From taxing social media companies in the state, to banning cellphones during the full school day and implementing policies to improve literacy, Utah leaders’ K-12 theme in the past legislative session centered on students going back to basics. The vision, some of them say, is to see children talking more with each other face to face, or working on increasing the list of books they have completed.

Surrounded by classic literature, works of fantasy and Harry Potter decorations at Valley Elementary’s library in Eden, Gov. Spencer Cox ceremoniously signed a set of bills that he, first lady Abby Cox and lawmakers hope can encourage more kids to get off their phones and open their attention spans for books.

“As we’ve seen social media uptick over the last decade, we’ve seen literacy decline, and that is not unrelated, and we need to make sure that, as we’ve done as a state, pull that out of the classrooms, out of the hands of kids, and get us reading again,” Abby Cox said on Thursday in front of a group of fourth through sixth graders, lawmakers and lobbyists that contributed to the new laws.

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The governor took a few minutes to explain to the students the legislative process these bills went through and commended teachers for their work, which he said has made a substantial contribution to the high rankings the state has scored in recent years.

“One of the reasons that we’re number one is because we have one of the best education systems in the state. One of the reasons we have one of the best education systems in the state is because we have the best teachers in the state,” Cox said. “And so make sure you thank your teachers for the good work that they’re doing.”

Legislature approves bell-to-bell cellphone ban in Utah schools

Some of the bills Cox signed in the ceremony were among his biggest priorities, like the bell-to-bell cellphone ban, which establishes a default policy prohibiting phones but that individual schools are free to change. Another was a $16 million investment to boost early literacy among K-3 students, after a report showed that almost half of the state’s third-graders don’t read at grade level.

However, other education bills that didn’t have as big of a spotlight during the legislative session were celebrated at the Eden school, including one that had unanimous approval among lawmakers, creating a required course for seventh and eighth grades on digital skills.

South Jordan Republican Rep. Jordan Teuscher, the bill sponsor, said during the Thursday event the legislation stemmed from parents’ concerns about their kids’ lack of tools to navigate digital spaces.

“One of the areas that was lacking was helping kids understand how to navigate in this important space. I hope none of you get on social media anytime soon,” Teuscher told the kids at the library. “If you can hold out until after you’re adults, that is way better, and you’re going to be healthier and happier and stronger. But for those that are getting involved in that, how can they safely navigate there?”

The course won’t be about “just how bad the technology is,” Teuscher said. It will also tackle the benefits of digital technologies, and help students to balance the virtual and real world. 

But the state remains interested in disincentivizing social media use in other ways, like taxing platforms that collect user data for targeted advertising. It’s a law that according to Teuscher, who sponsored the bill on the House floor, may be the most controversial of the set the governor signed Thursday.

“In Utah we don’t like raising taxes, right? We want to keep taxes as low as we possibly can,” he said. “But in this case, when you see that there’s opportunities where we need to get less of something, the best thing that we can do is tax it.”

The funds collected by the 4.7% tax will pay for youth sports and recreation, and volunteerism and mental health programs for young Utahns, a model Cox said he felt “very passionate about.”

“The money that we’ll collect will go back to helping our young people who have been so damaged by social media and the wealthiest (companies) in the history of the world, we think that they should be able to pay a little bit to make up for the harms that they’ve caused,” Cox said about the bill.

From phones, to school-issued laptops and AI, here’s how Utah schools are changing their rules

Another law Cox highlighted during the ceremony also involved students’ interaction with digital technologies, but focused specifically on artificial intelligence use in public classrooms.

Kaysville Republican Rep. Ariel Defay, who sponsored the legislation, said it limits the use of technology in elementary schools so students can develop foundational skills in literacy and math.

“And then as you move on to junior high and high school, there’ll be more and more and more technology, because it will be important for you to use technology and to navigate it, but in a very balanced way,” she said.

Other laws highlighted during the event included some aiming to intervene earlier in cases of dyslexia by funding tests to detect it, not only in schools but with therapists, as well as partnering with the University of Utah to develop a statewide dyslexia intervention plan.

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With more than 121 measles cases reported in the last three weeks while South Carolina hasn’t seen any new cases, Utah’s measles outbreak is now the most active in the U.S.

In total, 583 confirmed measles cases have been reported to Utah health officials since the outbreak began last year. Of those, 386 have been diagnosed in 2026 to date, while 197 were diagnosed in 2025, according to the latest numbers posted on the Utah Department of Health and Human Service’s website on Tuesday. 

While South Carolina’s outbreak has seen a total of 997 cases since October of last year, the state hasn’t had any new cases reported since March 17. Utah, however, has seen 24 new cases in the last five days, making its ongoing outbreak now the “epicenter” of the country’s measles outbreaks, the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy reported Wednesday.   

According to Utah’s measles tracker dashboard, the biggest hotspots in the state include:

• The Southwest Utah Public Health Department’s jurisdiction, which includes Washington, Iron, Kane, Beaver and Garfield counties. There, 249 cases have been reported. 
• Utah County, with 93 cases.
• Salt Lake County, with 62 cases. 
• The TriCounty Health Department’s area, which includes Daggett, Duchesne and Uintah counties, with 59 cases. 
• The Central Utah Public Health Department’s area, which includes Juab, Millard, Piute, Sanpete, Sevier and Wayne counties, with 50 cases. 

Of the state’s 583 confirmed cases, 47 people have been hospitalized. About 383 are under the age of 18, while 200 are adults. 

Utah’s measles outbreak, among the largest in the country, is likely to get worse

About 485 Utahns who have been diagnosed with measles were not vaccinated, while 59 were, and 39 have an unknown vaccination status.  

During the 2024-2025 school year, about 10% of Utah’s in-person kindergarten students had an exemption for the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine or were missing documentation, according to state data. About 9% of in-person kindergarten students had an exemption to any school-required vaccine. 

Last week, when Utah’s outbreak stood at 559 cases, Utah epidemiologist Leisha Nolen said the state hasn’t seen such a high number of cases in more than 40 years. 

“The fact that now we’re seeing 20 people every week — in fact, probably more like 35 people every week get measles — is amazing and terrifying,” she said. 

The concentration of the first measles cases were located in southwest Utah, but sometime in February infections started to spread to other areas of the state. 

On the state’s website, Utah health officials maintain a running list of “exposure locations” where Utahns may have come into contact with a person infected with measles. 

How to recognize measles and what to do 

Measles symptoms usually appear seven to 14 days after exposure, according to health experts. Early symptoms include a high fever (of 101 degrees Fahrenheit or higher), cough, runny nose, or red eyes. A rash will also usually appear after four days of fever. 

State health officials encourage anyone who develops symptoms to stay away from other people and call your health care provider before going to a clinic or a hospital to prevent others from being exposed. 

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Health officials also encourage parents to talk to their doctors about giving an early, extra dose of the MMR vaccine to their infants who are older than 6 months and younger than 12 months to protect them amid the outbreak, even if they haven’t been exposed to someone with measles. 

Health officials usually recommend that infants who are 6 months to 12 months old get an early, extra dose of the vaccine if they are traveling internationally or to an area where measles is spreading. 

But “given the high levels of measles in Utah, it is now appropriate to consider this early, extra dose for all Utah infants of this age,” state health officials say on the health department’s website. “Any infant who gets a dose before 12 months old will need to get 2 later doses in accordance with the standard vaccination schedule at 12–15 months and then a dose at 4–6 years.”

State health officials are urging all Utahns to make sure they are protected against measles, which can be deadly, especially for unvaccinated children. If you’re unsure about your vaccination status, talk to your doctor. 

Vaccine recommendations vary depending on age and vaccination history

• Children should receive two doses of measles vaccine: one dose at 12 to 15 months of age and another at 4 to 6 years. 
• Typically, health officials haven’t recommended early measles vaccination for all infants except in certain circumstances due to low risk — but amid Utah’s outbreak state officials are now recommending an early, extra dose for infants who are between 6 months and 12 months old.  
• Adults born before 1957 generally do not need to be vaccinated because they are likely already immune to measles due to widespread infection and illness before the measles vaccine became available in 1963. 
• Adults who were vaccinated before 1968 should have a second dose because the vaccine used from 1963 to1967 was less effective than the current vaccine, which became available in 1968. 
• Adults who were vaccinated in 1968 or later are considered fully protected whether they have one or two doses, though certain higher risk groups (like college students, health care workers and international travelers) should have two doses.

To learn whether you or your child needs a dose of the measles vaccine, health officials urge Utahns to talk to their doctors or check their immunization records. Most Utahns’ records are available through the secure Docket app or website. 

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In preparation of a new law taking effect May 25, Utah’s top election official, Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, started issuing letters last week to more than 300,000 Utah registered voters who had previously opted to keep their voter registration records withheld and private. 

Now, under SB153, which was signed into law last month by Gov. Spencer Cox, that information — name, address, age range, party affiliation, and vote history (meaning which elections you’ve voted in, but not how you voted) — will become available to anyone who requests voter registration lists for a fee. 

However, records for those who qualify for an “at-risk” voter status will be shielded and anonymized. 

Registered voters who fall under any of the following categories can be eligible for an “at-risk” protected designation, according to the law: 

• A person who is a victim, or is likely to be a victim, of domestic violence or dating violence.
• Law enforcement officers.
• Individuals protected by a protective or protection order.
• Members of the armed forces.
• Public figures. A public figure is defined in Utah law as “an individual who, due to the individual being considered for, holding, or having held a position of prominence in a public or private capacity, or due to the individual’s celebrity status, has an increased risk to the individual’s safety.” Its definition does not include elected officials or those appointed to fill a vacancy in an elected public office. 
• A person who resides with any of the individuals described above. 

Voters wanting to apply for an “at-risk” voter status and protect their records must meet the qualifications and submit a request to their county clerk by May 6. The forms are available at county clerk offices or online at vote.utah.gov/voter-privacy-information.

Private voter info to become public, but some Utahns, including police, can get exemptions

The lieutenant governor’s website emphasizes that while the new law allows “basic registration records” to be granted to anyone who requests it and pays the fee, the following personal information will remain “strictly private for all voters and may only be disclosed to government entities for election administration purposes”:

• Social security numbers
• Driver’s license or state identification numbers
• Full dates of birth
• Email addresses
• Phone numbers
• Signatures 

It’s important to note that this isn’t the first time basic voter registration information has been publicly available. That information was public before the Utah Legislature in 2018 passed a law that allowed Utahns to opt into a “withheld” status to keep their voter registration records private. Since then, Utah lawmakers have debated whether that law went too far and created unintended consequences that pose challenges for candidates and political parties. 

SB153 — sponsored by Sen. John Johnson, R-North Ogden, and Rep. Trevor Lee, R-Layton — is the latest change to privacy laws that rolls back the “withheld” option for Utah voters. 

