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| State Senator Daniel Thatcher. Magna (Historic Pleasant Green) Main Street 2014. Photo by Robert Goble. |
Robert Goble: Senator,
I really appreciate your time, that you would take the time to talk to me. I'm
very interested in the work you've been doing, and I've seen you at meetings,
Town Council meetings, Community Council meetings. I've seen you at our
parades, and I've had numerous chances to talk to you, and you've told me some
very interesting things at different occasions about what's going up on the
hill in Salt Lake. But just to introduce you to people who might not know you,
you're the senator for District 12. So what is District 12 please explain
district 12 for those who don't know what that is?
Senator Thatcher: Well, District 12
takes in parts of West Valley, Magna, Kearns, West Jordan, one precinct in
Taylorsville, Copperton, the unincorporated west bench of Salt Lake County,
Tooele, one precinct in Erda, Pine Canyon, and Lincoln out in Tooele County. So
as you can see it's a very small, very compact, very homogenous area. (Smiles)
That's a joke, by the way.
Robert Goble: (laughs)
Senator Thatcher: It's huge!
Robert Goble: It's massive! I'm
mainly writing this for my fellow Magna (historical Pleasant Green) residents.
I'm very interested in the work that you've been doing for us.
On Public Safety
Senator Thatcher: As a senator, I see
my first and foremost obligation as protecting people. Now there are many ways
I do this. The highest profile of these is that actually serve as the Chair of
the Appropriations Committee for Executive Offices and Criminal Justice, which
is the budget that oversees corrections, public safety, the Highway Patrol, the
entire judicial branch, the executive branch--so the governor's office, the
Attorney General's office, the auditor: all of these things I am responsible to
figure out their funding. So that's probably the highest profile way in which I
take care of public safety and protect people.
From 1980 until 2010 the
number of cars on Utah roads increased by almost three hundred percent. The
number of troopers to keep those people safe didn't grow by a single trooper.
We did not add one single trooper to the road in thirty years, while the number
of cars tripled. So in the past four years, I'm very proud to say that there
are thirty two more troopers on the road than there were when I took office.
Our safety stats show that. The number of accidents are way down. The number of
drunk driving incidents are way down. We have statistically the safest roads in
the U.S.
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| 4th of July in Magna (Historic Pleasant Green) 2009. Salt Lake County Sheriff before UPD. Photo by Robert Goble. |
Robert Goble:
I've talked to several people recently who don't know who their senator is.
They say they don't vote and wave off the conversation.
Senator Thatcher: Many people don't
know that they have legislators. I mean, they know, oh, well, the law says this
and that but they don't really understand the process by which something
becomes a law or by which a bad law is repealed. A lot of people don't
understand that they have people who have specifically been elected...now maybe
some of them vote; half of them statistically don't. You have a member of the
House of Representatives and you have a member of the Senate that have been
elected to represent you and your entire neighborhood and area in deciding what
the rules are, what should be changed, what should be removed, and who's
allowed to do what to you.
Now I take my
responsibility as a senator very seriously.
I think that my primary obligation is to protect people. Sometimes that
means protecting people from the government. I don't represent the government,
I represent the people. When the government steps out of bounds, there is
nobody that can step them down. There is no one that can intercede. When Salt
Lake County-- I'll tell you, half the reason that I ran for office in the first
place was because of the response that I got from the person that had been
representing us in the senate, when I asked him what he was going to do about
the police fee that Salt Lake County dropped on Magna. Salt Lake County broke
the law to do that. They violated tax law by calling a tax a fee. But here's
the problem: even though it was blatantly obvious that they broke the law,
there's only one entity with the authority to make them stop, and that's the
state. Only the state can make the county stop when it's out of bounds. In this
particular case we had a senator who felt..."well...you know...whatever
the county does, that's not my problem. I should let the county do whatever
they like. I'm sorry. I couldn't stand for that.
