screen Door, and great tacos at Por Que No Tacos, and is generally one of my most-enjoyed stops on the road circuit.

Meanwhile, I’m still looking for redeeming factors for Houston. It will be warmer, sure, but the forecast predicts thunderstorms. And the urban sprawl of Houston — Houston has jurisdiction over a larger area than Delaware — and its lack of zoning laws means that the city itself doesn’t have a very good downtown.

In college, I wrote a final term paper about Houston for a class I took from Westminster on the structure of cities. Here’s a fun fact I found in my research: As of 2010, “According to the Houston Chronicle, there (were) approximately 550 massage parlors that have operated illegally in the city of Houston within the last two years. That means there (were) 2.61 of these establishments per 10,000 residents, but only 1.88 grocery stores per 10,000 residents within city boundaries.”

Anyway, I’m sure these last two paragraphs will draw scorn from Houstonians, so I’m asking you, Houston: sell me on your city. I want to enjoy my time there.

Salt Lake City’s new convention hotel will be a 28-story skyscraper of glass and textured aluminum bursting out on the city skyline, slim and rectangular with gently rounded edges, about 725 guest rooms and huge digital billboards on both sides of its grand entrance on 200 South.

Scheduled to open in spring 2022, the hotel will be woven into the southeast corner of the Salt Lake Palace Convention Center on 200 S. West Temple, according to preliminary plans under review at City Hall.

Its design echoes the Salt Palace’s distinct cylindrical towers with curved ends on the hotel’s vaulting guest room tower, while its spacious ground floor lobby, restaurant and corner market on 200 South will seek to bring a sense of around-the-clock vibrancy to the downtown area.

The $337 million project, backed by Salt Lake County and two private developers, will “become a true urban complement to the downtown and a center of activity for the neighborhood,” the designers say.

And with its 25,852-square-foot ballroom, copious meeting rooms and rooftop garden area, the new 616,000-square-foot hotel tower is meant to anchor what government and business officials hope will become Utah’s new magnet for big conventions that draw thousands of visitors.

“The economic vision will be complemented by an elegant urban and architectural design that is compatible with the surrounding buildings while sensitive to becoming a new urban marker and presence on the skyline,” one of the project’s developers, John Portman and Associates in Salt Lake City, wrote in city documents.

State, county, city and economic-development officials have pushed for more than a decade to build the convention hotel, based on several studies indicating a new hospitality center with large blocks of rooms and a spacious-enough meeting place would help Utah’s capital host more large conventions and events.

One previous attempt to construct the facility fell through in 2015, when Utah officials pulled out of talks with Dallas-based Omni Hotels & Resorts after they failed to agree on public financing.

The latest deal between the county, Portman and Ivins-based DDRM was clinched in November after months of negotiations, including the promise of up to $75 million in post-construction tax rebates for the two firms spread over 20 years.

The new hotel’s design is being studied by city planners, based on the developers’ application for the tower to be 335 feet tall. Although a recently tweaked city zoning ordinance allows for buildings as high as 375 feet in that downtown area, anything above 120 feet triggers a site-design review to make sure it complies with other zoning rules.

In its plan application, John Portman and Associates said the direct connection between the hotel lobby and public spaces inside the Salt Palace will help connect the project more closely with the wider downtown.

Echoing similar features in the lobby of 111 Main and covering the clock tower at The Gateway shopping center, the convention hotel will boast huge digital displays on either side of its lobby.

One will be a three-story-tall screen installed part of the way up the hotel tower on the project’s southeast corner, according to designs, and the west edge of the entrance will feature four smaller, stacked screens spread around a conical corner building, all facing 200 South.

Baloney is not free.

That's important to keep in mind in an era that finds America wading hip deep in a cascading tide of bovine effluvium. This nonsense is not harmless, not trivial, not abstract. And it always exacts a cost.

If some of us ever knew that, they have apparently forgotten. As a result, we have become a nation awash in public lies — conspiracy theories without basis, crackpot pronouncements from figures of authority, misleading, mendacious misstatements false as a four-dollar bill, delivered every minute of every day to our television, computer and smartphone screens.