But since the letters notifying of the new law started hitting mailboxes, some Utah voters have reacted with concern. The change also comes during a time of heightened concern of doxxing on social media.

Salt Lake County Clerk Lannie Chapman told Utah News Dispatch on Tuesday that her office has been “getting a lot of questions” about the new law. 

She said her office hasn’t received “a ton” of unregistration requests but some people “are fearful for probably many reasons,” including those that “really value their privacy, or it could be that they’ve experienced some trauma in the past and they really do not want people to get ahold of them.” 

Chapman noted that there’s a provision in SB153 that explicitly prohibits election officers like herself from “encouraging” or “discouraging” people from submitting an “at-risk” designation request. To those who are worried about their privacy, she said she’s been encouraging them to learn about the details of the law, and if they have concerns to contact their legislators to express their opinions. 

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“This is a brand new law. We’re all learning it as we go,” she said. “We want to make sure that people that should be protected by law maintain those protections and still have their voice heard in our local elections.” 

For those who are rejected for an “at-risk” designation, there are no appeal processes in the new law. However, Chapman noted there’s “nothing that would preclude somebody from applying again.” 

“We want to make sure that we’re protecting people to the best of our ability, so we are expediting and moving these forms front and center,” she said. “And if there’s an issue that we see with the form or a reason why we wouldn’t grant it, we are currently working on a mechanism to make sure that the voters understand why we came to the conclusion we came to.” 

As for those who are thinking of ways to game the system — perhaps by re-registering to vote briefly before an election then un-registering again shortly after the election — it’s not guaranteed that will protect their records. 

“There is no guarantee that will work and there is a chance they could appear on a voter list,” the lieutenant governor’s office told Utah News Dispatch when asked about that scenario. “They would also appear on a provisional ballot list.” 

Chapman also warned that could create added obstacles for voters. 

“The issue I see is they would have to be very, very thoughtful when elections are coming up to make sure they re-register if they’d like to participate using a by-mail ballot,” she said. “It’s a lot more hassle.” 

Asked if the new law could create a chilling effect for voters who are concerned about their privacy, Chapman encouraged people to learn about the law and if they have concerns to contact their state senators and representatives. 

“Learn about it. Educate yourselves,” she said. “And if you love it, if you hate it, if you have opinions, let your representatives know.” 

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Utahns have one more week to apply to receive free native plants before a deadline for the state’s pollinator habitat program flies by.

It’s not just individual gardeners that are eligible, but also nonprofits, government agencies, businesses, hospitals, and Native American tribes, among other organizations. 

The goal is to expand habitat and boost populations of bees and other pollinators, including butterflies and moths. Their numbers have been diminished by climate change, pesticides and other forces, according to the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food, which administers the program. 

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Another benefit, especially in dry years like this one, is water conservation. Some cities are seeing water savings as participants tear out grass to create a new home for bees and caterpillars, said Jim Bowcutt, director of conservation at the department. And some of the native plants need to be watered just a few times a month.

“Since these are native species, they use very little water,” Bowcutt said. “And they’re beautiful.” 

The program began in the Beehive State with an act of the Legislature in 2021. It  became permanent last year when lawmakers approved $240,000 in yearly, ongoing funding. 

It’s also a help to farmers. Pollinators are key to growing a variety of crops in the state, including melons, squash and cucumbers. But they’re especially helpful in orchards. And the native insects are much more efficient than honey bees, Bowcutt said. 

Applicants must have at least 900 square feet to fill and are more likely to be approved if they have a plan for irrigating, whether it involves hand watering or another source. Program administrators note that native plants tend to prefer full sun and well-drained soils.

“The more native species that we can get and take off with this, it’ll be huge,” Bowcutt told Utah News Dispatch. 

The window to apply closes April 15. Grant winners will be announced in June and receive the plants in September, with varieties tailored to their regions of the state. Some aren’t available on the market and were grown from foraged seeds, Bowcutt said.

For more information and to apply, visit the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food website.

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Another Senate district has fallen short of signature threshold requirements — marking what is likely the second nail in the coffin for the effort to repeal Utah’s 2018 voter-approved anti-gerrymandering law known as Proposition 4. 

Senate District 12, represented by Sen. Karen Kwan, D-West Valley City, fell four signatures short of its minimum 3,248 needed in order for the repeal effort to qualify in that district, according to the latest signature tallies posted on the lieutenant governor’s website Wednesday. 

According to an analysis of those tallies by the political consulting and public affairs firm Morgan & May, 581 signatures have been removed from the 3,825 verified signatures that the group Utahns for Representative Government (founded by the head of the Utah GOP) had submitted in order to put the Proposition 4 repeal question on the 2026 November ballot. 

Effort to repeal Utah anti-gerrymandering law falls short after losing signatures

It marks the second district to have toppled. Late last month, Senate District 15 — currently represented by Sen. Kathleen Riebe, D-Cottonwood Heights — was the first to fall short as signers pulled their names back, putting the Proposition 4 repeal effort on track to fail. As of Wednesday, 1,035 signatures had been removed from Senate District 15, putting it 377 signatures short. 

The initiative, however, won’t be officially disqualified until Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson makes the call that the repeal question won’t appear on the ballot. But because the window of time to add signatures has come and gone — with still weeks left for voters to remove their signatures by April 23 — the effort is likely already doomed. 

Henderson’s deadline to declare the final fate of the Proposition 4 repeal effort is April 30. 

“We will carefully review all data and ensure that counties have verified their numbers before making the declaration,” Henderson said in a statement when the first Senate district fell short. 

Under Utah law, ballot initiative backers need to gather signatures from not only at least 8% of the state’s registered voters statewide, but also at least 8% of registered voters in at least 26 of the state’s 29 Senate districts. Utah has some of the most difficult requirements in the country for ballot initiatives. 

The repeal backers had initially gathered enough signatures in the minimum 26 of Utah’s 29 Senate districts, so opposition groups including Better Boundaries — the original sponsor of Proposition 4 in 2018 — that have been urging voters to remove their signatures only needed to tip the scales in one Senate district to block it from the ballot. 

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But now they’ve done it in two. 

In a statement issued Wednesday morning that echoed her remarks when District 15 came up short, Better Boundaries executive director Elizabeth Rasmussen said the group is “going to continue to work and make sure that anyone across the state who was tricked or misled into signing the repeal of Proposition 4 has the opportunity to remove their signature.”

“Utahns of all political stripes deserve to pick their politicians, not have politicians that pick their voters,” she said. “Our mission of protecting Proposition 4 and the will of the people is exactly the same as it was in 2018 when Proposition 4 was originally passed by voters. As long as those in power keep demanding special treatment, we will be on the side of everyday Utahns.”

Utah Republican Party Chair Rob Axson did not immediately return a request for comment on Wednesday, but last month when the initiative first fell into the red, he issued a statement saying Utahns for Representative Government isn’t done fighting for the repeal — either through a lawsuit or a future initiative effort.

Misleading tactics, fraudulent signatures, assaults: Utah’s fight over Prop 4 is getting ugly

“We have significant concerns about the practices utilized by the opposition and continue to review the signature validation and removal process,” Axson said at the time. “Whether now or in the future, by litigation or initiative, we will repeal Prop 4. This fight is not over but just beginning.” 

The Republican-led campaign to repeal Proposition 4 surfaced after Utah’s courts ruled that the 2021 Utah Legislature overstepped when it repealed and replaced it with a law that enabled them to ignore the voter-approved law’s ban on partisan gerrymandering, its neutral map-drawing standards, and an independent redistricting commission’s recommendations.

The redistricting lawsuit that successfully alleged that the Legislature violated Utahns’ rights to alter and reform their government via ballot initiative eventually led to 3rd District Judge Dianna Gibson voiding the Legislature’s 2021 congressional map as the result of an unconstitutional process. To remedy that unlawful map, she put in place a court-ordered map to be used for the 2026 elections. That map turned one of Utah’s four red congressional districts blue. 

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More questions than answers remain about what the Department of Homeland Security’s review of contracts executed under former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem means for a proposed “mega” detention center in Salt Lake City. 

After newly-appointed Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin was sworn in, DHS paused purchases of new warehouses as it reviews Noem-era policies and procedures. 

Noem was fired March 5, but days later U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement finalized the purchase of the Salt Lake City warehouse for $145.4 million — the highest price federal officials have paid for a warehouse as part of the Trump administration’s $45 billion plans to expand ICE detention center capacity. 

It’s now unclear what the DHS review means for the already-purchased warehouse in Salt Lake City and whether federal officials will move forward with plans to renovate it into a large-scale detention center. 

In response to a request for comment on the warehouse’s status, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson pointed to a statement issued last week.

“As with any transition, we are reviewing agency policies and proposals,” DHS said. “As Secretary Mullin said in his confirmation hearing: ‘I will work with the community leaders and make sure that we are delivering for the American people what the President set out … We want to work with community leaders. We want to be good partners.’”

The department did not immediately respond to follow-up questions specifically asking whether plans for the Salt Lake City warehouse have been paused amid the DHS review. But in a story published Tuesday, The Atlantic reported that after Mullin took charge of the department on March 24, he “ordered a pause on conversion plans for the warehouse in Salt Lake City as well as for 10 others scattered across the country, seeking to defuse backlash from local jurisdictions.”

When asked about the news of ICE warehouse purchases being under review by DHS and if it could potentially jeopardize the proposed detention center in Salt Lake City, Mayor Erin Mendenhall told Utah News Dispatch last week she’s hopeful it doesn’t bode well for the facility, but it’s also unclear what it means for the proposal.

It doesn’t appear, however, that DHS is rushing to move forward with it, she said. 

“We’re grateful that it doesn’t appear to be full steam ahead,” Mendenhall said. “We’re doing everything that we can — at every angle we can — to try to convey why this is not an appropriate place for any ICE facility, why Salt Lake City is not an appropriate place for any ICE facility.” 

Asked if the review could delay or even doom the proposed detention center even though the purchase has already been finalized, Mendenhall said: “I am hopeful that by some grace of God it won’t happen in Salt Lake City. I am. Because Salt Lake City Hall, we’re not the only people talking to DHS about why this is an extremely inappropriate activity in the city.” 

How the deal came together also remains a mystery. The entity that sold the warehouse, RREEF CPIF 6020 W 300 S LLC, is registered in Delaware and tied to a fund managed by DWS Group, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank. Representatives from RREEF and DWS have not responded to emails from Utah News Dispatch seeking comment. 

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A Republican state lawmaker, Rep. Matt MacPherson, supports the center in his district and may have more insight from the federal government soon. He’s traveling to Washington, D.C., next week with fellow GOP state lawmakers, he said, and the group plans to talk with representatives from the Trump administration about the facility, among other topics.

