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Show The Salt Lake Tribune OPINION Ce) AERES BA,+.meas @ READER ADVOCATE, AA2 @ PUBLIC FORUM, AA2 AA MH RUSSIAN VIEW, AA3 MAY23, 1999 OUR VIEW TheSalt Lake Tribune’s Editorial Position Equal Access for All Salt Lake City and the LDS Church they struck in April which sold a block of Main Street to the church. Specifically, they should amendthetermsto provide more even-handed public access to the plaza the church is creating on the Saints and non-LDS alike. For example, the easement allows the church to forbid people to distributelit erature. After all, why should the church have to tolerate people passing out anti-Mormon tracts on its own property? Last month, the City Council sold to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the portion of Main Street between North Temple and South Temple streets. The churchpaid$8.1 million for specifically allows the church to pass out its literature. If the purpose of the easementis to preserve certain public rights, then it should preserve them for everyone. Theliterature ban should ap- should take another look at the deal property the property. As part of the deal, the church agreed to a public easement on the former street right-of-way guaranteeing 24-hour pedestrian and bicycle access through theproperty. However, a “reservation of easement” thatis part of the agreement al- lows the church to ban demonstrations, skateboards, drinking of alcohol, smoking, vulgar languageor dress, and other specified behavior. The rationale for these conditions is plain: It is unreasonable to expect the church to tolerate behavioronits ownpropertyof whichit does not approve. In the wakeofthesale, the American Civil Liberties Union has raised a couple of sensible objections. Since the city’s purpose in negotiating the easement wastopreserve for the public certain rights on the property, then those privileges should apply equally to all members of the public, Latter-day But, the reservation of easement ply to everyoneor noone. The “reservation of easement” also does not permit “engaging in anyillegal, offensive, indecent, obscene, vulgar, lewdor disorderly speech, dress of conduct.” But whatconstitutes indecent dress or obscene speech? The terms should be specifically defined so that everyonecanbe treated equally. The ACLUis at painsto pointout that it does notobjectto thesaleofthe street to the church. A churchis free to pur- chase property and exerciseits property rights, and the ACLU would be concerned if that werenotthec: However, the organization's observations about the equal protection of public rights within the easement on the property arevalid. Thecity and the church may amend the easement by written agreement. The twoparties should re-examineit in light of equal-protection concerns. Database and Due Process The 1999 Legislature's approvalofan lith-hour law providing school admin: istrators access to the state’s child abuse database doesnot represent law. makers’finest hour. Indeed,it appears to be another exampleof impetuousness and gullibility that lawmakers may be called upon to fix later this year or in next year's legislative session. The database has been divisive for thelast couple of years but lawmakers early this year were primedto endall that with a measure that wascarefully cobbled together with input from ev. eryonefrom child protection advocates to civil libertarians concerned about adults’ rights to privacy and false accusations. However, this proposed law wasset aside in the waning hoursof the 1999 legislative session and a newbill sub: stituted, which was duly passed and signed intolawbythe governor. Unfor: tunately, the new measure amountsto the equivalent of open season on schoolteachers. Underit, the State Office of Educa- tion,thestate's 40 local schooldistricts and even professorial researchers at universities have access to it. Except perhapsfor theresearchers, the aim is to check prospective teachers’ backgrounds. The goal is a laudable one, but the sations. Moreover, the 11th-hour law provides these entities access to juvenile court records, which previously were available only to those associated with a pertinentcase. Teachersare rightly concerned. The says teachers and their would-be associ have less privacy than doothers. A law that an employing schooldistrict could invoke asa rationale for not hiring a teaching candidate because of an unproven accusation, which could have been made whenthe teaching candidate was a child, is flawed. Others who work with young people, either professionallyor in volunteer capacities, donot fall under the legislation. This law obviously was not thought out. Lawmakers were remiss in setting aside a product of lengthy study and consensus in favor of a late-hour substitute Too manytimes, Utah’s legislators end up approving complicated mea sures presented to them in the waning hoursof a session, relying on the coun- sel of boosters, onlyto be forced tore. turn later in special session to rectify their impetuous action. This has all the appearancesofsuchacase. Quench Olympic Thirst TheInternational Olympic Commit tee’s coordination commission recom: mends that Utah amend its liquoi at least during the 2002 Winter Games, lest the restrictive laws tarnish Salt Lake City’s Olympic welcome mat. It is good advice the state's political leaders should seriously consider The IOC