Baloney is not free. Still, the price thus far has been borne by a relative few.

It has cost "only" the parent who paid in heartache when some wild-eyed conspiracist claimed that a beloved child killed in a mass shooting never existed and the shooting itself did not happen.

"Only" the African Americans who paid in deepening estrangement as the first black president was pressured into producing his birth certificate to answer baseless claims that he was not born in this country.

"Only" the pizza restaurant patrons who paid in terror as a man with a military-style assault rifle opened fire in hopes of rescuing child sex slaves he had been led to believe were imprisoned there.

But if only a few of us have paid for such baloney thus far, it looks as if the whole country might soon have to ante up.

It seems the United States is grappling with an outbreak of the measles, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting last week that there have been 465 cases so far this year. That means this is already the second worst year since the disease was reported eradicated in 2000. Measles has shown up in 19 states, including Michigan, Missouri, California, Texas, Georgia, New York and Florida. At the present rate, we will eclipse the previous record of 667 cases, set in 2014.

Officials say the resurgence of the highly contagious, sometimes-fatal disease is driven by the so-called "anti-vax" movement — parents who refuse to allow their children to be vaccinated because they believe the vaccine causes autism. Which it doesn't. The supposed link between vaccinations and autism stems from a 1998 study by a British doctor. The study was debunked, its findings retracted, the doctor defrocked.

But the baseless fear he raised lives on.

Now we — actually, our young children — stand to pay for the baloney he sold. The currency will be fevers, runny noses, coughs, watery eyes and rashes. It could be death.

Is that what it will take to finally bring some of us to their senses? There is, after all, something stark and undeniable about the link between cause and effect here, between anti-vaccination and outbreak.

Maybe that will show some of us how foolish it is to believe absurd untruths without the slightest evidence. Maybe it will remind them how dangerous it is to abandon the obligation of thinking critically. Maybe it will teach them how dumb it is to consider Facebook more authoritative than the CDC or The New York Times.

And maybe it will remind them that the truth doesn't care what you believe, doesn't care what you want or whom you voted for. The truth just is.

To reject that is to reject the connective tissue that makes nationhood possible, to reject any chance of greater good and common cause, to reject the very possibility of us. So this outbreak, troubling as it is, offers a timely chance for some of us to reconsider the choice to live in nonsense.

Because the cost of baloney is high. And it's getting higher all the time.

(Leonard Pitts is a columnist for The Miami Herald, 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla., 33132. Readers may contact him via e-mail at lpittsmiamiherald.com.)

(c) 2019 THE MIAMI HERALD DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

In Utah, more teachers leave their job each year than the number of new instructors who enter the classroom.

That created a shortage of more than 1,600 educators in 2016, according to a new survey from Envision Utah, a regional planning agency. Meanwhile, the number of students filling the seats before them increased by 10,000 statewide. It’s an imbalance that’s getting worse.

“We need a lot more teachers than we currently have,” said Jason Brown, spokesman for the organization. “We just have such a high turnover rate.”

In a first-of-its-kind study from Envision Utah, which typically focuses on neighborhood and transportation issues in the state, the numbers reveal the deepening teacher deficit — something that’s been studied and talked about for years, including an impassioned call by Utah Gov. Gary Herbert last year to do something about it. But they also provide new insights into why college students who were interested in teaching chose different career paths and how teacher salaries compare to compensation for other professions in the state.

Because, in the end, the poll found that one of the biggest reasons teachers cite for leaving is the same issue that those who decided to pick a different job say led them away: The pay is too low.

Envision Utah intends to use that finding, Brown said, to further examine how much teachers should be paid and how that might be funded. The first step is creating a committee of 20 education stakeholders in the state — including members of the governor’s staff and the president of the Utah Education Association — to debate a salary range they would find reasonable and then pitch ways to fund that to the Legislature.