MacPherson, of West Valley City, said he’s “only heard positive things from constituents about the possibility of a facility” and sees it as a way to free up more room in Utah’s prisons and jails. 

He previously noted ICE doesn’t have large, dedicated detention space in Utah and while it contracts with jails to hold some detainees, current state law places restrictions on that practice.

In a letter sent to Mullin on Friday, Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson urged him to “abandon” the proposed detention center in Salt Lake City. 

“I respectfully urge the Department of Homeland Security to reconsider and abandon this proposed site,” Wilson wrote. 

In her letter, Wilson outlined her concerns, which she described as “both practical and principled.” 

“At a basic level, this facility is not suitable to house what has been reported could be up to 10,000 detainees,” she wrote. “More broadly, I believe many residents of Salt Lake County — and Americans across the country — are seeking a more measured, effective, and balanced approach to immigration enforcement.”

She said the proposed mega center “raises serious concerns related to infrastructure capacity, public safety, correctional staffing, economic development, and the appropriate role of state and local government in decisions of this magnitude.”

Wilson said the “scale and approach of this proposal are not aligned with the interests of Salt Lake County residents nor our business community,” describing it as sitting at the “heart of a critical industrial corridor” within the Utah Inland Port Authority’s jurisdiction, where state leaders have invested significantly to create a logistics hub meant to maximize Utah’s import and export potential. 

“Introducing a detention facility of this scale risks undermining that vision and weakening a sector foundational to our regional economy,” Wilson wrote. 

Roads in the state-governed shipping and trade hub are already busy, with UPS trucks and semitrailers driving in and out in a constant cycle. The center would bring even more traffic.  

But without answers to questions like when it might open, who would run it, and the demand it would place on sewer and water systems, it’s hard to get a clear picture of how it could affect the district and its its efforts to attract and keep manufacturers, said Ben Hart, executive director of the Utah Inland Port Authority. 

Hart told Utah News Dispatch the facility won’t necessarily be bad for business. He noted an industrial building on the district’s less developed western side is adjacent to the Utah State Correctional Facility, saying the prison is “really well-run, and I think there’s confidence in the leadership.” 

“If it’s something that’s well done, then it doesn’t have to be something that is negative overall,” Hart said. “But when you hear that type of facility is coming in, I mean, does that raise questions for those who are looking at locating to the area? Absolutely, of course, I think anyone would acknowledge that.”

He said he’s not familiar with any deals falling through as a result, “but it’s something that we’re very sensitive to, again, because we want the best and brightest companies out there in the northwest quadrant.”

Wilson also said that neither state or local leaders — or the state’s federal delegation — have been “meaningfully consulted” on the project. 

“This absence of engagement represents a significant departure from that principle and risks being perceived as an override of state and local authority,” she wrote. “This is not simply a federal facility. It is a project that will rely on local infrastructure, affect regional economic development, and place real and ongoing demands on local public systems. Proceeding without partnership undermines the likelihood of success.”

Wilson also listed more specific concerns with the proposal, including that the warehouse is “not designed for human habitation,” is not compatible with the site’s current local zoning for manufacturing and not detention, its impact on the inland port’s “economic vitality,” and its sheer scale compared to the county and state’s existing jail and prison capacity.

Salt Lake County’s jail system, she wrote, typically houses between 2,000 and 2,500 inmates while the Utah Department of Correction’s prison system houses about 6,000 to 7,000 statewide. 

“A single facility holding up to 10,000 detainees would exceed the capacity of any comparable system in Utah and represents an unprecedented concentration in one location,” she wrote. 

A facility of that size would also put additional pressure on already strained local law enforcement, emergency services and public health systems, Wilson said. Its surrounding utility and road infrastructure is also “not designed to support a facility of this scale,” she wrote. 

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Utah politics has a way of turning big principles into very practical questions. How do lawmakers make policy that is not only principled, but also workable? How does a candidate keep faith with principles while still navigating what voters see, hear, and respond to? And what does it really take to earn reelection when a primary challenger decides to get in the race?

Senator Dan McCay addresses those questions directly, speaking from the reality of legislative service, the discipline required to hold a line on principles, and the belief that the state functions best when citizens argue in public instead of shutting down debate.

PoliticIt Radio – Hold the Line – A Song for Dan McCay

The Senate mindset: accountability spread over time

One of the most noticeable differences between the House and the Senate, McCay says, comes down to a simple structural point: terms.

In the House, members face elections on a two-year cycle. In the Senate, the term is four years, which changes the pattern of accountability and the rhythms of public pressure. The founders set this design intentionally so that the different chambers would be accountable in different ways.

McCay explains that in many ways the Senate is supposed to slow down knee-jerk reactions. When only half the Senate is up for election every two years, it can reduce the sense that policy must respond immediately to the latest wave of voter sentiment. The goal, in theory, is to push lawmakers toward solutions that are:

• Administrable, meaning they can actually be implemented
• Process-driven, not just reaction-driven
• Institutionally sound, so the “food fight” turns into something that can actually function

That difference in time and pressure matters because the job is not just to argue. It is to get to outcomes that hold up when the work begins.

Re-election in a primary: “ambition and friendship is a terrible mixture”

Running again is its own kind of test, and McCay describes the peculiar challenge of facing a primary opponent. Even with years of legislative work and relationships on both sides of the aisle, he says it can be difficult to understand the motive behind someone choosing to run directly against him.

McCay’s most direct line is that he understands ambition, but ambition combined with friendship can make politics feel especially disorienting. He mentions that one of his opponents had been a friend, at least for a time, until the decision was made to seek the seat.

He also frames it as stepping-stone ambition for higher office, suggesting that the challenger’s future goals may be part of the calculus. McCay does not treat this as inherently illegitimate. In his view, it is part of American politics, and it is ultimately the people’s job to decide who serves.

That leads to a key theme: the seat belongs to the voters, not the person currently holding it.

McCay emphasizes that service is what justifies the job. Politics may get a bad reputation online for self-enrichment, but he points out that legislative service is only one form of service among many. A person can serve through church work, community support, homeless kitchens, and countless other roles. A legislative seat is simply another opportunity to offer time, effort, and principles.

And for him, service also has a hard side people do not always appreciate: time commitment. Moving from the House to the Senate brought a change in pace, scheduling, and responsibilities that requires discipline, not just ambition.

From House to Senate: waiting, timing, and the realities of “filing”

McCay recounts how his Senate path formed. He describes watching and waiting for Senator Howard Stevenson to retire, and how he treated the transition with respect.

He tells a story from the 2018 session that captures something subtle about legislative culture: when members are not just writing policy but also timing their careers. Stevenson joked about retirement timing, implying McCay should not assume he would be stepping down immediately. McCay says he planned to keep focusing on his policy work in the House until Stevenson announced his retirement.

Then the practical calendar hit. McCay notes that the filing deadline was tied to a specific time window: the filing deadline was at 8:00 a.m. the next morning after the session. He describes spending the night close to the end of the session in anticipation of that deadline.

He also contrasts two conditions: filing after the session versus filing before the session. McCay says his experience was the first time he dealt with a filing deadline that occurred before the legislative session. In his opinion, it was not particularly helpful for the body, implying that the timing added friction to a process that should be focused.

After reelection was secured in 2018, McCay says he took time to soul-search and decide whether to run again. He did not make the decision immediately. He mentions arriving at the choice later in the year, around November, which he suspects may have affected public perceptions, since voters and party leaders were left wondering whether he would run.

In a political system that runs on signals, not answering quickly can become its own message.

Campaign season: meeting delegates and leaning into the caucus process

Once the decision to run is made, McCay describes campaign work as grounded and relational. Right now, he says, his routine centers on meeting with delegates and talking with them about what concerns them.

One of the most interesting parts of his approach is that he truly likes the caucus convention process. Many candidates talk about “stacking the caucuses,” building a network of friends and supporters who can secure the nomination. McCay says he has never approached it that way.

He views the process as fundamentally neighbor-based. If the role is supposed to be earned on caucus night, then election should reflect neighbors deciding who can do the job. In that framing, it should not be a machine powered primarily by pre-arranged alliances.

After caucus night, the campaign continues by meeting new people. McCay describes meeting dozens of new individuals and trying to earn support through listening, discussion, and showing up.

Policy becomes personal: the contractor and workers comp conversation

Campaign conversations are not abstract for McCay. They often become grounded in specific workplace issues that connect to state policy decisions.

He shares an example from a delegate he has been speaking with: a contractor explaining the difficulty of being a state contractor, especially with respect to how employees are treated compared to typical workers comp coverage.

As he tells it, the contractor discusses how general contractor relationships involve complex categories. These include how employees are handled under state contracts, and how that affects workers comp coverage and related protections.

For McCay, these are exactly the kinds of issues that make policymaking “super fascinating.” The state is not just setting rules in a vacuum. Law affects who bears risk, how people are protected, and what it costs to do the work of building projects.

In his view, the job is to listen carefully, then decide which policy changes are needed and which directions make improvements possible.

Popular vs. principled: why lawmakers struggle to close the gap

McCay’s political philosophy is about more than slogans. He describes a framework built around a present condition versus a goal state.

When lawmakers move toward principle, he says, it often means choosing policies that are less popular right now. Smaller government and less spending, for example, can conflict with how people feel about where things stand. Transparency measures might sound straightforward in theory, but in practice can be harder to pursue when public attention is focused elsewhere.

He also points to one of the deepest obstacles: policy decisions that move toward principle can require nuance that does not fit modern attention spans. He argues that lawmakers now need to compress complex thinking into short bursts because social media engagement often rewards snippets.

McCay contrasts that reality with long-form debate. He invokes the Federalist Papers as a symbol of nuance and sustained argument, suggesting the level of deliberation required for that kind of debate would be nearly impossible today given the constraints of contemporary media.

In his view, this compression makes it harder to achieve “better principle.” Even constitutional conventions and other settings that demand careful discussion are vulnerable when the surrounding culture cannot sustain the kind of debate those processes require.

Principle is not just argued, it must be shown to work

So how does a society move back toward principle if the public sphere cannot easily support nuance?

McCay’s answer is practical: people have to see how principles work. The debate cannot only be theoretical. It has to be grounded in results.

He uses an example involving an initiative process and reapportionment style politics. In his telling, the problem was not only the policy content. It was the way questions were framed to voters.

He argues that if a ballot initiative had asked voters plainly whether they would give up say over map-drawing to an unelected body, they likely would not have supported it. But he says the actual language and questions were more nuanced, long, and did not fully capture how power would shift.

He estimates that only a small fraction of voters read the statutory language closely, and that even fewer understood how disputes might end up being decided by the chief justice of the Utah Supreme Court if there was disagreement between the unelected body and the legislature.

He also references a prior warning attributed to Senator Ralph Oerlin, describing the initiative as a “one-way street” to lengthy litigation where a judge would pick the maps. McCay says that is what occurred.

