We'd like to spotlight this hard-hitting editorial in the Standard-Examiner this morning, lambasting elements of Utah GOP legislative leadership for their active support of state senator Chris Buttars, in his 2008 bid for re-nomination by the Salt Lake County GOP to his West Jordan district senate seat. We incorporate the lead paragraphs from this morning's most excellent editorial:
Our political leaders just keep giving us new reasons to be cynical and feel dispirited about government.For those who missed out on hearing Buttars's "ugly black baby" remark, we helpfully link an audio version here, courtesy of YouTube.
The latest is the letter sent to GOP delegates in Sen. Chris Buttars’ West Jordan district prior to tomorrow’s Salt Lake County convention. It supports Buttars’ re-election campaign and was signed by Senate leadership: President John Valentine, Majority Leader Curtis Bramble and two Top of Utah lawmakers: Majority Whip Dan Eastman, of Bountiful, and Assistant Majority Whip Sheldon Killpack, of Syracuse.
Buttars, you’ll remember, is the lawmaker, who on the floor of the state Senate, made this remark about a bill being debated: “This baby is black, I’ll tell you. It’s a dark, ugly thing.” It was arguably the worst, but only the latest, in a years long string of offensive remarks he’s made in his official capacity as lawmaker, bringing disrespect and condemnation on himself, his Senate colleagues, the Legislature and the entire state. He is a smudge on Utah’s reputation, and should be plucked out of the Senate.
Reprehensible as Senator Buttars's remark was in the above instance however, we believe even this misbehavior pales in significance, when compared with another instance of Buttars malconduct. We highlighted this on Weber County Forum a couple of months back, when the Salt Lake Tribune revealed that Buttars, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee had sent a threatening letter to a sitting Utah District Court judge. From our February 29, 2008 article:
Senator Valentine can't imagine what the problem is. All Buttars did, after all, was send a threatening letter to a sitting Utah District Court Judge who'd ruled unfavorably against one of Buttars' cronies... on official Utah Legislature stationary... while serving as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee... you know, the committee which screens judges who are appointed to the Utah bench. This was no big deal to Valentine of course, who takes the remarkable position (with a completely straight face) that Buttars can shield his egregious misconduct behind the protections of the First Amendment. Hoo-boy.Yes, Buttars's "ugly black baby" remark was "repellent," as today's Std-Ex editorial contends. At the very least it reflects intemperance in speech, and terrible political judgment on Buttars's part. At worst it can rightly be interpreted as revealing the immoral inner soul of a bitter, hateful man who has no business occupying a seat in the Utah legislature.
As for Senator Buttars's letter however, we believe it to have been even more egregious. Whereas Buttars's "black baby" remark arguably reveals a disturbing character defect, i.e., racial bias, Buttars's misconduct, in connection with the letter, clearly reveals a willful, conscious and active effort on his part to interfere with the operation of the Utah Judicial system. Compounding the problem of Buttars's attempt to intimidate a Utah District Court judge, of course, was Senate President Valentine's concealment of facts relative to Buttars's letter, and his abject failure to take steps to impose legislative sanctions.
Within today's editorial we find the following paragraph, taken from a letter sent to Salt Lake County Convention delegates by the above-named members of GOP legislative leadership, endorsing Buttars for re-nomination under the GOP party banner:
“Senator Buttars is an unwavering supporter of Republican principles. He has consistently and passionately espoused the principles that we hold dear.” [Emphasis added].Being the curious type, we pulled up a copy of the Utah GOP Party Platform, wherein we found this highly instructive language:
ETHICS AND STANDARDSWe're going to assume that the GOP platform expresses at least a few of the more important principles and standards that members of the Utah GOP “hold dear;” and we hope that at least a few Salt Lake County delegates will read today's WCF article, and take note of the contents herein.
We demand honesty, integrity, morality, and accountability of our public officials. We will work to expose and stop corruption.
And it probably wouldn't be a bad idea either, we think, if Utah legislators Valentine, Bramble, Eastman and Killpack did a quick review of their own party platform.
'Nuff said," we think.
And what say our gentle readers about all this?
13 comments:
The SE editorial opens with this line from Atticus Finch's closing to the jury in the novel To Kill A Mockingbird:
Now I'm confident that you gentlemen will review, without passion, the evidence that you have heard, [and] come to decision.... In the name of GOD, do your duty.
We should probably remember that Mr. Finch's plea to the jury to "in the name of God, do your duty" failed.
Sorry to go off topic, but does anyone out there know anything about the surveyor's stakes that say "access road" on them that have gone up on the east bench about 400 yards southeast of the top of
27th street?
