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Show WASATCH COUNTY COURIER MAY 2, 2001 Some S.O.B. In Your Backyard?» S. O.B., jee it's usual connotation, in this case means Sexually | time there was Wiscishon of vaatiing Soldier Summit the designated SOB area for the county. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like that would be legal. It is our understanding that you can’t have a single, countywide designated SOB area. As we understand it, each Oriented Business. An SOB can run anywhere from a shop that sells “fantasy adult novelties” to-a full nude (but sans alcohol) “ juice bar”. It can also include a bar serving beer with seminude (pasties & G-string). dancers. None of these activities scream Wasatch County. This just isn’t the | nconmoraied city must designate an SOB on Main Street in either Heber or: Midway and the cities couldn’ t stop area in their boundaries where SOB’s are allowed. If no such area is designated, anywhere in _ the industrial/business zones is a legal location for such establishments. That means right now you could open an them. With the Olympics citing to town, we shouldn’t be surprised that someone - place for that kind of adult entertainment. Such “diversions” are available All of which are, OH NO... opinion, more appropriate venues for such establishments. of totally banning such businesses from the county the way you could some Lae Je they’re here, they'll probably stay. It has been notoriously tough to get the politicians past the talking stage. NOW is the time to address the issue. - We may not get another chance. First the politicians have to define what an SOB is, and then they have to desig- — Expression. You can’t just pass a law | JL MUCUS MLA — ordinance for the last 10 years. But it of Expression. Dancing, etc. can fall nate a zone where SOB’s are allowed. Besides, can you imagine the fun of seeing all those politicians squirm and blush as they debate the definition of a Sexually Oriented Business? Not family entertainment, but a reporters dream. assignment. This will be better than Letterman and Leno combined. CENSUS LAWSUIT © Into the Lion’s Den | Pe WTB Ll ls two asphalt plant, it will be too late to stop them. There has been talk.of an SOB ee THEY'RE BACK However the First Amendment of the Constitution guarantees Freedom other types of businesses, say asphalt plants. Legally, you must allow these : businesses. some place that they can operate. And that is how they are typically “controlled,” by zoning them into areas where they are least visible, _ such as industrial areas, the middle of no-where, etc. We remember at one and to address this issue now, or like the in our under the definition of Freedom two _ won't be just an Olympic phenomenon. The cities and the county need in Salt Lake, Evanston and soon in Wendover. might put together and figure that they could - make a killing by running a strip club — during the Olympics. And once DAN SEBS J ae to my first Wasatch ee Board of Education. meeting last week. I apologize for not going earlier. As a journalist I should have been there - years ago, reporting on events. But ever since I got out of school I haven’t. exactly had a burning desire to return. However, what I saw made it clear to os me that the Board of Education needs every bit as much scrutiny as the County Commission. First, I noticed e teat for public education. Some por- | tion was definitely utopianism, for ample supply. The task is simple. We will organize children and teach them audience. He was impressive and I was © Massachusetts adopted his ideas, “nine-tenths of the crimes in the penal in an perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect Way’. happy to see at least one panelist who code was the Superintendent, Dr. Danny _ Talbot. He was the only one who seemed to understand and sympathize instance Mann with the concerns expressed from the take back my call for his retirement that I made last week. Talbot retiring ~ would leave us with just the Board Superintendent Talbot HOWEVER,. these pre-meetings are always noticed on the agenda and are and that is wrong. But he didn’t write the rules; he’s just taking advantage of them. In the same circumstances, we probably all would. more money than the government did All this education stuff got me thinking about the history of public education in America. I didn’t remem- there being anything in _ between 1900 and 1920 on promoting the concept of public education. John D. Rockefeller started what he © the called the “General Education Board”. in through a normally opened door and listen freely to the proceedings. I didn’t Constitution about public schools and Education’s Agenda for that night, or I surely would have attended it as well. the time of the Industrial Revolution. Here’s what I found out. There were no public schools in the US.. until 100 years after our founding. All schooling was private and in large part parochial. It wasn’t until the “Patron Saint” of the Their mission statement from the “Occasional Letter No. 1 of the General Education Board” gives some idea of the reasoning behind the heavy investment of the large industrialists into promoting public education, “In our dreams, people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present education conventions of ~ open to the public. You can walk right ber obsolete.” concerned about the large numbers of Trish Catholic immigrants entering the county and felt that this was the best way to assimilate them into the broader Anglo-Saxon, Protestant society. Rockefeller and Carnegie alone spent that the Board had a closed “pre-meet- _. (whose salary is $95,255 per year) is double dipping on the retirement issue ing” prior to the public Board Meeting. This isn’t unusual, city councils, planning commissions, etc all have pre| meetings to go over their agendas for the evening and have some discussion — among themselves about the issues. if Ford and Astor to have a compliant, subservient workforce. Many were Members andthose are the folks that I now think really should retire. I still that become that However, it also appears a large portion was based on bigotry and the desire of large industrialists of the time such as Rockefeller, Carnegie, - seemed attentive and concerned. So I think would promised really couldn’t remember reading anysee any pre-meeting on the Board of | thing about public schools until about During the meeting the entire pro-- ceeding appeared almost scripted. None of the Board Members - impressed me with their questions or answers. At times they seemed, well frankly, bored, like all the decisions had already been made and so they were just cooling their heels. Remember, the Board of Education spends a budget TWICE the size of American public education system, intellectual and character education Horace Mann, convinced the Massachusetts legislature to start a government-operated school in that state that there was any public educa- fade from their minds and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will tion system in the U.S. Mann’s theo- any of their children into men of learning or philosophers, or men of science. We have not to raise up from them authors, educators, poets or men of letters, great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, statesmen, politicians, creatures of whom we have Wasatch County Government. I felt dis- ries of public education tinctly uncomfortable sitting there thinking that these folks were in charge of all that money, some $32 million per year. In all honesty, the only person on the panel that impressed me tary-theocracy of Prussia in the only nation with a public system at that time. It looks al factors played a role in seemed to stem largely from his visit to the milithe 1840s, education like severthe move- upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or Folks, in the U. S there is only one true monopoly, the Public Education System (well, and maybe Microsoft.). In 1890 we passed the Sherman AntiTrust Act because the nation realized . that monopolies produce a lower qual- — ity product at a higher price. For comparison, just look at our highly regarded system of higher education (our universities, trade schools, etc.), which are highly competitive, and as a result of this competition, the envy of the world. Only in grades K-12 is education not only monopolistic, but compulsory as well. Monopolistic and compulsory, that constitutes as strong a | monopoly as has ever existed. If we are going to give such great amounts of power to the Public School System we need, as citizens, to exercise a much greater degree of oversight. It’s hard for many of us to get excited about education, most of us are so happy just to have that hell behind us. But it desperately needs our attention. ‘When the next election for School _ Board rolls around remember who has the largest budget in the county and who had the largest influence on our future leaders and citizens. Are you satisfied with the performance of the School District? Take time to research the candidates (we will) and ask if they are part of the problem or the solution. If they currently sit on the Board, they _are, almost by definition, part of the problem. Parents, it’s time to take back the Board of Education and take back your schools. | |