“We know there are many factors that influence people’s decisions to become teachers, and remain in the classroom — but teacher salaries are an integral piece of the puzzle, and we are invested in ensuring they are both fair and competitive," said Tami Pyfer, the governor’s education advisor who will sit on the panel.

Currently, the average annual median salary for a public school teacher in Utah is about $54,000, according to Envision Utah. That’s nearly $6,000 below what is considered a living wage here. And it’s $20,000 to $32,000 below what those in comparable careers in the state, such as accountants and urban planners, are making.

(A similar study from Utah Foundation released Wednesday found that median salary was even lower at $47,600 — about $15,000 below the national average.)

The hope is that if teacher salaries increase, more educators will stay in the classroom and more will join them.

“This issue of what we should pay teachers is the big unknown. It’s like pin the tail on the donkey. But no one ever pins it anywhere,” said Envision Utah’s CEO Robert Grow. “This may be a very challenging undertaking.”

Most people in the state support paying teachers more. According to Envision’s survey, 90 percent of Utah residents believe it’s important to increase educator salaries. But it’s unclear by how much and if taxpayers would actually agree to fund it.

An effort to infuse more dollars into education by increasing the gas tax failed on the ballot last year. And Utah has long ranked last in the nation for per-pupil spending.

The governor’s office sent out its own questionnaire last year, asking teachers who’d left the field what might bring them back. Of the 2,000 who filled it out, the majority said more money.

“We need to find a way to pay them more,” Herbert has said. “We need to recruit and retain the best and the brightest.”

Envision Utah’s 2018 survey of 4,000 college students in the state found that 44 percent considered a career in teaching. But of those, 36 percent said the salaries were too low.

Had those students pursued a job in education, though, there would be nearly 3,000 graduating each year with a teaching degree rather than 1,780, according to the study. That would nearly cancel out the 3,400 teachers who left the classroom in 2016.

Increasing salaries could impact those numbers, as well as get more teachers to stay, Grow said. The committee will present its suggested pay increase and potentially some ways to finance it to lawmakers at the end of June. At that same time, lawmakers will also be debating a possible tax restructure that could change how public education is funded.

“It’s very timely,” said Heidi Matthews, president of the Utah Education Association, the largest teacher union in the state.

Matthews will sit on the Envision Utah committee and make recommendations. She added that salary is not the only problem for teachers, who also face large class sizes and high expectations for end-of-year test scores. But this is “the most effective and immediate way to get more people into the classroom.”

She’s reviewed statistics on poor teacher retention in Utah since 2006. This effort, Matthews said, finally feels like a step forward to addressing it.

Your April 8 article "Science explains differences between smoking pot, tobacco" appeared in a timely fashion.

As a licensed clinical social worker, I have worked with both clients in severe physical pain and those addicted to various substances. It's important to remember that the high-potency marijuana of today and its various hybrids are not the same pot that hippies used to smoke in the 1960s.

Nevertheless, just as with most prescription drugs, marijuana has a number of important health benefits, especially as it comes to alleviating severe and intolerable physical pain. At the same time, though, marijuana today as a drug also has a number of deleterious effects on brain chemistry, impairs people's senses for various physical activities and may have an unknown impact on the respiratory system.

Hopefully, the current marijuana law -- however it was modified, altered, and changed by the Utah State Legislature against the public's wishes -- will somehow result in a compromise that will alleviate the suffering of thousands of Utahns while at the same time keep the rest of Utahns safe from the dangers that marijuana may pose.

Tab L. Uno, Clearfield

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If leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are truly interested in keeping their younger members and recruiting new young members, I suggest that they quit making statements about Satan.

Not too many people believe in a devil. Actually, belief in devils pretty well went away after the Dark Ages.

Also, condemning and judging people has been frowned upon since Jesus spoke against it very clearly in the New Testament.

These subjects of scaring people may still work in some Third World countries among illiterate people, but among educated, literate people all the talk about Satan and the threats of divine punishment is enough to cause enlightened people to laugh at the teenage Mormon missionaries who are usually seen as well-meaning brainwashed kids.

