Spectrum

Letter to the Editor

12/1/2006

Weaver longs for the good old days

Jennifer Weaver's recent editorial on the Washington County land bill is disingenuous. She uses a lot of space railing against Congressmen and women who oppose the Bennett bill which would transfer 25,000 acres from federal protection and sell it to developers.

I call her disingenuous because she doesn't even live in Washington County, yet she thinks she knows what is best for us, knowing she won't have to smell the smog, and fight the traffic snarls of the added 300,000 people it would bring. I have yet to hear her discuss the questionable tactics of county commissioners who are said to have financial stakes in its passage. Cut the editorials and give us investigative reporting on commissioners' holdings.

Weaver also takes a cheap shot at the Clinton Act, which set aside the Grand Staircase National Park. I challenge her to give us a comparison of the economic benefit Utah gets from the Staircase Monument versus revenue from a few cattlemen, as she seems to prefer. The people of America own these lands, not local county commissioners. I sense a strong bias against the Bennett bill among people here. Jennifer, seems to long for the good old days.

Norma B. Swenson