Today is the day that most of our nation takes the day off to honor the great American Civil Rights Leader Martin Luther King, Jr; so we thus spotlight an interesting MLK Day story appearing in this morning's Deseret Morning News. From the article:
Today marks the first day of the 2008 Utah Legislature and could be the last day that Utah lawmakers meet on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.A similar resolution failed in 2000. Better late than never, we guess. It will now be up to Utah voters to decide whether the legislature will recess for the MLK holiday in the future.
It's a welcome potential change for many of Utah's minority leaders, who have long called for lawmakers to recess on the holiday.
Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, said the start date has given lawmakers "a great chance to honor Dr. King" with a ceremony at the Capitol.
However, last year, Valentine said he "wanted to honor the request of the minority community" when he was Senate sponsor of a resolution to amend the state's Constitution to change the start date. The measure passed with unanimous support, but because it is a constitutional change, it won't take effect unless voters approve it this November.
"It's a little bit bittersweet this year," Valentine said. "I hope voters do approve the [constitutional amendment ballot] measure."
Historical factoids: In 2000, Utah was the very last state to recognize Martin Luther King Day by name, renaming its Human Rights Day state holiday.
This, curiously, was also the same year that South Carolina became the last state to make MLK Day a paid holiday for all state employees. Until then, South Carolina employees could choose between celebrating it or one of three Confederate-related holidays.
Now that's what we call progress.
7 comments:
The south will rise again!
Obama's speech from yesterday, at Martin Luther King's church in Atlanta, was impressive:
Obama Speech
I am not gay
Martin Luther King Jr. Day Timeline
in regards to the news story today about the new hotel at the junction it was stated they are looking for rda approval. why
if they are not looking for city rda financing why should this project go before the rda board rather than just the city council unless the referred to assessment for parking is somehow going to be some kind of rda project or unless the other shoe has not dropped yet on the whole development.
why is the developer and godfrey after all the property between washington and adams on 23rd street for the project water park. godfrey has been hounding the ycc to push them out so he can get their land and buildings. the developer certainly does not need that much land for his water project.
something isn't adding up.
House Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee
Hansen's quota bill is in the committee in the morning. Is anyone watching to see what happens. You can listen to it on the web.
disgusted
They may be looking for RDA approval because their proposed project is in an existing RDA area.
However, I would bet my bottom dollar that this group will be lining up with their hands out for the tax payers of Ogden to give them a major subsidy via the RDA. They would be fools to not get the public to take a big hunk of their risk for them if they could.
An incompetent loser politician/dealster like Godfrey, with a big history of placing the public's money on the come line on completely stupid deals, is every hustler's dream!
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