Ted Ottinger, Taylorsville

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Several letters to this newspaper have bemoaned the crowds and lack of parking at the Salt Lake City-area ski resorts. I have heard the same on the slopes as well. Many folks blame various multi-resort ski passes which offer skiers to enjoy the sport at a big discount.

Do I hear some elitism here?

I remember when ski passes were priced to allow more people to buy them. Now they are so expensive that only wealthier people can enjoy a day on the slopes. How dare those discount passes bring in skiers who would not otherwise hit the slopes?

As for parking, how about taking the bus? Or is it a right to find a parking spot at 11 a.m. at the resorts?

The resorts should invest more money in public transportation, park-and-ride lots and higher bus frequencies instead of paving over more land. Widen the road in some sections and only let buses use the middle lane during peak hours, zipping past cars. Or how about counting vehicles entering and leaving the canyon and stopping cars when the lots are full?

There are many ways to manage the traffic and the crowds, but blaming people who also want to enjoy a day of skiing is the wrong approach.

Thomas Fritz, Sandy

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Kirstjen Nielsen, homeland security secretary and enforcer of the inhumane crime at our southern border of separating children from their parents, has been forced to resign. Not because she was too cruel, but because she was not cruel enough.

President Trump has shred existing asylum laws by choosing to arrest and detain people who have not broken the law by crossing the border to seek asylum. By ignoring their asylum rights, Trump has violated principles the U.S. has upheld for over 50 years.

Trump's presidency is the most corrupt administration in U.S. history and yet all his corruption pales in comparison to ripping children from the arms of their parents and putting them in cages. These family separations have scarred many of these kids (and parents) for life, and Trump and Nielsen should go to jail for this inhumane practice. They are monsters.

But they are not the only monsters. Don't forget the spineless, acquiescent Republican congressmen, the Vichy GOP party and the republicans that continue to support this administration.

It breaks my heart to remember there was a time my country asked, "Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.”

Susan Christensen, Salt Lake City

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The new Utah penitentiary is the worst state debacle since Syncrete.

It is now projected to cost 18% to 22% more than the $650 million claimed, have 400 fewer beds and take up to 18 months longer (“Prison: Behind, Pricier, Smaller,” Tribune, April 6).

The state blames the higher labor and material costs partly on competition from other construction projects, including the airport expansion (a foreseeable expense), and partly on the Trump steel tariffs (a wholly unimaginable expense).

In 2014, the cost to maintain the current prison and replace older buildings was estimated at $239 million. Another $150 million to add additional program space brought the total renovation to $389 million in 2014 dollars ($415 million in 2019 dollars).

The prison housed 4,000 inmates in 2014 and the new prison had been planned for 4,000. Now it is scaled down to 3,600 to save $50 million on construction costs. The anticipated inmate overflow no doubt can be handled by unwise parole of repeat offenders and housing some state inmates in county jails – because those methods have worked so well in the past.

As the state is going to have to bond for the higher costs anyway, it might as well add $50 million and build for the 4,000 inmates.

In any event, the additional costs no doubt will be recovered by the economic boom from developing the Draper site – the true driving motive for the prison relocation.

Bill Beecham, Salt Lake City

Robert Kuesterman, West Valley City

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Despite the public’s desire to see special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, a federal judge on Tuesday turned down a request for its speedy release. The judge said he couldn’t justify taking such an extraordinary step, although he understood the interest in reviewing the report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The request for quick release was filed by the Electronic Privacy and Information Center, whose attorney argued that public needs access to the report before congressional hearings on the Russia investigation. A lawyer for the U.S. Department of Justice told the court the department is making progress in reviewing and redacting the document before its release, and Attorney General William Barr pledged to a congressional panel to produce the report within a week. Meanwhile, public information requests continue to stack up for materials related to the Mueller probe. [Politico]

Happy Wednesday!