So the very first thing
that I did when I decided that by golly somebody has to stick up for us, and if
nobody is going to run, I guess it's going to be me. I made a commitment that I
was going to walk every precinct. I knocked so many doors it was ridiculous. I
wore out three pairs of shoes. Every single door that I knocked in Magna, in
Kearns... they all said the same thing: This thing is so egregious. Can you
please help us. Well, I gave my word that I would, and that was the very first
thing I did when I got elected, was to pick that fight. And it got bloody, and
it was brutal, and it was rough. And it took a year longer than I wanted it to
take, but we won that fight. We passed a law that said 'you may not charge a
fee for public safety purposes.'
Public safety is
non-negotiable. A fee is appropriate for something like a fishing license. If
you don't want to pay a fee for a fishing license, if you don't want to pay to
run hatcheries and stock streams and lakes in Utah, then by all means don't pay
that fee, and don't get a fishing license, and don't use the benefit that you
don't want to pay for.
But how do you opt out of
police protection?
Robert Goble: You can't.
Senator Thatcher:
You can't. It is a fundamental right as a human being to life and to liberty
and to go about your business as long as you're not hurting others. If we don't
have public safety, then you don't have those fundamental natural rights that
all human beings are granted by their creator.
Robert Goble: Right.
Senator Thatcher: So if we're not
taking care of that, then, frankly, what are we even doing? So that was the
first fight that I picked.
On the Township Bill
Senator Thatcher: This past year,
I'll tell you, one of the most insidious things I've ever seen was this
township bill. It was sold by Salt Lake County as this great thing that will
protect the boundaries of your township, and it will help increase the
services... Well, I like to call it the 'Frankencity bill,' because their plan
was to take all unincorporated areas, non-contiguous areas, to take areas that
do not connect and have nothing in common and form a giant unconnected monster
of a city. It would be a Frankenstein's monster patchwork with Magna and Kearns
and the unincorporated west bench and Copperton and Millcreek and the Sandy
Islands and the Canyons and make it one giant unconnected city--
Wait! What? How is that a good deal for
any of those areas? The other challenge is it would create a
city, which means that the county would
be able to start using all of the taxing authorities that cities have that
counties don't. Counties aren't cities! There's a reason they don't have those.
They have tools cities don't. Cities have tools counties don't, because they're
supposed to be doing different jobs. So this bill almost got rammed through
with almost no one understanding what the consequences of this bill would be.
It took almost everything
that I had to get that bill delayed. Now, it's going to come back. It's going
to come up again next year. We can't just ring our hands and say, oh, no, what
are we going to do? What we need to do is we need the people of the
unincorporated parts of Salt Lake County to speak up.
I will be fighting this
again. But if Salt Lake County is showing up and claiming to have support from
all of these councils... they claimed to have support from the Magna Town
Council. They claimed to have support from the Kearns council. It's hard for me
to imagine these councils would have said: Yes. Go ahead and plaster three new
taxing authorities onto our citizens. Please lock down our boundaries so that
we can never incorporate, we can never self-determine, we can never have our
own planning and zoning commission. That's not okay.
So that really took a lot
of work. What I was able to do, I pointed out how complex and how potentially
far-reaching the consequences, that we needed to study this for a year, so
we're going to study it for a year.
Salt Lake County is not
going to give up. They know if Magna incorporates they'll lose their power and
authority over you.
Now, there needs to be,
obviously, something. Because, if you want municipal services, you're going to
have to pay for them, and this is not the way.
Photo by Robert Goble.
What Sets Thatcher Apart From Other Senators?
Senator Thatcher: There are
twenty-nine senators and seventy-five members of the house of representatives.
We have CPAs, we have developers, we have bankers... I'm the only guy up there
that I am aware of that actually works in construction. I'm the only blue
collar guy up there that works with his hands that I'm aware of. Frankly, I
think that fits perfectly with our district. The other difference is my level
of involvement. I am so active in every community out here. I have been to
every single school in the entire senate district, and I believe I'm the only
legislator that can say that.
Because of my
responsibility as the Chair of appropriations for Executive Offices and Criminal
Justice, I feel personally responsible for going out and seeing first hand
where the tax dollars that I appropriate are being spent. I go out with the
Department of Public Safety and do checkpoints and see how they're
administering them. I've gone with the State Bureau of Investigation and seen
how they do undercover alcohol stings. I've been on countless ride-alongs with
the Highway Patrol. I've been up in the search and rescue helicopter. I have
driven the emergency vehicle operations track. I've sat in countless court
room, watching to see how people are treated at every stage of the criminal
justice process, from both the victims and the accused. I've seen the juvenal
justice system in action. I've seen how parole is handled. I've gone with the
Board of Parole officers to revoke some paroles, because I've wanted to see
what happens. What are you guys going through when you go and revoke a parole?