group pointed out that dis. gruntled international journalists used to a drink could end upfocusing on the negative instead of the positive, some. thing Olympic officials, not to mention U political andcivic leaders, look askanceat ‘Thereis no good reasonto spurnthis suggestion outof hand. Thereis,in fact, clear precedent for this proposal. Ear lier this year, the Legislature amended State law regarding permits to carry concealed weaponsin orderto ban guns at Olympic venues. Relaxing liquor laws for a fortnight §0international guests and the world's news mediacanget a drinkafter a long day of Olympic-related workoractivity Is no big deal. For example, existing taws limit the hours during which WASHINGTON Colin Powell would not runfor president in 1996 and he is equally adamant about the election of 2000. You could argue that the retired But after listening to him last week, I'm persuaded that what he’s doing may is chairman of week, that “it's time to stop building jails and get back to building up our children.” The goal of America’s Promiseis to mobilize communities, busines iv. religious and nonprofit organizations andgovernmentstofocustheir efforts on helping young peopleget off on the right foot andstay there. “Most of our kids are doing fine, Powell said, “but there may be upto million who arenotonthe right path.” Powell, whose leadership skills in clude a remarkable capacity to boil complex challenges down totheir essentials andexpress theminclearly understand able language, says there arefive things every youngster should be guaranteed. Theyare: “Anongoing relationship with a car: ing adult; a safe place with structured activities during nonschool hours; a healthy start; a marketableskill through effective education; and an opportunity to give back through community service.” It is an agenda that Powell has per. andprint reporters fromother nations covering the Gameswill be working all hours of the day andnight, since they will be meeting deadlines in many dif. ferent time zones. They might finish work at 4 a.m. local time and want a drink in the press center. There's no point in not accommodating the people whose impressions will shape the world’s views of the Games. A handful of Utahns spent 30 years steadfastly supporting the Olympic dream andlobbying for the Games. As the possibility of Utah snaring a Win ter Olympics waxed, more jumped on the bandwagonuntil most of thestate's 2 million residents were among its passengers. It wouldbe unconscionable to throw all this effort away at the 11th hour over somethingas trifling as a temporaryrelaxationof liquor laws. In view of thefact that lawmakers already have set a precedent for changing laws to accommodate the Olympics, thereis no excuse to spurn what inreality is merely a markofhospitality BY MICHAEL LERNER FORTHELOS ANGELES TIMES process, and nowthevoters have given Barak the powerto takedecisiveaction. Dancing in thestreets of Tel Aviv celebrants are calling on Barak to pick upandstart whereslain Prime Minister hard-nosed humanitarian who has worked with two generationsof socially conscious reformers, if Powell's organi zation “really added value” to existing youth service efforts, he said, “Absolutely. Just as in the civil rights movement, you needgreat goals to gal vanize greatefforts.” Powell spokewithhis usual eloquence nourished, inoculated against disease, with their hearing and vision problems remedied. And in a computer age, he stressed, “there can be nodigital apartheid,” or segregationof economic opportunity based on accessto those electronic tools Finally, he said, youngsters must be given an opportunity to give back to their communities with service of their own, whether it be tutoring kids or help. ing ina hospice. At the end of the lunch, reporters picked up a volume which spake even more forcefully Powell about this a 643-page, cross-indexed direc tory of programs being conducted by states, cities and a welter of private or ganizations all across the country There you can read about andlearn howto reach anyonefrom the folks run ning 38 “Critical Hours” after-school programsites in San Diego, to the Vol unteer Action Center in Wood County W.Va., where, director Jennifer Keup told me,the businesses andcivic groups and government agencies involved have pledged to see that more than 5,000 youths receive all five of the “America's Promise” guarantees within three years. Youcan plug into America’s Promise and your local effort by phoning 1888-55 YOUTH. Peres refusedtocriticize the assassina tion of a Palestinian terrorist, thus breaking the defacto cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. When Palestinian ter rorists predictably responded with an lis despaired of peace and ilar mistake, to focus more on building unity with those he has defeated and portraying himself as a centrist than with ending theconflict. The rationale: fearing an armedrevolt bysettlers, the also include a rhetoric of reconciliation. Rabin’s major breakthrough occurred when he began to acknowledgethat Is rael faced no serious securityrisk froma Palestinianstate It was onlythe night of his assassination that Rabin began to talk in a positive language about Pales. tinians. He recognized that by not ac knowledging the Palestinians’ deep yearning for peace, he was playing into the hands oftheIsraeli right. Barak must go further, talking to the Israeli public