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Show TH.ESTATE Utah lawmakers still undecided about which taxes to cut SALT LAKE CITY {AP)-Halfway through their 45-day annual session, Utah legislators haven't yet decided just how to structure $100 million in tax cuts. The debate has focused on the merits of property, sales and income tax reductions as legislators finalize a $5 .4 billion spending plan, including at least $563 million in extra tax revenues. Awash in money provided by a burgeoning economy, the 104 senators and representatives likely will leave the critical decisions until near the session's last day on Feb. 28. These are the kinds of choices that lawmakers in an election year are happy to make. "I like 'em all," Sen, Howard Stephenson, R-Draper and head of the Utah Taxpayers Association, said at one meeting on tax cuts. "I feel like this is a love fest." Some 793 bills had been introduced by the middle of last week, the filing deadline for legislation. That figure, which excludes a wide assortment of resolutions and proposed constitutional amendments, dwarfs the number of bills that actually have passed the House and Senate-wit h less than three weeks to go. "Every session is like giving birth to a new child," House Speaker Mel Brown, R-Midvale, said Friday. "Each one has its own personality." Not everyone is sold on cuts of $100 million. Cuts that high and an early GOP decision to spend $50 million in cash for state buildings have forced deep reductions in budgets for some government agencies. "We did not know the consequences that we would have on our budgets," said Rep. Lloyd Frandsen, R-South Jordan. Such decisions, he said, "should be back on the table." Gay prepsters push for club of their own and the deep blue sea," said Mary Jo Rasmussen, SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Fifteen-year-old Holly Peterso!l says she has watched two homosexual friends president of the Salt Lake School Board. "You're going to anger someone no matter how you vote." drop out of high school and others get pulled down by To the teenagers who want the club, the decision depression. seems simple. Giving such teens a source of organized support is "I'm commonly referred to as a fag, a dyke, a bitch," one reason she, her sister and two dozen others are said Peterson, a West High sophomore who is straight petitioning the Salt Lake School Board to let them but hangs out with friends who are not. "These clubs form gay and lesbian clubs on three high school are a way to get away from the hate." campuses. Students from four high schools Their idea has struck a chord in - East, West, Highland and this conservative state - but it's a Cottonwood of the Granite School deeply dissonant one. District - have been meeting in The local school board, the state coffee houses and private homes school boa.rd and the Legislature are for several months. all grappling with the prospect of In December, they decided to homosexual clubs on campus and petition for a gay-straight club at the mounting public pressure to East High, fully aware they were reject the teenagers' request. taking on Utah's predominantly But the costs of saying no a.re high. conservative culture. If the school board refuses the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Alliance, Some 30 students - some of them glowing from the media federal law requires that it also shut down dozens of other extracurricular spotLght the controversy has ~ thrust on them - showed up for a clubs - 26 at West High alone, g: meeting Thursday at a Salt Lake ranging from the environmental club ~coffeehouse. Many said they were and Latino students club to Students Against Drunk Driving and the Bible !i bisexual or straight but empathetic Qto gay rights. study group. ~ Afterward, they s poke of the Exasperated by that prospect, one !I! need for a school-based club legislator is suggesting Utah throw . 1-- where kids struggling with sexual off the restrictive yoke of the federal Gay and stra1gh~ students from four identity problems can easil y find Equal Access Act (passed in 1984, Salt Lake_area hi?h schools hold a each other. ironically, at the behest of Gay -Straight Alliance m eetmg at a "They can't exactly explain to conservatives who wanted Bible their parents some afternoon, study groups in schools) by turning coffee house last week. 'Well, I'm going to my gay kids back $170 million to $180 million each year in federal funding for education. club now.' But if it's at the school, they can just go," said Peterson. "This is a situation where you're between the devil JIMMY'S TACO Tl-iUCK N!WHCUSS ·10 AM· !ZAM MONEY MAY NOT BUY YOU HAPPINESS ... BUT YOU CAN SURE BUY LOTS OF COOL THINGS!!! ARE YOU LOOKING FOR THAT PERFECT SUMMER JOB ? THE ONE THAT PAYS YOU ENOUGH TO PAY FOR SCHOOL, LIVING EXPENSES, AND HAVE PLENTY LEFf OVER? SEQUOIA PEST MANAGEMENT IS NOW HIRING SALES REPRESENTATIVES FOR THE SUMMER. • biweekly paychecks • furnished apartments • superb sales training • 4-5 hour work days 865-6613 435 S. Main I CALL IMMEDIATELY!!! ask for William (801) 343-3715 |