And I'll tell you, it's hard to watch. It's hard to watch somebody being picked
up from their home because their house is filled with drugs and alcohol,
especially when there are children present.
It's difficult for me to
go to a school and have the person who is responsible for tracking visitors in
that school tell me, oh, I can't find the clipboard. Just go on in. Not okay.
Today I started my day at
a breakfast with a non-profit as they were explaining what they do and where
they spend their money and why they would like more money to expand their
program. I left that early so I could get to an elementary school in Tooele,
and help hand out end of year awards to their students who had scored
particularly well on their testing or who had won the events at track and field
day last week. that was the high point of my day.
On Magna's Economic Development
Senator Thatcher: I went to the
groundbreaking of Freeport West, which is going to be millions of square feet of light industrial out here
in West Valley, which should bring thousands, literally thousands of jobs. And
because it's just on the other side of 7200 West, hopefully that will have a
trickle effect into Magna as well.
Frankly, I wish that
Magna's (county's) Planning and Development... I wish that Magna had economic development that
cared as much about Magna as West Valley City cares about West Valley City.
So
let's talk for just a minute about Freeport West that is going in West Valley.
It is just east of 7200 West, right on the frontage road, just off 201. It is
close enough to Magna that you should be getting gas stations, you should be
getting sandwich shops, but you'll notice that both of the gas stations that
popped up specifically to support the Freeport West popped up on the east side of seventy two. 7-eleven and
Maverick both across the street from each other on the West Valley side of the
border. Why? Wouldn't it make more sense for one of them to be on the West side
of that road for people coming in to have a right turn access? Why did they
both build on the West Valley side? Why didn't one choose to build in Magna?
Robert Goble: My first assumption
would be that they got a better tax break.
Senator Thatcher: I don't know that
that's true. I will tell you this: when I spoke to the developers, when I spoke
to the investors who chose to buy the land and chose to develop and chose to
put this Freeport center together, the both told me "we wanted West Valley
City because these guys have rolled out the red carpet. These guys have bent
over backwards, West Valley City has been so good to work with, they have bent
over backwards, they have helped us every step of the way."
Why isn't Salt Lake
County's Planning and Development being as business friendly as West Valley?
Robert Goble: I think that's the
biggest complaint as I talk to business owners around Magna, the frustrations
they have with the county. That's the first thing they bring up: frustrations
with the county. They don't feel like that either their being treated fairly or
that it's made easy for them. And so a lot of businesses either chose not to
open up on Magna or they end up folding.
Senator Thatcher: Well, look: I was
born and raised in West Valley City. I live in West Valley now. As a West
Valley resident I don't think it is appropriate for me to tell Magna what to
do. Now as your senator when Magna tells me what they want, it is my job to
have their back and to go to bat for them and to fight for them. So I am not
specifically encouraging Magna to go one direction or the other, but I don't
think I step across any boundaries to say this: if Magna were to incorporate,
if they had sufficient tax base to incorporate, if they had their own planning
and zoning and didn't have to go to the county for permission to bring in
business or to give out business licenses or to change zoning to allow for
commercial or industrial development, I suspect that there would be a lot more
jobs available in Magna, maybe close enough to bike to work. I think that there
would be a much stronger tax base in Magna, which would allow either lower
taxes or higher levels of municipal services. But to do this you have to have
businesses. People have to be able to hang out a shingle and start hiring. If
you've got planning and development run through a group of people who don't
care about Magna and don't care whether or not you have business development,
and, frankly, it seemed to not want you to have a sufficient tax base for you
to incorporate....
Am I making an assumption?
The answer is, yes I am, and I would love to be wrong, but I don't think I am.
On Education
Robert Goble: Education is very
important. A lot of folks in this area are employed by the Granite School
District. We hear a constant shout that there isn't enough money for everything
we want. What would you say to the assumption that the legislature isn't giving
out enough money to education?