about why aPalestinianstate will be in Israel's interests and why the already divided Jerusalemought to be the capital first task is to conciliate the center. It was this samereasoning that led Rabin slow didnot pacify theright, which con leader towardpeace, but not a waffler. If with decisive actions that woulda! Ur Barak puts more of his energy on build. ing bridges to the Israeli settlers and the only concession likely to create lasting settlement cords, many Palestinians may legiti ers, he is notso likelyto follow throug thePalestinianpeopletheir ownst in fact, Barak's victory poses a new West Bank settlements and stop the tor. tureof F that had ment the Oslo accords. Believing that he neededto show his centrist credentials, { igan; Mayor Sharon Sayies. Belton of Minneapolis; and Harri8 Wofford, the head of the Corporation for National Service. All are heavily involved with the program. When I asked Wofford, a notably youngsters come to school well Yitzhak Rabinleft off three years ago. But Barak is no closet dove, and though heis likely to make some dramati to meet with Arab andPalestinian |v even as Rabin moved slowly to imple 4 Press Club luncheon speech were Steve Case, the chairman of America Online; Bishop Roger Schwietz, the head of the youth subcommittee of the National Conferenceof Catholic Bishops; Michelle Engler, the wifeof the governor of Mich- Barak may be tempted to make a sim. failed to use the outrage of that moment to escalate the peace process, dismantle i ness, so they could scale up their pro ownoperation small 50 people with an annual budget of $6 million fromprivate donations. His evangelism works. Among those who turned out for Powell's National was a decisive referendumonthe peace rightist, then-Prime Minister Peres KEARNS-TRIBUNE CORPORATION, 143 § MAIN ST, SALT LAKE CITY, M11 be a JohnnyAppleseed, raising aware- grams.” Deliberately, he has kept his outrageous assault on Israeli buses. centrist consensusin Israel that would EDITOR think I persuaded them that I wanted to yahuand Barak both madeclear that this be impossible to achieve. In the weeks after Rabin’s assassination by an Israeli PUBLISHER tions viewed hiseffort as a threat. “But I Americans have much to celebrate in the overwhelming mandate given to Ehud Barak by Israeli voters. In the last days of the campaign, Benjamin Netan toward peace. Barak is in danger ofre peating the mistakes of Shimon Peres squelching opportunities in pursuit of a UTAH'S INDEPENDENT VOICE SINCE 1871 THE WASHINGTON POST WRITERS GROUP themselves to endorse and support. At first, he told me, established organiza- Barak Election Is Only a Partial Victory American Jews. We may now have tc pressure Barak to move inadecisive way The Salt LakeTribune than being alone at home “watching Jerry Springer and learning violent solutionsto your problems.” Hereinforced what manyothers have said about the necessity of seeing that White House. challengefor President Clinton andfor 4 portant it is to have a place where youngsters can go after school, rather be more important than running for the The general How much it means to young people to. have a mentor who says, over and over, mand you meet the expectations I have for someone of your talents.’ How im. oftheracial divisions in oursociety “America’s Promise: The Alliance for Youth,” a two-year-old organization committed to the idea, as he said last of the importance of those five goals. “T believe in you, and I am goingtode- chairmanofthe Joint ChiefsofStaff is a little selfish, putting personal and family considerations aheadofthe vast public esteemin which he is held andthe op. suaded thousands of groups nany of themalready working on parallel paths alcohol canbe served, but broadcasters PAST PUBLISHERS DAVID BRODER portunity he might have to improve publictrust in politics and to heal some problem is that the database tends to be open ended. It contains unproven accu- law basically Powell Aims to Build Children, Not Jails to go slow implementing Oslo, but going nued to er 1 in provocative acts. acts decisively to signal inians that he intends to makesig ficant concessions beyond the Wye ac mately conclude that they are not much better off under Barak than they were under Netanyahu and from that de- spair there might be a return to terrorism. The real task of the Israeli govern ment today is not to placate the right but to take decisive steps to create a Pales tinian state that will live in peace with Israel. Those steps will have to include allowing the tensof t Pales. tinians who live in East Jerusalem to becomepart of the emerging Palestinian state, the eT eee Bank most to disrupt ing the peace process and the release from prison of Palestinians held without charges or benefit of due process.It must of both states. Israelis are willing to followa strong their domestic supporters whodid their best to destabilize the Rabin govern ment, he will find that this moment of hope andpossibility is lost. Doves in the Labor Party are already calling Ameri cansupporters to begin a campaign to get the Clinton administration to support a Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem. They argue that the administration should no longer remain a new. tral broker, but should put forward its own substantive vision of a final settle. ment agreement, and that might give Barak support to move in a similar di. rection. |