His broader point is not simply that initiatives are bad. It is that the public must understand power dynamics. When the system becomes a balance-of-powers fight, people learn the real consequences of losing control over outcomes.

In his view, Utah is more capable of having a serious conversation now than it was three years earlier because the results have become visible and public.

Known bias vs. unknown bias: keep the fight in public

McCay takes a strong stance about power and accountability. He does not claim that eliminating bias is possible. Instead, he argues that removing one kind of bias usually just substitutes another.

He describes it as a preference for “known bias” over “unknown bias,” but his deeper argument is about the need for public accountability and public debate.

He suggests that restoring principle requires long conversations in which citizens fully understand what is being asked of them. Once those conversations happen, it becomes more realistic to pursue principled reforms.

Contention is not always a failure. It can be a design feature.

Perhaps the most counterintuitive idea McCay shares is that contentious fights can be good for a republic.

He extends this beyond initiatives to national issues such as immigration policy. His claim is that many government failures trace back to policies that failed to meet the underlying principle. When principle is not followed, people start creating exceptions to remain popular. Over time, that leads to deeper division.

He then argues that the solution is not to stop fighting entirely, but to fight in the right place. In the American system, he says, institutions are built so that arguments and disputes happen in the halls of the capital to prevent conflict from spilling out on the streets.

When the system works, elected officials and citizens can talk about principle, learn it themselves, and respect the institutional design that allows disagreement to be managed.

McCay calls the balance of powers a “miracle of thought,” highlighting that the long survival of republic-style democracies likely comes from learning from earlier failures. He credits that institutional wisdom for how the system holds up over time.

Why McCay’s pitch is about principled policymaking and tax fairness

By the end of the conversation, McCay frames his reelection case in terms of effectiveness as a fighter for principle and good policy.

He points to his record and emphasizes the absence of lobbyist-driven agendas. Instead, he describes his work as focused on making the legislative process more principled, transparent, and responsive.

One area he says he understands especially well is tax policy. McCay argues that tax responsibilities matter because they shape how the state finances essential functions and because tax choices often reflect whether lawmakers are pursuing popularity rather than sound policy.

He warns that pursuing popular tax outcomes can hurt taxpayers in the long run.

His specific tax argument centers on income tax. He calls income tax the “worst tax” among the taxes Utah pays and gives reasons grounded in two ideas:

• Double tax: after paying income tax, subsequent taxes can apply again, he argues.
• Privacy and disclosure: paying income tax requires disclosing detailed information to the government.

From that perspective, he sets a mission: to keep pushing for the income tax rate to be below 4%. He says this is the fight he wants to continue and hopes voters will join him in pursuing.

What it means to “return to principle” in everyday policymaking

McCay’s overarching message weaves through every topic discussed in the conversation: principle is not a slogan. It is a process.

That process includes disciplined debate, honest framing, accountability through elections, and policies that work in the real world. It also includes the willingness to admit that moving toward principle is harder than managing the present because popular positions often do not align with long-term structure and institutional health.

When citizens understand how power works, when elections keep accountability active, and when disagreements stay public and principled, the republic gains strength. And, in McCay’s view, that strength is part of what has allowed Utah and the United States to endure as long-surviving republic democracies.

#politicit #utahelections #utpol

The post Inside the Primary: Senator Dan McCay on Re-Election, Policy, and the Road Ahead appeared first on PoliticIt.

Public safety can feel like a distant concept until you realize how much of everyday life it quietly touches. A single arrest flows into the county jail. A medical emergency becomes an organized response. A budget decision becomes meals, medications, maintenance, and staffing. A leader’s job is to connect those dots.

Aaron Perry, a candidate for Davis County Sheriff, builds his case around one simple idea: the sheriff’s office is not just about patrol cars and high profile calls. It is a large organization that must run every day. And according to Perry, the sheriff needs the kind of experience that comes from seeing public safety from multiple angles, including corrections and administration.

His pitch is rooted in a lifelong connection to Davis County, and a career that has included EMT work, paramedic training, police academy, patrol duty, SWAT leadership, city-level perspective, corrections chief responsibilities, and leadership training focused on culture and mindset. It is also grounded in the kind of leadership lessons you only pick up when you have served in the middle of the work, not just talked about it from the sidelines.

PoliticIt Radio – Every Day It Runs — Aaron Perry Anthem

A lifelong Davis County resident with law enforcement depth

Perry’s background starts with place and people. He was born and raised in Davis County, grew up in Centerville, and graduated from Viewmont High School. He and his wife later moved to Layton, where they have lived for decades. He describes himself as a lifelong resident, and that connection matters to his campaign because, as he puts it, the decisions made by county leadership impact his family and neighbors year after year.

That commitment to the community also shows up in the way his career began. He worked at the sheriff’s office in an early role that combined public service with emergency care. Davis County used to have an ambulance division, and Perry was hired as an EMT. He even tells a personal origin story about meeting his wife at the sheriff’s office. In his telling, that is more than trivia. It sets the tone for the way he approaches the work: public safety as something relational, human, and local.

From there, he built a professional ladder that is both specialized and broad. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Weber State University and later completed a master’s in public administration from BYU, including the Salt Lake Center program while working. During that time, he was already in the patrol world, including experience as a patrol sergeant and SWAT team leader.

His training path is also distinctive. Because Davis County’s paramedic program ran through the county system at the time, he describes a pipeline where deputies were cross trained as paramedics. Perry started on the ambulance side, then attended paramedic school at Weber State, and after graduating was sent through the police academy. After that, he transitioned into the patrol division as both a deputy and a paramedic.

When asked about how such a background helps a sheriff, Perry emphasizes that it creates understanding across the full spectrum of operations. You cannot lead a sheriff’s office effectively if you only know one part of the machine. The job requires credibility in the streets and competence in the administration.

Why city experience and administration both matter

One of Perry’s strongest points is that a sheriff’s job is not only operational. It is managerial at a scale that many people do not fully grasp.

He argues that administrative experience is crucial, especially because sheriff’s offices manage multi million dollar budgets and complex legal and personnel issues. In his view, corrections is only one part of the organizational picture, but it is one of the biggest and most misunderstood parts.

He also makes a practical argument about collaboration. Perry says he gained meaningful “city perspective” during his time working in Roy as an assistant police chief. In a city setting, police departments and the county sheriff work closely together, and the collaboration has to be intentional. He believes that experience helps a future sheriff anticipate how decisions from the county side affect city chiefs, city priorities, and day to day public safety outcomes.

Administratively, Perry stresses that a sheriff functions like a chief executive. He gives an example to explain what that looks like: when running a jail, the sheriff is effectively managing a business that operates daily. It involves feeding incarcerated people three times a day, ordering supplies, providing medical services, transporting individuals to court, paying utilities, and negotiating contracts. He describes budgeting and contracting as constant work, not occasional work.

In other words, the sheriff’s office is not a single department. It is a system. And the system must work even on the days people never think about.

The jail is essential, and many people do not even notice

Corrections becomes a central theme in Perry’s case. He describes how often people drive past jail facilities and do not realize what they are looking at, or even where the jail is located. He recounts a conversation with a neighbor who asked if Davis County had a jail, and then seemed surprised by where it is.

Perry connects this to something he believes citizens should recognize: the work inside jails is difficult, essential, and often overlooked. If the community does not even know where the jail is, it cannot easily measure the quality of the operation. That creates a leadership challenge for anyone seeking to run corrections responsibly.

His approach, again, is rooted in experience. Perry says that when he moved into corrections leadership at Weaver County, he quickly learned to respect the people doing the work in the jail environment, including staff supporting incarcerated individuals and maintaining safety and order.

Corrections, he says, is not an afterthought. It is central to public safety. State law places responsibility for the jail on the sheriff, and because Davis County has one jail, every arrest from law enforcement agencies across the county can lead to the jail intake process. For Perry, that means corrections leadership cannot be treated like an administrative footnote.

Corrections leadership during COVID: a master level game of Tetris

Perry’s corrections experience included the added complication of COVID. He describes arriving in corrections leadership with about one year to get “feet wet” before the pandemic hit. Even with that runway, the pandemic created a difficult environment, especially because guidelines changed often.

He emphasizes that jails were not built for the specific quarantine and isolation needs that COVID required. During early phases of the pandemic, there were guidelines for quarantine and isolation periods for new arrivals and those with exposure. Perry describes the operational challenge as constantly reorganizing people, processes, and space to align with public health direction.

In his words, the team worked through it like “a master level game of Tetris.” Command staff and medical teams met repeatedly to figure out where each piece fit. The goal was to keep both staff and incarcerated individuals safe while still running the day to day functions a jail must run.

This is a detail that matters because it speaks to a leadership capability that is difficult to fake. It is one thing to discuss theory. It is another to show up during a crisis where systems are stressed, guidelines are evolving, and safety is non negotiable.

Perry uses this experience to reinforce his larger point: public safety leaders manage large organizations with complex obligations, including health and safety standards that cannot be improvised.

Building a path home: education, experience, and the decision to run

Perry describes his leadership path as something he was actively shaping while he progressed through his career. During his master’s program, he met with then Davis County Sheriff Bud Cox to ask whether pursuing public administration training made sense. Perry says Cox’s response was direct: if Perry only intended to “ride out” a career and accept promotions as they came, then the program would not be worth it. But if he was aiming to lead and help the agency, then the program could be valuable.

That conversation planted a question that Perry says came back to him during the end of the program. He felt that he was supposed to run for sheriff. But he also recognized what he calls gaps in his resume at the time, specifically corrections experience and administrative experience. He decided not to run then.

Instead, he continued building. He gained administrative experience at Roy. He then took on corrections chief responsibilities at Weaver County, which he describes as the missing piece. Over time, he aligned his career experiences with what he thought he needed to bring home to Davis County.

He frames the decision to run as both strategic and personal. Perry emphasizes that he lives in Davis County, grew up here, and has deep family ties. He also describes concerns that connect his campaign to future generations, including housing challenges. In his argument, it is not enough to be qualified. A sheriff should also be invested in how county policies shape residents long term.

What the sheriff’s office does for Davis County

One of the more practical questions Perry answers is how the sheriff’s office directly benefits the people of Davis County.

He highlights the sheriff’s jail responsibility under state law. Davis County has only one jail. That means arrests across the county feed into the same system, and the jail must be ready to function properly so other agencies can do their work. When the jail functions smoothly, it enables the rest of the county’s public safety ecosystem to operate efficiently.

Perry also explains why he values that corrections component as part of his campaign. He knew corrections experience was needed, even before he fully had it. When Weaver County’s leadership asked him which chief position he wanted, he originally leaned toward enforcement because it aligned with his existing experience. But he says the sheriff’s guidance was that corrections was the better fit. Perry credits that decision with filling the missing piece he needed to lead effectively.