Topping the news: Members of the state school board gave final approval to a series of guidelines on what teachers can and can’t teach about sex, but not before adding a few stipulations to ensure abstinence is still stressed within classrooms. [Trib]

-> Utah-based boutique Piper & Scoot and local swimsuit company Kortnie Jeane came under fire over the past couple of weeks for advertisements that seemed to feature only white models. A social media outcry erupted when Kortnie Jean’s owner responded to one of the comments by saying no models of color applied for the campaign. So users took to Twitter to create a thread of photos posted by non-white people. [Trib]

-> Around 100 soldiers from Utah’s National Guard returned to their families Tuesday morning after a 10-month mission in the Middle East. [Trib] [DNews] [Fox13]

Tweets of the day: @SenatorRomney: “By implementing drought contingency plans for the Colorado River Basin, this legislation is an important step toward effectively managing Utah’s waters and the communities that depend on them. Pleased to see this bill headed to the President’s desk.”

-> @StephenAtHome: “Republicans in the Senate were furious about Trump's purge of Homeland Security...when I started writing this tweet. By now, they’re all on board.”

-> @RepBenMcAdams: “Today I introduced a bill to prohibit the federal government from spending more than it receives in a fiscal year. It’s time to balance the budget and live within our means. #utpol.”

-> @betterutah: “Want to see how your legislators did? Check their scores out at progressreport.betterutah.org #utpol #utleg.”

In other news: Freshman Utah Rep. Ben McAdams introduced legislation for a balanced budget amendment. He is the first Democrat to suggest such an amendment this congressional session. [Trib] [DNews]

-> Salt Lake City has dropped to the 24th-best place to live in the U.S. after being ranked 15th in 2018, in part because more communities are now being considered in the U.S. News & World Report list. [Trib]

-> More than 2,000 girls from Utah high schools flew drones, operated robots and tested virtuality reality headsets on Tuesday during an event hosted by the Women Tech Council, an organization that promotes women within technology and partners female students with mentors. [Trib] [DNews] [ABC4] [KUTV]

-> Two years ago, a group of female activists accused Rob Miller, a candidate for Utah Democratic Party chair, of sexual misconduct. He dropped out and left the party shortly after. Now, he wants to run again for the post. [Trib]

-> The Catholic Community Services of Utah announced a plan to create a 14-week hands-on job training program for Salt Lake City’s homeless population. The goal is to teach self-sufficiency and other important skills. [Trib]

-> The Salt Lake City school board voted 5-1 to appoint the son of former board member Heather Bennett, who died in March, to fill the vacancy and carry out the remainder of her term. [Trib]

-> After years of negotiation, Congress passed a bill to shrink water usage from the Colorado River — a move that is being lauded by Utah congressmen. [Trib] [DNews]

-> Tribune cartoonist Pat Bagley drew President Donald Trump — with orange skin and windblown hair — in the act of insulting someone else. [Trib]

Nationally: Senator Bernie Sanders, one of the front runners for the Democratic presidential nomination, said he plans to release ten years worth of tax returns by Tax Day on Monday because he is now officially a millionaire. Sanders said he hopes President Donald Trump will do the same. [NYTimes] [WaPost]

-> Steven Mnuchin, U.S. treasury secretary, told lawmakers that lawyers from the White House have been in touch with his department about President Donald Trump’s tax returns. The president has repeatedly made it clear he does not intend to hand over the tax returns voluntarily. [NYTimes] [Politico] [WaPost]

-> President Donald Trump said he does not intend to bring back the policy of separating migrant families at the Mexican border despite the rumors that have been circulating. Rather, the Trump administration plans to push for tougher screening of asylum seekers. [NYTimes] [Politico]

-> Democratic leaders from the U.S. House passed on voting on a budget measure to set federal spending for the upcoming years after coming under intense pressure from the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the moderate Blue Dog Coalition. [Politico] [WaPost] [NYTimes]

-> President Donald Trump attacked freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar after she called Stephen Miller, one of the president’s aides, a white nationalist on Twitter Monday. [Politico]

Got a tip? A birthday, wedding or anniversary to announce? Email us at cornflakes@sltrib.com. If you haven’t already, sign up here for our weekday email to get this sent directly to your inbox.