Senator Thatcher:
Here's the challenge: I only know what we give to the State Office of Education
to be appropriated by the State School Board. That's part of the challenge of
education. Each year the legislature appropriates a certain amount of money,
but that money goes to the State Office of Education, and they decide how much
goes to each school district, and the school district decides what goes to each
school.
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| Old Cyprus High before demolition 1983. Photo courtesy of Wanda Beck, taken by Lloyd Beck. |
Robert Goble: So
what determines how much money you give to the State Office of Education?
Senator Thatcher:
Actually there are a couple of things. First and foremost, most people don't
know this: every single penny that
comes in from income tax goes to public education. It's in the Utah State
Constitution. Every. Single. Penny. One hundred percent of all income tax goes
to education and cannot, by constitutional law, go anywhere else.
Robert Goble: I
didn't know that.
Senator Thatcher:
Yeah. Most people don't. Even people who are politically active do not
understand. You hear all the time there's not enough money for education.
Well...okay...sort of. That's kind of true. The challenge is much of our
property tax goes to education. Did you know that?
Robert Goble: So
we have income tax and property tax
going to education.
Senator Thatcher:
And General Fund, which is sales tax.
Robert Goble:
Okay.
Senator Thatcher:
So we actually give just over 50% of the entire state budget for the (Not
including restricted funds. Restricted funds
are things, like for example, a fishing license. If you want to go
fishing, you pay a certain amount of money, and it fluctuates based on cost of
running the fish stock programs. So if I don't fish, I don't want to pay my tax
money to run a hatchery, grow fish, and then drive them up and dump them in
lakes for people to fish. But some people are willing to pay for that, and so
that is an appropriate use of a fee.
So what they do is calculate
the cost of running the hatchery, stocking the ponds, things like that, and
they calculate out how many people are going to get fishing licenses, and
that's the cost of a fishing license. They don't make money off a license,
because that is a fee, and you're not allowed to make money off a fee. A fee by
statute is money to cover the cost of a service requested by the individual. So
the money that goes to, say, paying for fishing licenses would not be included
in part of that 50% because that's a restricted account.
But if you're looking at
the education fund and you're looking at the general fund, which are moneys
that can be spent for education, 50% of the entire state budget goes to public
education. Over 15% goes to higher education. So when you look at it that way,
two-thirds of the entire state budget--did I say 50% ? It's actually 51.2. I'd
have to look at the exact number. But when you add public and higher education
together, it's two-thirds of the entire state budget. Now, does that sound like
a state that is not committed to education?
So we've got 18% that goes
to Medicade, which we couldn't cut even if we wanted to. So if you're doing
math at home with us, that's 67% plus 18% is 85%, leaving 15% of the state
budget to cover every single thing that the state does besides Medicade and
education. So what would you like to cut so that we can give more money to
education? Because I'll tell you right now if I shut down the entire Department
of Corrections (which for the record I'm not going to do), but if I did, if we
let every single prisoner out, if we laid off every single corrections officer,
if we shut down probation and parole, if we shut down juvenal detention,
juvenal detention, juvenal probation, if we shut down the entire Highway Patrol,
if we shut down the entire Department of Public safety, if we laid off all of
those employees, if we shut down the courts so there was no way that we could
adjudicate disputes, if we laid off every judge, if we laid off every public
defender, we could increase the education budget by roughly two and a half
percent.
Robert Goble: Would
it be correct to assume (I've heard this said by upper administration) the
Granite School District has had to tighten its belt over the last few years
because of the State Legislature? Or perhaps the State Legislature isn't giving
out enough money to education.
Senator Thatcher:
I would hate to have to speculate out loud. There are some things that it could
be. It could be that they have fewer students. If the Granite School District
has fewer students, whereas Alpine has more students, then of course, because
of the weighted pupil unit, Alpine is going to get more money and Granite is
going to get less money. So for me to come out and say that Granite's getting
the same amount of money, the reality is I don't know. I don't know that
they're getting the same amount of money. I know that in the past several years
we have increased education funding every single year that I've served in the
legislature. Every year there has been more money going to education than the
year before. So if Granite is saying that they're getting less money, the only
thing that I can think of that would validate that statement would be if
Granite has fewer students.