A leadership philosophy built on culture and mindset

Perry’s vision for improving Davis County’s sheriff’s office focuses on culture, not just policies. He uses a story from his early career to explain why culture matters.

He describes joining the profession because he wanted to do the work, particularly the medical side and the law enforcement side. He also admits he did not fully consider what the job would cost his family early on: nights, weekends, and holidays.

He says that within five or six years, he had already worked multiple Christmases, often in graveyard shifts. He recounts one Christmas Eve where his wife called him multiple times to ask if he could stop by briefly to say goodnight to the kids. Each time, service calls interrupted. He ended up handling multiple calls instead of being home.

By the last call, he describes himself as not in the best headspace. He felt unseen and unrecognized and struggled to connect the “purpose of service” with the reality of being called away again and again. During that call, an individual approached him and asked for time after the service was completed. Perry says he thought something like, “What problem have you taken years to create that you want me to fix in the next 10 minutes?” That mindset, he implies, was a barrier.

Then he turned around to see the person and their family holding a crate of oranges. They sang a Christmas carol and thanked him for sacrificing time with his family to serve. Perry says the gesture was profound. It helped him feel seen. More importantly, it reminded him why he entered the career in the first place.

He says that from that day forward, he tried to work in a way that saw people, not just tasks or calls. He believes that at the end of long shifts, in intense conditions like 100 degree heat while wearing protective gear, it can be easy to treat the next person asking for help as the next obstacle. A leadership culture that actively trains people to see others as people can counter that default tendency.

This idea became a program. During his time at Weaver County, Perry says he brought in training from the Arbinger Institute called “Outward Mindset in Public Safety.” He describes it as giving deputies tools to recognize their own mindset when approaching calls or meetings.

He explains that “mindset” can show up in subtle ways: seeing a person as an “object” rather than a human, or dismissing others internally, or even treating another chief as competition rather than a teammate. The training, in Perry’s account, teaches people to recognize that internal shift, then change it so collaboration becomes possible.

He claims they saw results, and he emphasizes that the best outcomes came when employees brought back success stories themselves. He describes one such success when a jail unit was refusing to lock down and was close to a riot. A special operations team prepared to respond with force, but a sergeant who had just taken the training approached an individual and engaged in conversation through the cuff port.

According to Perry, the dialogue revealed a personal context: the individual had turned off phone lines when talking to his grandmother and needed someone to help connect him to the family member who was still reachable. The sergeant arranged for that conversation. Then the individual told her that he would get everyone locked up, not for the team coming in, but because she saw them as people rather than animals.

For Perry, this story illustrates the difference between superficial compliance and trust based leadership. It supports his claim that culture is not soft. Culture affects safety, de escalation, and outcomes.

From “boss” to “leader” through shared accountability

Perry’s campaign language makes a clear distinction between being a boss and being a leader. While many candidates speak in generalities about professionalism and accountability, he grounds his argument in how people experience the organization from inside.

His target is a culture where employees see each other and stakeholders as humans, not as obstacles. He describes his goal as creating an environment where teams work through difficult challenges to find the best result for everyone involved.

In Perry’s framing, the “win” is both public safety and fiscal responsibility. He says candidates often want to provide good public safety at a good cost, saving taxpayers’ funding. But he argues that saving money is not just a budgeting exercise. It comes from organizational competence and a culture that helps people solve problems without unnecessary conflict.

This is also tied to collaboration. Perry connects mindset training to practical improvements: deputies who can reset their internal frames and see people as people are more likely to engage effectively during crises, reduce unnecessary escalations, and solve problems collaboratively.

Why outsiders can’t replace local leadership

Perry acknowledges he has experience across multiple law enforcement environments. He makes the point that he is the only candidate with experience from multiple sheriff’s offices and across three law enforcement agencies.

But he also pushes back against the fear that outside experience means abandoning Davis County. He states he does not want Davis County to become Weaver County or Roy. Instead, he argues that outside experience can be used as a toolkit while the sheriff remains grounded in Davis County’s needs.

His pitch is essentially: a leader should bring home lessons learned elsewhere, then adapt them to local realities. That requires both competence and connection.

As a candidate, Perry claims a unique blend: he has 19 years with the sheriff’s office, plus corrections leadership and administrative roles. He frames this as a “huge amount of experience” to draw from as problems arise, rather than scrambling for answers once in office.

Public safety is solved through competence, not just response

At the end of the conversation, Perry gives a graduation speech style message to officers. He encourages them that their career is like writing chapters in a book. The implication is that leadership is cumulative. Each shift, decision, and interaction contributes to the story of the agency.

He shares a story from early patrol duty about a burglary. The typical expectation for patrol officers, he says, is to take the initial report and hand it off to investigations. Perry made a different decision: he worked the case, solved it, and returned about $150,000 worth of property.

He uses that example to say he would be that kind of sheriff who does not merely “get by.” He would use experience to write better chapters for Davis County, building on what has already been done while pushing for outcomes that residents can feel.

So why should voters choose Aaron Perry?

Perry closes with a direct argument for his candidacy. He believes voters should choose him because of connection, experience, and a practical vision for culture and operations.

• Local connection: He describes himself as a lifelong Davis County resident with strong family ties across the county.
• Long tenure with the sheriff’s office: He claims 19 years of experience connected to the sheriff’s office and local public safety operations.
• Multi agency and multi environment experience: He says he is the only candidate with experience across multiple sheriff’s offices and three law enforcement agencies.
• Corrections and administrative leadership: He emphasizes that running a jail and managing multi million dollar budgets requires knowledge and responsibility that goes beyond patrol.
• A culture focused on seeing people as people: He argues that training and mindset are practical tools that improve collaboration and outcomes, especially during high stress incidents.

What Perry’s vision would mean in practice

It is one thing to talk about culture and leadership. It is another to connect those words to how a sheriff’s office would actually operate.

Based on Perry’s emphasis, a practical approach would include:

• Stronger jail operations: Recognizing that the jail is an essential part of public safety and managing it with safety, medical competence, and accountability.
• Better coordination across city and county public safety: Using city experience to ensure that county decisions help rather than hinder city chiefs and daily collaboration.
• Administrative competence: Treating budgeting, contracting, legal risk, and staffing as central executive responsibilities.
• Scenario based training for mindset and de escalation: Building tools for deputies to recognize when they are treating people as objects and resetting to a person centered approach.
• Leadership that is present at the right times: Perry supports the idea that leaders should lead from the front in critical moments, while still ensuring the day to day organization runs effectively.

Final thoughts: public safety as a system, and leadership as stewardship

Perry’s story is ultimately about stewardship. His background makes a case that leading a sheriff’s office is not just about responding. It is about maintaining a system that keeps residents safe and keeps the organization functional under pressure.

He argues that culture is not an abstract idea. It can reduce the chances of escalation. It can create better conversations. It can help staff navigate the fatigue and stress that come with 12 hour shifts and high volume emergency calls.

And he ties all of it back to a defining theme: connection to Davis County. He wants to take lessons learned elsewhere but keep the mission rooted in the community where his family lives and where, in his view, the sheriff’s choices shape the future.

In the end, his pitch is clear. A sheriff should understand the streets, the jail, the budget, and the people. Perry believes his combination of experience and mindset training gives him a foundation to lead that kind of system.

#politicit #utahelections #utpol

The post Inside the Race for Davis County Sheriff: Aaron Perry’s Vision for Public Safety appeared first on PoliticIt.

Leadership at the local level is often overlooked in national political conversations, but it is where day-to-day life gets shaped: where housing guidelines are negotiated, how budgets are prioritized, how public safety gets resourced, and how communities coordinate growth without losing what makes them home.

Rich Hyer’s candidacy for Weber County Commission Seat A is rooted in that kind of practical leadership. His path runs from hands-on craftsmanship and community involvement into public service at the city level, and now into the county conversation. The throughline is consistent: ask good questions, partner better across government, and be willing to look hard at spending and accountability.

PoliticIt Radio – Built in the Quiet Work – A Ballad of Rich Hyer

A hometown beginning: learning duty early

Hyer’s story starts with a hometown upbringing and parents who worked in public service roles. He describes himself as a “typical hometown boy,” born in what was then a hospital on Harrison Boulevard, growing up on the north end of town. His father worked for the Department of something abbreviated as DDO, and his mother worked for the sheriff’s office for years.

What stands out in Hyer’s recollection is that his mother’s work was not abstract or distant. She managed civil office paperwork, complaints, summonses, and related processes. There is also a memorable anecdote about how evidence storage overflowed into the civil office when there were dozens of marijuana plants. It is a detail offered with humor, but it carries the larger point: public service is often the unglamorous coordination of procedures that keep systems functioning.

Even a sheriff-driven “you have to go arrest somebody before you can retire” moment, as Hyer tells it, reflects the culture of the time. People stayed engaged in public duty, and that expectation carried into the way Hyer understands responsibility today.

Education, hobbies, and the craft that became a career

Hyer attended Horace Mann Elementary, then Highland Junior High and Ben Lomond High School. In high school, he was part of the Fighting Scots Clan, and he participated in football and track. He admits he was “never good,” but enjoyed the experience.

Academically, he describes himself as a student of art and science, with art playing an especially pivotal role. In junior high, he excelled enough in art that he completed the curriculum early. The teacher then began assigning additional work, including cutting stones through a lapidary setup in the classroom.

That hobby became an obsessive craft. Hyer learned how to make jewelry, including Indian jewelry, alongside his teacher in high school. Over time, that passion became his career as a jeweler and goldsmith.

He and his wife started a business in the early 1980s when the construction industry faltered. He was making cabinets, the work slowed, and he got laid off. His response was telling: instead of abandoning the skills he already had, he and his wife leaned into what they could do.

He describes it as “a hobby that got out of hand,” a small start that blossomed because there was a need in the area. The business evolved into wholesale goldsmithing, with the family closely involved over time. His wife works with him, and every one of their kids worked in the business at some point.

Mission experience and work ethic

Before fully settling into the long-term business path, Hyer served a mission. He worked for O.C. Tanner for a time, then served in the Pittsburgh Mission, describing himself as the first missionary called to that mission.

He recalls that period as “Steeltown, USA,” full of life and activity. When he returned home, he continued work and then, again, adjusted when economic conditions shifted. The theme is flexibility grounded in competence: learn a skill, build expertise, and when circumstances change, adapt without losing integrity or commitment.

From planning commissions to city council: learning how decisions get made

Hyer’s pivot into public service did not begin with a grand political ambition. It began with an invitation.

More than twenty years ago, a neighbor who was Ogden City Engineer approached him and asked if he would be interested in serving on the Ogden Planning Commission. Hyer did not fully know what it meant at first, but the explanation was straightforward: the planning commission makes recommendations to the city council and mayor about land use.