-- Bethany Rodgers and Sahalie Donaldson

https://twitter.com/BethRodgersSLT, https://twitter.com/SahalieD

Washington • Scientists on Wednesday revealed the first image ever made of a black hole, depicting its hot, shadowy edges where light bends around itself in a cosmic funhouse effect.

Assembling data gathered by eight radio telescopes around the world, astronomers created the picture showing the violent neighborhood around a supermassive black hole, the light-sucking monsters of the universe theorized by Einstein more than a century ago and confirmed by observations for decades.

It looked like a flaming orange, yellow and black ring.

"We have seen what we thought was unseeable. We have seen and taken a picture of a black hole. Here it is," said Sheperd Doeleman of Harvard.

Jessica Dempsey, a co-discoverer and deputy director of the East Asian Observatory in Hawaii, said it reminded her of the powerful flaming Eye of Sauron from the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

Unlike smaller black holes that come from collapsed stars, supermassive black holes are mysterious in origin. Situated at the center of most galaxies, including ours, they are so dense that nothing, not even light, can escape their gravitational pull. This one's "event horizon" — the point of no return around it, where light and matter begin to fall inexorably into the abyss — is as big as our entire solar system.

Three years ago, scientists using an extraordinarily sensitive observing system heard the sound of two much smaller black holes merging to create a gravitational wave, as Albert Einstein predicted. The new image, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters and announced around the world in several news conferences, adds light to that sound.

Outside scientists suggested the achievement could be worthy of a Nobel Prize, just like the gravitational wave discovery.

While much around a black hole falls into a death spiral and is never to be seen again, the new image captures "lucky gas and dust" circling at just far enough to be safe and seen millions of years later on Earth, Dempsey said.

Taken over four days when astronomers had "to have the perfect weather all across the world and literally all the stars had to align," the image helps confirm Einstein's general relativity theory, Dempsey said. Einstein a century ago even predicted the symmetrical shape that scientists just found, she said.

"It's circular, but on one side the light is brighter," Dempsey said. That's because that light is approaching Earth.

The measurements are taken at a wavelength the human eye cannot see, so the astronomers added color to the image. They chose "exquisite gold because this light is so hot," Dempsey said. "Making it these warm gold and oranges makes sense."

What the image shows is gas heated to millions of degrees by the friction of ever-stronger gravity, scientists said. And that gravity creates a funhouse effect where you see light from both behind the black hole and behind you as the light curves and circles around the black hole itself, said astronomer Avi Loeb, director of the Black Hole Initiative at Harvard. (The lead scientists in the discovery are from Harvard, but Loeb was not involved.)

The project cost $50 million to $60 million, with $26 million of that coming from the National Science Foundation.

Johns Hopkins astrophysicist Ethan Vishniac, who was not part of the discovery team but edits the journal where the research was published, pronounced the image "an amazing technical achievement" that "gives us a glimpse of gravity in its most extreme manifestation."

He added: "Pictures from computer simulations can be very pretty, but there's literally nothing like a picture of the real universe, however fuzzy and monochromatic."

"It's just seriously cool," said John Kormendy, a University of Texas astronomer who wasn't part of the discovery team. "To see the stuff going down the tubes, so to speak, to see it firsthand. The mystique of black holes in the community is very substantial. That mystique is going to be made more real."

There is a myth that says a black hole would rip you apart, but Loeb and Kormendy said the one pictured is so big, someone could fall into it and not be torn to pieces. But the person would never be seen from again.

Black holes are "like the walls of a prison. Once you cross it, you will never be able to get out and you will never be able to communicate," Loeb said.

The first image is of a black hole in a galaxy called M87 that is about 53 million light years from Earth. One light year is 5.9 trillion miles, or 9.5 trillion kilometers. This black hole is about 6 billion times the mass of our sun.

The telescope data was gathered by the Event Horizon Telescope two years ago, but it took so long to complete the image because it was a massive undertaking, involving about 200 scientists, supercomputers and hundreds of terabytes of data delivered worldwide by plane.

