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Show Cook has been active in politics J 0ZJ - By DR. DOLORES HANSEN Merrill Cook, candidate for governor, has been an active participant par-ticipant in Utah politics for several years, leading the statewide ballot initiative drive and the campaigns for food tax removal, tax limits and term limits. He has been a finalist for Salt Lake City Mayor (1985) and Utah Governor (1988). In a recent address to members of the Centerville-Farmington Centerville-Farmington Rotary, Cook said he is running as an independent candidate who wants to limit government growth and to ensure en-sure that Utahns get a better deal from their government. Cook believes that the proposed pro-posed $56 million state sales tax diversion for Olympics construction construc-tion should be stopped until Utah actually has the bid. He said too many health and human services needs in the state are presently not being met. Because of his tax rollback stand. Cook teels he has been unfairly criticized and I ibeled as anti-education. He believes that more tax dollars should go to teacher salaries and proposes a line-item in budget to bring teacher salaries to the national average. Education money could be saved by consolidating the Salt Lake, Weber and Utah county districts. He feels that voucher programs would destroy education edu-cation and would be a prescription prescrip-tion for chaos. Cook said candidates who promise not to raise taxes are not candid. He is unhappy with state budget surpluses when Utahns have a relatively heavy tax burden. He feels he can use his business busi-ness expertise to maintain education edu-cation and essential services while returning to a reasonable level of taxation. One key is to bring much-needed high-paying industrial jobs to Utah. Cook addressed Rotarians at MERRILL COOK their regular Thursday morning gathering at Centerville Junior High School. Guests are welcome at the 6:50 a.m. breakfast meeting in the cafeteria. |