He accepted, and once he joined, he experienced a learning curve that shaped him. He had to understand city ordinances and how they apply to different uses, and he served for about a decade and a half.

That tenure mattered. He watched city council during a turbulent period marked by friction between the mayor and some council members. Hyer says it became frustrating for him because the planning commission did a lot of work to make recommendations, only to see that process strain under disagreements.

So he took the next logical step: if he wanted to bring more consensus to land use and governance, perhaps he needed to be at the table where votes get cast. He ran for city council, lost once, then returned to run again. He also had a church calling that kept him busy for about eight years before he ran again.

This is how his public service trajectory developed: planning, listening, learning the system, and then stepping in again with more experience.

What motivated the county run: partnerships, budgets, and proactive planning

Weber County governance sits at a level where issues spill across city boundaries. Hyer describes the relationship between the county and cities as “somewhat strange,” arguing that the county and cities must work together but often do not partner as well as they could.

He points to a perceived dynamic where the county wants cities to do what the county wishes, rather than approaching local government as shared problem-solving. For smaller cities, that can be especially difficult when staff capacity is limited.

Hyer also identifies the county budget as a core concern. Compared to nearby counties along the Wasatch Front, he describes Weber County as having a large budget relative to its size. He notes that commissioners are the highest paid commissioners in their set, and he anticipates the criticism that might come with that fact.

His response is not to dismiss concerns but to propose an example: he promised a 20% decrease in his pay as a single commissioner. It is the kind of move that signals priorities, not just policy. He says he cannot control the pay decisions of the other commissioners, but he intends to encourage them to do something similar.

Beyond his own salary, he advocates benchmarking to determine what is reasonable compensation for county leadership.

The goal, as Hyer frames it, is to reduce “bloat” and improve how money is spent so that services actually match what citizens need.

Public safety and the jail ballot initiative

Public safety is another key theme. Hyer discusses the sheriff’s ballot initiative regarding the jail: increasing beds, installing a health wing, and adding a mobile court. He called those moves “brilliant,” and he actively supported the sheriff by stumping and putting up signs.

However, the initiative failed. Hyer says he was disappointed because it did not feel like the commissioners supported it very much, although he acknowledges they may have had reasons he does not know.

His deeper concern is practical: he wants the sheriff’s department to have a solid, stable budget so the department does not feel like it is constantly “begging for money.” If public safety leadership has to operate under chronic uncertainty, it becomes harder to plan, hire, and deliver reliable services.

He also ties this to broader fairness: commissioners and county officials should support employees with reasonable pay, benefits that support family life, and a culture that respects the work people do.

A leadership style built on questions and collaboration

When asked what he can contribute to the job, Hyer does not position himself as an all-knowing fixer. Instead, he emphasizes collaboration and common ground.

He describes the mindset he brings: you can get to the best output by working from common ground, asking the right questions, and bringing in smart people with the data needed to make better decisions. He also repeats a point that comes up earlier in his remarks: he is not “the smartest person in the room,” so he relies on inquiry and expertise rather than ego.

In local government, that can be a big deal. Small misalignments between departments, or between county and city leadership, can create ripple effects in approvals, timelines, and resident outcomes. Hyer’s approach seems designed to reduce those mismatches through better listening and better coordination.

Helping smaller communities plan for growth

One of Hyer’s most specific policy visions involves partnership with smaller cities in the county. Many of these cities, he notes, have populations under 10,000 and limited staffing. They may not have full-time engineers and planners.

Hyer argues the county should be “more eager to partner” with smaller communities to help them with future guidelines. He lists the kinds of questions that planning must answer:

• Where should density be appropriate?
• How can a community organize a plan or master plan for growth?
• Where are heavy traffic areas likely to develop?
• How can communities plan for the growth of their residents without undermining what residents value?

He also frames housing goals as something more personal than political slogans. People want their kids to live close, and communities want to avoid changes they do not choose. That creates a need for local input, not one-size-fits-all directives.

Housing master planning: building consensus across communities

Weber Area County of Governments board and an all-in resolution

Hyer references prior work on a county-wide housing master plan. When he served on the city council, he was the city council’s representative on the Weber Area County of Governments Board.

He says he undertook an assignment to form a resolution to create a county-wide housing master plan, and it received unanimous vote. The housing master plan was intended as guidelines to shape the future.

To achieve that, Hyer describes bringing smart volunteers and having them help communities reach out to their citizens to learn what residents want. The rationale was grounded in empathy: people like where they live, and they do not want disruptive changes driven from outside.

However, he also recounts a frustrating twist. County employees, in his view, did “pretty much everything they could to kill that,” meaning the resolution and plan never fulfilled in the way it was intended.

That disappointment became part of his motivation to consider a county commissioner role, where he believes he could reduce that kind of bureaucratic friction and ensure cooperative planning actually happens.

Sewer improvement board frustrations: permits and consultation

Hyer also notes service on the Central Weber Sewer Improvement Board, a board he describes as “full of mayors.” He says there was discussion among mayors who were upset with the county’s decisions involving land approvals and permits for housing projects.

In the case he describes, some housing projects were approved even though they fell between communities with minimum lot size requirements in their master plans. The mayors felt those approvals happened without consulting them, and Hyer agrees that the situation was “rotten,” as he put it.

That is another example of Hyer’s theme: decisions that affect multiple communities should involve those communities, not just bypass them. Even when county actions are permissible under some interpretation, the governance process itself matters. It shapes trust.

Proactive growth vs. reactive growth

Hyer’s planning philosophy comes down to timing. Growth happens, but the county and cities need to be proactive rather than reactive.

He argues that reactive growth planning rarely has a good end because it forces decisions into crisis mode, when options are narrower and residents are less able to influence outcomes. Proactive planning, by contrast, creates room for feedback, coordination, and better infrastructure alignment.

He ties his planning priorities to state-level pressure as well. He says the legislature is concerned about housing and population growth, and if cities do not handle it, the state will. As a person who values local government and “small government,” he believes local decision-makers should shape outcomes whenever possible.

But local planning can only succeed if the county helps rather than overrides and collaborates with cities so they can act early and effectively.

Economic development and preventing the “in-between” slide

Hyer also frames county growth as a question of economic development and identity. He wants the county to grow in an economic way so it does not become the “poor county between Davis County and Box Elder.”

That line highlights a concern about being squeezed geographically and economically, lacking the resources to compete while still carrying the consequences of regional growth. His perspective is that planning, infrastructure, and budget discipline should support stable outcomes for residents.

Tax increases, sheriff stability, and pay discipline

As election messaging moves toward the finish line, Hyer’s pitch emphasizes restraint and focus. He says he will be mindful of tax increases and the stability of the sheriff’s department.

He also returns to the commitment he made about his own pay. He says he is not running “for the money,” which he demonstrates by taking a 20% pay reduction on the first day. Then he adds that county leaders should look at areas where spending can be cut.

He places culture and partnership alongside finance. In his view, leadership is not just spreadsheets. It is how a county works with cities, how it supports public safety, and how it treats employees so families can thrive.

What kind of leader does this approach require?

What makes Hyer’s candidacy interesting is not only the policies he points to, but the leadership method he seems to value. The method includes:

• Collaboration over confrontation: seeking common ground and getting consensus on outcomes rather than maximizing conflict.
• Questioning over assuming: asking smart people for answers and using data to shape recommendations.
• Fiscal honesty: publicly committing to pay reductions and using benchmarking to guide compensation and spending.
• Proactive planning: engaging growth early rather than dealing with consequences after the fact.
• Partnership with smaller communities: helping cities that lack full planning and engineering staff.

Those elements can sound abstract, but Hyer grounds them in concrete examples: planning commission learning, city council involvement, housing master plan efforts, and sheriff budget stability concerns.

The core issues in plain language

Local elections can be filled with jargon, and residents often have trouble translating candidate statements into what will actually change. Hyer’s key priorities can be summarized in straightforward terms.

1) Fix county-city coordination

He believes the county should partner more effectively with cities instead of directing them. He highlights complaints from mayors and discusses the need for outreach to communities, especially smaller ones with limited staff.

2) Reduce budget bloat and improve accountability

He points to a relatively large county budget and argues there is opportunity for better spending. His commitment to a 20% reduction in his own pay is presented as a starting example, paired with benchmarking for leadership compensation.

3) Protect a stable budget for public safety

He strongly supports the sheriff’s jail and court-related initiatives and wants the sheriff’s department to have stability so it is not constantly scrambling for funding.

4) Plan for housing and growth proactively

He believes local governments should shape growth plans early. If cities do not address housing needs, the state may step in. He supports proactive guidelines for density, traffic, and community master planning.

Why his background matters

Rich Hyer’s journey from craft to governance is not just a personal storyline. It helps explain his approach. Running a wholesale goldsmithing business requires patience, quality standards, and long-term thinking. Public service in planning and city council requires procedural discipline and an ability to synthesize multiple viewpoints into usable recommendations.

He also appears to carry forward a sense of family-centered responsibility. In his words, “people’s most important thing is their family,” and that connects back to how he frames employee pay and benefits.

In short, his background suggests he values:

• Work that compounds over time (craft skill, planning experience, incremental governance learning).
• Systems that function reliably (budget stability, procedural transparency, stable public safety resourcing).
• Practical collaboration (partnership between county and cities, consensus building).

What residents should listen for in this race

Even if a voter does not know Hyer personally, local elections require judgment based on priorities and accountability. If someone is evaluating candidates for county leadership, Hyer’s statements provide a useful lens for asking questions.

Residents can consider:

• How does the candidate propose to handle county spending and potential bloat?
• Do they commit to measurable discipline, such as pay reductions or budget cuts, or do they only talk generally?
• How will they support public safety agencies with stable planning and budgets?
• Will they partner with cities and help smaller communities with planning capacity?
• Do they emphasize proactive housing and growth planning or only react to crises?

Hyer’s pitch is built around those exact themes. He repeatedly returns to budgets, partnership, and proactive planning, while anchoring his approach in collaboration and questioning.

A closing pitch: service, restraint, and culture

In his closing remarks, Hyer emphasizes gratitude for the opportunity to run and acknowledges the stress that comes with campaigning. He presents himself as highly engaged, with a goal of providing good service to county residents.

He says he will be mindful of tax increases, support the sheriff’s department stability, and strengthen partnership and county culture. He reiterates that he is not doing this for money, and he again points to his willingness to take a 20% pay reduction on day one and encourage leadership to look for cost savings where possible.

If there is a single idea that ties his remarks together, it is this: local government should be competent, coordinated, and accountable, with growth planned proactively and resources deployed in a way that supports families, public safety, and community trust.

