It’s awful that Snow College gave Utah Senate President Stuart Adams and Utah Sen. Evan Vickers honorary degrees.
Adams has done several terrible things as an elected official. He lied about not having COVID-19 during this past Utah Legislative session despite having tested positive twice.
As a member of committees overseeing Utah’s transportation budget and policy, and as the chairman of the Utah Transportation Commission, he stands to benefit privately from a public investment that he promoted as a public official.
He made sure two years ago that Utah stored a bunch of hydroxychloroquine, thinking it would help with COVID-19 even though there wasn’t any evidence that it was effective. A pharmacy got $800,000 in taxpayer dollars to buy the pointless drug. Utah health officials didn’t know.
He gave a sweetheart deal to developers on the final day of the 2020 legislative session. It permitted developers Josh Romney and Nate Brockbank to annex land in Summit County without giving Summit County or Park City any advance notice.
Further, a year ago, Adams was the chair of the Military Installation Development Authority. MIDA permitted the building of a new resort in Deer Valley using a financing tactic that makes taxpayers responsible for bonds while not getting any local financial benefit for many years. The Legislature made it so locals wouldn’t be able to have a role in how the property is developed.
And as the Senate president, Adams has steered unethical measures through the Legislature, like the gerrymandering that the Senate joined the House in doing late last year, when it blew off maps prepared by the voter-approved Utah Independent Redistricting Commission. The Legislature has been sued for its gerrymandering.
As a bipartisan poll showed, 80% of Democrats, 68% of independents, and 65% of Republicans would support the Utah Supreme Court defining extreme partisan gerrymandering for the purpose of putting a stop to it.
Adams also jettisoned Senate rules so a resolution could be pushed through that repealed mask mandates in Salt Lake and Summit counties.
Adams is indeed an “authoritarian.”
Vickers sponsored a bill, which is now a law, that limits the length of a public health order to 30 days, allows only the Legislature to lengthen or end it, and gives the Legislature the power to end an emergency even before the 30 days. So, as Vickers said, the Legislature can end any restriction or order that comes from a health department.
And as Vickers said, his bill allows for the reversal of those local health orders to be made minus public hearings. So much for conservatives touting local control and opposition to government control.
The college can do better.
Rhett Wilkinson
Manti