The team looked at two supermassive black holes, the M87 and the one at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. The one in our galaxy is closer but much smaller, so they both look the same size in the sky. But the more distant one was easier to take pictures of because it rotates more slowly.

"We've been hunting this for a long time," Dempsey said. "We've been getting closer and closer with better technology."

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

No decisions involving the Salt Lake County canyons are ever that simple, particularly when it comes to making rules on what can and what can’t be done with that beautiful land.

The Legislature, through SB187, sought to extend, for one more year, the life of the Mountainous Planning Commission. It was created by the Legislature in 2015 to develop recommendations and share them with the Salt Lake County Council.

Sounds innocuous, right?

Not to a small group of vocal opponents. They have long accused the county and this commission of “strong-arm tactics,” intimidation, threats of cutting off funding for police and fire, and infringing on property rights in the newly incorporated town of Brighton.

There was enough muddiness around the issue that SB187 was one of just three bills (out of 574 that the Legislature passed) that Gov. Gary Herbert, who had vowed not to sign another extension, let become law without his signature.

“What was originally intended to be a one-year project will now extend to a total of six years," Herbert wrote in a letter to legislative leaders. "I strongly encourage the Mountain Planning District to complete its work in as timely a manner as possible."

From Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson’s perspective, extending the Mountainous Planning Commission’s life span so it can deliver its recommendations later this year was a common-sense move.

“We have a significant state resource — not just a county resource. So [the planning district] was a different way to approach the canyons,” Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson told me. “Our canyons are a community asset. They’re key to our economic vibrancy and quality of life.”

Think about it this way: Nearly 2 million people trek up Big Cottonwood Canyon every year to ski, hike, backpack, camp and whatever else. So the idea was to get a diverse group together to decide what we want the future of the canyons to look like — not just people who live in them, but people who recreate, and the million or so residents in the Salt Lake Valley who rely on the canyon watershed.

“What we wanted are people who are impacted by the different challenges,” Wilson said.

There’s another key point: The creation of the Mountainous Planning Commission actually gives canyon residents more input, not less, because if the commission didn’t exist, those decisions would be entirely up to the council.

But as the planning process is nearing completion, the work they’ve done is somewhat in doubt, thanks to a vote by 105 canyon residents last November to incorporate the new town of Brighton at the top of Big Cottonwood Canyon.

When the new town becomes official next January, land-use planning authority would have come with it, and that’s not necessarily a good thing. Over the years, the County Council — and to a lesser extent Salt Lake City — have been a check on unconstrained development.

The council has pushed back, for example, against landowners who wanted to build enormous cabins or turn their property into makeshift lodges or build right up against streams that provide water to residents down in the valley.

And there’s a lot of land that will be under the new town’s purview. The town of just 260 full-time residents — and many more owners of second homes and cabins — spans nearly 16 square miles, meaning it is larger geographically than the town of Millcreek, which has 240 times as many residents.

There are some who would like to see the county butt out.

Greg Schiffman is one of those who rails against the Mountainous Planning Commission. He is vice chairman of the community council for the town of Granite, at the mouth of the canyon, and told legislators recently that he couldn’t believe a conservative state like Utah lets outsiders, people who don’t even live in the canyon, help make recommendations about how that land will be managed.

It’s Schiffman who accused the county of “strong-arm tactics” and claimed former Mayor Ben McAdams “wants to control land so badly in the town of Brighton that they threatened a 70-year-old woman, the community council chair, that if she doesn’t give up planning [authority] her residents will be [stuck] with millions of dollars a year” in fire and public safety costs.

It sounds like bullying, but in reality state law prohibits counties to pay for police and fire in an incorporated town and it has for years.

That put Brighton in a bit of a pinch, since the residents couldn’t afford police and fire without a huge tax increase on full-time residents and a much larger increase for those who own second homes and cabins in the new town — people who were not even able to vote for or against the town’s creation.

So SB187 came to a reasonable compromise: Extend the planning commission another year and change the law to allow the county to help pay the cost for police and fire — and that makes sense, because if you believe the canyons are community assets for everyone to enjoy, then we shouldn’t have a problem paying those costs.