Quick takeaway

Rich Hyer’s campaign for Weber County Commission Seat A emphasizes three practical pillars: better county-city partnership, disciplined budget oversight, and proactive planning for housing and growth, alongside stable public safety funding. His leadership style is collaborative, question-driven, and grounded in a “small government” philosophy that argues local decisions should shape local outcomes before the state is forced to intervene.

#politicit #utahelections #utpol

The post From City Hall to County Leadership: Rich Hyer’s Run for Weber County Commission appeared first on PoliticIt.

In local politics, the best leadership often looks a lot like everyday problem-solving. It is showing up, answering questions, listening to neighbors, and then doing the unglamorous work that turns gaps and friction into real results.

Jon Beasley’s pitch for Weber County Commission Seat B is rooted in that kind of leadership. After serving two terms as mayor of Plain City, Beasley is now asking voters to expand his focus from one community to the county level. His central themes are straightforward: improve communication between county government and cities, protect morale in public safety, stop a “spend it or lose it” mentality, and support local partners so growth does not become a series of new pressures dumped onto city services.

Plain City, Beasley points out, is still small, around 8,700 residents. That size matters because it forces leaders to know people, not just policies. During his time in office, he said he genuinely enjoyed “getting to know people” through everything from volunteerism to neighbor conflicts. That relational approach becomes an organizing principle in how he wants to govern at the county level.

Below is a clear look at Beasley’s story, his motivations for running, and the practical policy priorities he describes, from economic development and spending discipline to public safety budget respect and morale-building.

 PoliticIt Radio – Built in Plain City – Jon Beasley

Mayor Experience: Building Trust in Plain City

Beasley finished his service as Plain City mayor in January after eight years. For him, the job was not only about overseeing budgets and ordinances. It was about building relationships with residents and making government feel accessible.

He describes Plain City as a place where the “getting to know” part of governance never really ends. Whether the issue is neighborhood-level conflict or community service, it is personal. And because it is personal, people expect answers, not delays.

Local economic development that helped residents

One of the most concrete examples from Beasley’s mayoral tenure is the arrival of major commercial development: Kent’s Market and later an Amazon fulfillment and delivery-related point-of-sale arrangement.

Kent’s Market was described as a “shot in the arm” for Plain City, arriving at a key time in leadership transitions. Beasley notes that Mayor Bruce Higley was in office when the project was passed and built, and Beasley began receiving the increased funds in his budget year after being elected. That timeline mattered because cities operate on different calendar cycles than counties. Plain City’s budget runs June to June, while counties run January to January.

Still, the impact was clear. Beasley describes sales tax revenue moving from roughly $300,000 per year to around a million the second year after the opening. The practical result, he argues, was that this boost helped “save our residents” by reducing pressure to pursue property tax increases.

The same theme appears with the Amazon-related sales tax effect. Beasley calls it an “adrenaline” boost to Plain City. He emphasizes that point-of-sale logistics were central to how the sales tax benefit came back to the city.

A “come full circle” moment

There is also a personal, hometown feel to Kent’s story. Beasley points out that Kent’s Market’s first store was actually in Plain City, then it expanded outward and eventually came back as the top store. That detail reinforces a broader message: economic development is not only about growth numbers. It is about building local momentum with businesses that understand the community.

Why Run for County Commission?

Beasley’s motivation is not framed as ambition for its own sake. It is presented as a response to gaps he believes exist at the county level, especially in how the county communicates with city leaders and supports contract cities.

After eight years as mayor, he said he saw repeated issues around:

• Communication gaps between the county and communities.
• Openness and accessibility compared to what city leaders experience with county leadership.
• Competition dynamics that create contention when they do not need to exist.

He also describes something that became a cultural detail during his mayoral service: he regularly answered questions on the Plain City Facebook page and left his phone number. Over time, people began tagging him constantly. But he treated that as a signal that residents do not just want public meetings. They want leaders who are reachable.

Beasley says he always left his phone number at the bottom of posts, encouraging residents to call, even if he was busy. His stated purpose was to start discussions and work toward solutions, not hide behind bureaucracy.

What caused the county-city gap?

Beasley’s explanation is blunt. He believes there is “some competition going on that doesn’t necessarily need to be going on.” He argues that the county has a responsibility to oversee certain functions, but that some actions go beyond what should be county responsibilities, which can turn collaboration into tension.

His example focuses on development and the ripple effects of growth. Cities were established to handle many community services, while counties were not set up to manage those same functions in the same way.

A concrete case is youth recreation. Beasley notes that Plain City has a “phenomenal rec director” who handles programs effectively. But he also points to expected population growth, including “a thousand homes coming in” between Plain City and Far West. In his view, those kids will need recreation programs somewhere, and the burden will land on cities.

He emphasizes that city recreation programs would face “undue pressure” and “undue strain,” especially because those city services do not always receive the property tax dollars generated by new homes in the same way.

From his perspective, contention then reduces communication. He says similar friction has appeared over the last five to six years between city leaders and county government.

Public Safety and the Sheriff: Morale, Budget Respect, and Less Micromanaging

If Beasley’s campaign is about relationships and communication, his account of public safety is about the internal health of an organization that protects residents. He says he worked closely with the sheriff and his lieutenants during his years as mayor, particularly because Plain City is a contract city.

Plain City as a contract city

Beasley explains that instead of having its own police department, Plain City contracts with the Weber County Sheriff’s Office for coverage.

He describes the collaboration as effective and highlights specific personnel. He mentions “Lieutenant Horton” as his last lieutenant, worked with for “two, three, four years,” and describes earlier lieutenants as well as positive partners.

He says the sheriff’s office has consistently performed well. But what makes his perspective distinctive is how he interprets the sheriff’s leadership style.

“It is an office” rather than a department

Beasley notes that the sheriff’s leadership is tied to the fact that the sheriff is elected. He distinguishes between a “department” and the actual elected office. For him, that distinction matters because of how budgets should be handled.

Beasley says he learned the sheriff’s approach includes building morale, not just managing tasks. He describes it as a “people builder” philosophy. He also points to training levels for deputies and the idea that the administration is serious about both professional and personal readiness.

In his view, the sheriff is tough when needed and expects a lot, but he maintains principle and treats personnel in a way that creates loyalty and respect.

His critique: micromanaging kills morale

Beasley’s critique is directed at county commissioners’ involvement in how the sheriff’s budget is handled during the year.

He acknowledges that counties oversee the sheriff’s budget. But he argues that there is “a time and a place” for that oversight. For him, the key is when intervention happens. He believes commissioners too often insert themselves early in a budget cycle, talking about “reallocations or cuts” only a few months into the cycle.

He connects that kind of ongoing adjustment to lower morale among the men and women who wear badges and do the work day to day.

Beasley describes the protective mission as the sheriff’s first responsibility: to ensure residents and property are protected. In that context, he believes commissioners should avoid destabilizing the people doing the work.

How he would handle it differently

Beasley’s proposed remedy is consistent with his broader theme of trust with accountability. He argues for sitting down with the sheriff and letting him design and execute his budget as provided.

His approach includes three key ideas:

• Let the sheriff create the budget and then give him room to execute it.
• Stop frequent in-year meddling through reallocations and cuts.
• Judge spending at election time, since the sheriff is elected and can be held accountable by voters.

In a campaign tone that signals both conviction and pragmatism, Beasley also suggests he would support the sheriff’s budget “as needed,” especially if the county and contract cities are growing and those responsibilities expand.

He contrasts this with a posture he sees in current governance, where he believes short-term adjustments mean less support for deputies and staff.

Spending Discipline: Needs Over Wants and Rewarding Prudence

Beyond communication and morale, Beasley focuses on budgeting behavior. His central argument is not simply that governments should spend less. It is that governments should spend smarter, aligned to needs, and stop punishing departments for underspending.

He supports the idea that governments already have enough

Beasley frames a goal he pursued while mayor: proving governments have “enough money” and that the issue is spending decisions, not a lack of revenue.

His philosophy can be summarized as:

• Focus on needs, not wants.
• Only consider “wants” if funding remains after needs are covered.
• Avoid the instinct to spend surplus quickly just to make sure a budget does not shrink next year.

Reward departments that spend responsibly

One of his most memorable budgeting examples involves a hypothetical public works director given a $20 million budget. If, at year end, they have $2,000 or $2 million left, Beasley argues they should not be punished by cutting their future budget.

Instead, he says leaders should thank them for responsible execution and then look for opportunities where they might improve efficiency or reallocate resources based on real gaps. For him, “spending less than allocated” is a signal of prudence, not failure.

He also describes a mindset he disliked from a previous job in plumbing supply. He recalled cities coming in with last-minute invoices simply to use up leftover budget before the end of the year. The purpose was not a legitimate project need but preventing the risk of reduced funding later.

That behavior, he argues, leads to waste. It also encourages stocking up on parts and supplies that are not actually needed, creating long-term costs.

At the county level, Beasley says he would work on fine-tuning purchasing habits and reinforcing a culture that departments are not punished for managing budgets responsibly.

Leadership Style: Teach Yourself to Listen, Then Have the Hard Conversations

Beasley’s leadership pitch is relational, but it is also practical. He says he is willing to learn, but if he believes he is acting on principles that are right, he does not want to be pushed off course by pressure or politics.

Approachability and accessibility

Beasley’s mayoral behavior is again used as evidence. He said he did not have a receptionist; he answered phone calls and called people back himself. That accessibility is part of why he thinks he stood out.

He frames this as more than style. It is a governance tool. When people believe leaders are reachable, misunderstandings get corrected earlier, and problems move toward solutions instead of staying stuck in frustration.

His personal “learning” influence

In an unexpected moment, Beasley talks about something from his childhood that shaped how he values conversations with older generations. He describes going across the street to sit with a retired neighbor who would have lawn chairs out and talk about life and how things work. Beasley credits “Harold” with teaching him, at a young age, a philosophy of respect and curiosity.

That anecdote fits into his later message that there should be more of those older, meaningful discussions in civic life. His point is simple: governance should not be only about formal meetings and technicalities. It should include human understanding.

The Race: Seat B, Two Opponents, and Beasley’s Differentiator

Beasley is running for Weber County Commission Seat B. He says there are two seats up for election, and he is running for Seat B.

He identifies two opponents:

• Sharon Bolos, the sitting county commissioner
• Michael Thomas, a gentleman he says he has only met a couple of times and describes as a city councilman in Washington Terrace

He suggests Michael Thomas and he might be somewhat similar, but Beasley believes he has more administrative experience due to his time as mayor. He says he is “unteachable” in the sense that he can learn, but he will not be shaken from principled decisions. He also emphasizes that he is willing to have hard conversations and believes they are necessary.

Beasley vs. Bolos: availability, micromanaging, and sheriff governance

Beasley’s sharpest contrast is with Sharon Bolos. He says she has direct influence because the sheriff’s department is under her portfolio currently.