East Hiker,
I'm sure we'll find out when the report comes out that the area is full of noxious weeds and the only remedy is an access road to Malan's Basin and to raise taxes.
Another interesting observation, off the topic. Has anyone else noticed that all work has stopped on the Earnshaw building down at the Junction.
I ahve not seen any workers ther for the past several days. Could this be another under funded blunder at the Junction?
Is Boss Godfrey going to come to the rescue of another developer croney?
Any one with answers?
Fly:
Refresh my memory... which building is that? What's it supposed to be? Offices? Condos? Retail?
fly,
I've also been wondering about the Earnshaw building. I don't go by often enough to get a sense of the rate of progress, but it does seem odd that it's not finished yet, nearly a full year after the Salomon Center was finished.
I just did a search through the S-E archives and found this, from a Schwebke article written Feb. 21, 2006: "Construction on the Earnshaw Building is slated to start within a couple of months and end in about a year, he [Mr. Earnshaw] said." So it's now more than a year behind schedule. The headline of that article is "Junction condos nearly sold out." You'd think all those buyers would be getting a little impatient.
Curm: The Earnshaw building is immediately adjacent to the Salomon Center on the north side. Six stories with retail on the ground floor and condos above.
Isn't that the one that Stuart Reid has some sort of ownership in?
Did they not also recieve RDA money?
Dan:
Unless many of those buyers were buying on spec, never intending to occupy the units they bought, expecting to re-sell them at, or even before, completion, at a higher price. Often done in "hot" condo markets. Of course, if the market turns south, they're left with units on their hands they not only cannot sell for a profit, but often cannot sell even at the price they paid for them. I have no idea if that is happening at this condo site, but it is a problem in markets like Miama Beach and Las Vegas and parts of California. N. Utah has escaped, for the most part, the insane run-up in real estate prices that much of the rest of the nation underwent, so perhaps that is not a problem for this particular development. Be interesting to know.
Dan has it correct, It is the building on the north next to the Rec Center. Condos, and retail on the bottom floor.
The Building Stuart Reid is involved with is Ashton Square, on the very North West corner of the Junction. They haven’t even broken ground on Stuarts' property.
I just noticed over the past week that all work has stopped on that Earnshaw building. One day they were laying brick and bingo bongo stopped.
I don’t know what’s going on but it raises suspicions about finances.
Fly-on-Wall: A couple of years ago I dialed the number given on the Earnshaw Building's p.r. and Earnshaw himself answered. He told me there was only one unit left (and its price was upward of half a million) -- bear in mind construction hadn't even started -- and he said he was soon coming online with two other construction projects in Ogden that would go for oodles more per square foot than the one on which (as you say) work just suddenly halted screechingly.
Clearly there are problems galore with the Earnshaw condos. A building that's 95% pre-sold just doesn't have construction starts and stops like this. (Unless they recently struck another trichloroethylene gusher down below??) Why aren't the unit owners suing? Certainly investors in a comparable project in Vegas or Miami would have hauled Earnshaw's ass into court faster than you could say "Forehead" if this kind of nonsense obtained.
Not only that, the aesthetics are much less than you'd infer from the artist's renderings. The south and west sides of Earnshaw's Folly abut the Salomon Pizza Emporium/High-Class Vaudeville Palace and parking lot, automatically eliminating half the views promised in the renderings.
Is anyone willing to own up to being an "investor?" What gives? Why isn't the S-E sniffing around?
East Hiker, the stakes may be for the road for the new water storage tanks to be build to supply water to the development top of 27th. Someone from the planning department was at the forest service laying out the plan.
The Buttars episode was concocted by the sl trib and channel 4 tv in collusion with dem party operatives.
it was and is a fraud.
in reality the plan was to wound buttars to prevent his opposition to passage of the slc f*a*g marriage registry, and to run him out of office to bring discipline to anyone opposing f*a*g power elite.
you should see my wife's new pickup truck. talk about a dark, and ugly thing. that baby is black.
wake up people and stop letting propagandist control your thoughts. buttars is fine. homos hurt themselves and others through disease and mental illness.
The Buttars episode was concocted by the sl trib and channel 4 tv in collusion with dem party operatives.
it was and is a fraud.
in reality the plan was to wound buttars to prevent his opposition to passage of the slc f*a*g marriage registry, and to run him out of office to bring discipline to anyone opposing f*a*g power elite.
you should see my wife's new pickup truck. talk about a dark, and ugly thing. that baby is black.
wake up people and stop letting propagandist control your thoughts. buttars is fine. homos hurt themselves and others through disease and mental illness.
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