There is another viewpoint, of course: That private property is sacrosanct and those who own the land should be able to make the rules and do what they want.

But Brighton can’t have it both ways. They can’t have self-determination without self-sufficiency and they can’t tell the rest of us to stay out of their business while they’re reaching into our wallets.

And while the Legislature came to a good conclusion this year, it is a short-term, one-year fix, which is a mistake, since long-term planning decisions don’t occur in a vacuum and will need to be revisited next year and every year after.

Wilson said the county is already looking at ways to extend the planning commission beyond next year and wants to work with the incoming Brighton officials. Hopefully they can reach some compromise, because it would be unfortunate if a handful of canyon landowners are allowed to determine the future of Big Cottonwood Canyon, one of our community’s most valuable treasures.

The winter-like storm that brought rain and snow to Utah on Tuesday night and Wednesday is expected to continue through Thursday morning.

According to the National Weather Service, cold air moving across the Great Salt Lake — which is relatively warm — means there’s potential for lake-effect snow in parts of Salt lake County and eastern Tooele County. Some areas may see accumulations of 1-5 inches; in other areas, it could be even more.

And the areas with heavy snowfall could experience tree damage and power outages.

Heavy snow is expected to continue in the mountains — 6-14 inches in northern Utah; 4-12 inches in southern Utah. Mountain valleys can expect 3-8 inches.

The weather will remain “cool and unsettled” across the mountains and western valley through Friday evening, according to the NWS, with “somewhat drier” conditions expected this weekend — although lingering showers are possible in far northern Utah.

Temperatures in the mid-40s are expected in Salt Lake City on Wednesday and in the mid- to upper-40s on Thursday and Friday. Saturday will be partly cloudy and in the mid-50s. A high near 60 and possibly more rain is expected on Sunday.

In a survey of 501 American cities, Provo stood out — as the least diverse city in the United States.

The Utah County community's next-door-neighbor, Orem, ranks 499th.

The analysis from WalletHub.com, a personal finance website, isn’t just about ethnic diversity. That’s one of five major categories, along with religious, household, socioeconomic, cultural and economic diversity.

Provo and Orem — where the population overwhelmingly identifies as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — tied for last place in religious diversity. In other categories, Provo was ranked No. 252 in socio-economic diversity; No. 249 in cultural diversity; No. 488 in economic diversity; and No. 466 in household diversity. Orem's came in No. 98, No. 258, No. 376 and No. 476, respectively, in those categories.

West Valley City is Utah's most diverse city, according to the survey, coming in at No. 111. Other Utah cities on the list are:

• <b>165. </b>Salt Lake City
• <b>252.</b> Ogden
• <b>258.</b> Taylorsville
• <b>346. </b>West Jordan
• <b>412.</b> Sandy
• <b>458.</b> St. George
• <b>473. </b>Layton

According to WalletHub, it tallied scores across a variety of metrics — household income, education, race and ethnicity, language, birthplace, industries, occupations, marital status, age, household structure, household size and religion.

According to its analysis, the most diverse cities in America are:

• <b>1. </b>Houston
• <b>2. </b>Jersey City, N.J.
• <b>3. </b>New York
• <b>4. </b>Gaithersberg, Md.
• <b>5. </b>Dallas
• <b>6. </b>Silver Spring, Md.
• <b>7. </b>Germantown, Md.
• <b>8. </b>Los Angeles
• <b>9. </b>Arlington, Texas
• <b>10. </b>Long Beach, Calif.

And the least diverse cities in America are:

• <b>491. </b>Huntington, W.Va.
• <b>492. </b>Morgantown, W.Va.
• <b>493. </b>Westbrook, Maine
• <b>494. </b>Lewiston, Idaho
• <b>495. </b>Kalispell, Mont.
• <b>496. </b>Barre, Vt.
• <b>497. </b>Keene, N.H.
• <b>498. </b>Rochester, N.H.
• <b>499. Orem</b>
• <b>500. </b>Bangor, Maine
• <b>501. Provo</b>