He alleges that morale in the sheriff’s organization gets “dinged” when issues are brought up in a recurring way and that, in his view, it happens at the wrong times. He argues that budget reconsiderations should happen once a year, not multiple times.

Beasley also makes a bold statement about compensation. He says he would take a pay decrease, and he believes county commissioners are overcompensated. He even calls for a “20% pay decrease” immediately, suggesting he would vote for it if both votes were aligned.

His point is consistent with his earlier emphasis: if the county is growing, it is not the right moment to seek cuts that harm critical services like public safety. Responsible oversight is fine, but constant adjustment is damaging.

He also expresses support for fully funding the sheriff’s department, emphasizing that the sheriff’s department is growing, the county is growing, and contract cities are growing.

Animal Shelter Funding and Volunteer Morale

While the sheriff’s department gets a large share of attention, Beasley also highlights another area where morale and funding decisions can have real outcomes: the Weaver Animal Shelter.

Beasley describes receiving letters from volunteer workers and former employees. His claims, as he presents them, center on how funding affects basic care: feeding, walking dogs, and maintaining volunteer participation.

He says volunteers help clean kennels, walk dogs, and feed them. But he describes concerns that dogs may be getting fed less and walked less because funding for food is insufficient. He references an email message he believes he could pull up where a volunteer indicated how many days a dog did not get walked.

He connects this to a larger morale-building need. For him, animal shelter management should include both resources and follow-through that makes volunteers feel heard and supported.

He also addresses an idea discussed publicly: making the Weaver Animal Shelter its own taxable district. Beasley calls that “a terrible idea,” arguing that money already exists in the county to fund the shelter and that the taxable district model is not a good fit.

Even though the interview time runs short for additional detail, Beasley’s closing point is clear. He wants discussions about improvement with respect for pets and the people who care for them. He is not arguing that every “whim” should be accommodated, but he believes pet care deserves serious attention and proper funding.

Campaign Closing Message: Support Cities, Protect Elections, Protect Residents

Beasley’s closing pitch to voters focuses on four promises that summarize his campaign’s direction.

• Change county-level actions so cities receive real support rather than friction.
• Support the sheriff’s department and residents with respect for how budgets and morale work.
• Back other elected officials in the county, including efforts to protect elections.
• Protect property and residents by ensuring critical services are funded responsibly.

He closes by identifying himself as a Plain City resident of five generations, stating he raised his family there and served as mayor for eight years. He says the greatest accomplishment of his time as mayor was education, not in the sense of a degree, but in the sense of learning leadership through real situations and “hard knocks.”

That idea of education through experience is also reflected in his method. His campaign emphasizes the discipline of budgeting, the practical realities of service burdens during growth, the morale impact of governance decisions, and the value of accessibility and communication.

What Beasley’s Approach Suggests About County Leadership

Taken as a whole, Jon Beasley’s plan for Weber County Commission Seat B is not a collection of unrelated issues. It is a connected philosophy about how government should behave:

• Communication should reduce contention. If county leadership acts in ways that create friction, leaders will talk less, coordinate less, and solve fewer problems.
• Growth should be managed with fairness. When new residents arrive, cities should not absorb all the service pressure without support.
• Public safety requires stability. Micromanaging budgets too frequently can harm morale, and morale matters because deputies and staff are protecting people and property.
• Spending discipline should be rewarded. Responsible underspending is prudence, not an excuse to slash next year’s funding or encourage waste.
• Leadership is a relationship. Being reachable, listening, and taking action are the same thing in local government.

That blend of experience and practical priorities is why Beasley’s story resonates beyond Plain City. While county governance is larger and more complex than city leadership, his argument is that the core duties do not change: protect residents, manage budgets responsibly, and communicate in a way that makes collaboration possible.

Key Takeaways

• Plain City economic development (Kent’s Market and Amazon-related sales tax) helped increase sales tax revenue and reduced pressure for property tax increases.
• Beasley’s motivation is to address gaps in communication and support between county leadership and cities.
• He supports limiting micromanagement of the sheriff’s budget so morale stays strong and the sheriff can execute plans.
• He wants spending discipline with a “needs over wants” framework and a culture that rewards prudent management.
• He highlights animal shelter morale and funding, opposing the idea of creating a separate taxable district for the shelter.

In local elections, voters often look for competence, but they also look for character. Beasley’s case is that competence comes from the ability to manage budgets and coordinate services, while character comes from being accessible, respectful, and willing to have the hard conversations required to move public work forward.

#politicit #utahelections #utpol

The post From Plain City to County Leadership: Jon Beesley’s Run for Weber County Commission Seat B appeared first on PoliticIt.

As Utah pushes to become a force in the artificial intelligence industry, its flagship university is quickly working on developing a supercomputing system researchers hope will accelerate cancer, Alzheimer’s, mental health, and genetic and environmental discoveries. 

The system being built at the University of Utah is slated to come online this summer, and it’s projected to increase the institution’s computing capacity 3.5-fold, according to the university. 

Some officials and communications from the university describe the project as a “supercomputer,” but Manish Parashar, chief AI officer at the University of Utah, prefers another term — ecosystem. 

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“The physical computer is one part of it, but it is everything together that allows the innovation to happen,” Parashar said.

The ultimate goal for the system is to provide the computational power for researchers to run AI to crunch data and analyze models simultaneously. 

That is expected to extend beyond health care research, with university leaders hoping to also make breakthroughs on “environmental modeling, clinical decision support, and large-scale analysis of historical and textual datasets in the humanities,” according to a release from the university.

“In the past researchers at the U. have found genes related to breast cancer, to Alzheimer’s. You can also look at how you find drugs that might be responsive to different types of diseases, or using AI to help physicians better analyze imaging,” Parashar said. “We’ve had many examples of researchers doing things like that at the U. What this will do is to be able to provide them with additional capacity to amplify and accelerate their research.” 

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In a brief presentation of the project to lawmakers in February, University of Utah President Taylor Randall said the system will be available to all educational institutions in the state to train students, as well as to startups. 

“This is just a fundamental, I call it, shared service that we can share across industry and other institutions to make sure that we are at the forefront of artificial intelligence,” Randall said. 

In total, the full project, including physical infrastructure, computing, storage and software systems and their operations are expected to cost $50 million, a tab that’s being divided between philanthropists and the public sector. During their legislative session that concluded last month, lawmakers approved a one-time $15 million allocation for the endeavor. 

‘States must act’: Cox pushes for AI regulations ahead of federal preemption talk

A memorandum of understanding the state and higher education institutions signed with chipmaker NVIDIA to advance AI research and workforce in Utah is also playing a role in this development, Parashar said, with the company providing chips and expertise on the hardware.

The university also has an agreement with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to assemble and operate the system, Parashar said.

While state leaders, including Gov. Spencer Cox, have been keen to accommodate the AI industry in Utah, some have also spoken in support of regulating the technology and have argued that AI must be “human-enhancing.” 

That’s something that the university’s Responsible AI Initiative, also led by Parashar, is taking into consideration while working on the supercomputer. 

“We want to make sure that when we address and use AI as a solution, we not only consider the technical dimensions, but also consider the ethical and social technical dimensions,” he said. “What are the implications? And how do we bring that expertise, that training to our researchers, to our students?”

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Utah’s public-records law broke down in the simplest possible way: I asked for records, the Jordan School District said it had none because an elected official used a personal Gmail account, and when I pressed further, I was told he frequently deleted messages and had produced all he could find.

That is not transparency. It is an honor system. And honor systems fail precisely when the incentives change — when the public is asking hard questions about money, power, or major public assets. A transparency law that can be satisfied by self-reporting is a compliance loophole masquerading as accountability.

In 2022, after a public meeting about closing West Jordan Elementary, I filed a request under Utah’s open-records law, the Government Records Access and Management Act, or GRAMA, for emails and texts about the closure and the property’s future. I spent thousands of dollars of my own money and hired the law firm that worked on Utah’s public-records law to sort it out. Even then, the system led back to the same place: self-reporting.

One school board member, Darrell Robinson, used a personal Gmail account for public business, including during the time that the board was considering the fate of West Jordan Elementary. At the March 16, 2023 hearing, the district’s position was that GRAMA covers records “maintained by the entity,” not an elected official’s personal inbox, and that the district had no responsive records maintained from that account.

When I narrowed the request and asked again, including texts, the school district’s attorney said the district could ask Robinson to check his email for responsive records, but could not require him to do so. He also confirmed that, as a courtesy, the district had asked Robinson anyway and sent me whatever he provided. At that same hearing, the district’s attorney said “the remedy is the ballot box, not GRAMA.”

If a public records request can be satisfied by whatever the record-holder chooses to keep — and chooses to disclose — then the public’s right to know becomes optional.

That is not a workable accountability model. The ballot box can correct bad decisions, but it cannot correct decisions made off the record. It cannot recover communications that were never preserved in the first place.

After my case, Utah’s Records Management Committee urged Jordan School District to update its records policy, train staff and elected officials, and monitor compliance, specifically addressing the real-world issue of conducting government business on a personal device or account. That guidance was sensible. But guidance cannot bring back a record that was never saved.

This is not a zoning argument. It is a recordkeeping argument. And it matters most when public assets and public money are involved.

On Aug. 26, 2025, Jordan School District approved an “Ivory Trade Agreement” involving four surplus district properties, including West Jordan Elementary, in exchange for approximately 60 acres for a future high school, with Darrell Robinson voting to support the deal. 

I am not alleging collusion with any developer. The point is narrower, and more important: when key discussions occur on personal accounts and are not preserved, citizens cannot verify promises, timelines, or outside influence in high-value public land decisions. Even honest decisions become harder to defend when the record is incomplete, and distrust fills the vacuum.

Utah’s problem is not just that this area of the law is weak. It is that the loophole is hard to enforce after the fact. Once public business is routed through a personal account and the process depends on voluntary preservation, there is no realistic way for a citizen to prove what was withheld, deleted, or never saved. Utah lawmakers have left that core problem in place.

The fix is straightforward and should not be partisan.

First, public-business communications should have to be preserved regardless of device or account. “Search your own inbox” cannot be the standard.

Second, there should be meaningful consequences and a clear enforcement path when records are destroyed to avoid disclosure.

Third, audits and training should prove compliance, not merely suggest it.

The ballot box matters. But it cannot replace transparency. Voters cannot hold officials accountable for decisions they cannot see. A system that depends on self-reporting does not deserve the public’s trust. When records can vanish, citizens and journalists cannot verify what happened, and public accountability collapses into competing stories.

Disclosure: Tim McConnehey is a West Jordan resident and the GRAMA requester in the Jordan School District matter described. He has no financial interest in Jordan School District or Ivory Land Corporation/Ivory Homes.

Read Article at Utah News Dispatch

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