When I had this
conversation with Superintendent Bates I asked him to get me that data. I told
him that we had increased the amount of money going to education. If I recall
correctly, I want to say that it was to the tune of 100 million dollars. He
said, "well, we got more money than last year." I said, "well,
show me that. You come back to me and you show me how much money you got last
year and how many students, and how much money you got this year and how many
students. And with that data, if it doesn't add up, I will personally go to the
State Office of Education on your behalf and ask for an explanation."
I never got that information.
I never got that data. So if that is a legitimate claim, it certainly makes me
curious why he would not get back to me and allow me to champion his cause if
it is just.
Robert Goble:
What do you want the people to know about what you've done in favor of
education in the state of Utah? What do you want the people of Magna to know
about what you've done for education?
Senator Thatcher:
Let me tell you. When you're dealing with education you have to walk a fine
line, because the reality is: Who is in charge of education? It depends on who
you ask. If you look at the Utah state constitution, the Utah state
constitution requires the election of a State Board of Education who is tasked
with quote: "general control and supervision over education." So we
actually elect a state school board. The problem is what does "general
control and supervision" mean?" because the legislature is tasked with
statute and appropriations. So if we get to decide what's funded and what
isn't, does that violate the constitutional requirement for general control and
supervision? So that's one of the challenges.
You've got the governor's
office of education, you've got the state office of education, you've got the
state school board, you've got the local school board, and you've got the
legislature who all have a part to play in education. And part of the reason
that we get in trouble is because everybody thinks that everybody else is
stepping on their turf, but not doing their own job. I think the office of
education is supposed to do X, Y and Z, but they're supposed to leave A, B, and
C to the legislature. We'll they're mad because they think they're supposed to
do A, B, X, and C, and they're mad at us for doing B because they think
--that's a bad analogy, unless you have a John Madden whiteboard so you can boom! Go over here, which I don't have.
The problem is, if I think you're supposed to be doing certain things, and
you're not doing them, I'm mad at you because you're not doing what I think
you're supposed to do, and I'm mad because you're doing things you think I'm
supposed to do, and you're mad because you think you're supposed to be doing
that, and you're mad at me for not doing the things I'm supposed to do. Because
there's no clear chief, we have all chiefs and no Indians.
When it comes to
education, one of the most important things for me to do is tread lightly. So
the first thing that I did in education that actually will make a real impact
is requiring exposure in expenditures, which has never happened before in the
history of our state.
Here's why it's a big
deal: We talked before about how I give money to the State Office of
Education from the legislature, they
give it to school districts, school districts give it to schools, but we really
don't know how much is going where. We don't know who's getting how much money,
we don't know why, and we don't know how they're spending it, except in very
broad strokes. I'm not okay with that. When you look at the administrative
office of the courts, I can tell you how much money was spent for interpreters
who speak Swahili. Actually, I can give you a case by case breakdown on how
much money we spent on interpreters for each language or the entire program all
together. This year it was roughly nine million dollars. I can actually get you
specific detailed breakouts. I can tell you how much money we spent for
ammunition for the training range for the Highway Patrol. I can tell you how
much we spent per day if you really wanted that much detail. Because in every
aspect where public funds are being used, we require complete and total tracking, except with
51.2% of the state budget.
With education in the
past, the state office of education has said, we don't have to report to you
our expenditures. I'm not okay with that, and I hope you aren't either.
Robert Goble: I'm
not okay with that. I want the legislature to know more about what's being
spent in the school districts.
Senator Thatcher:
For the legislature it's important for us to know, but this is also available
now to the general public. It's also now available to employees of the school
district. So now an employee of the school district, if they choose to spend
their personal time going and looking through their school's budget, for the
first time ever we now require that that be public. So you can go through and
say, wait a minute, you told me I couldn't have a projector for the music room
and yet you spent X amount on--
Robert Goble: Ten
thousand dollars on a brand new office for a principal when her office was just
fine.
Senator Thatcher:
Here's the thing: at the end of the day we are not passing judgment on how money is spent, we are asking
for disclosure. I kind of feel the same way about myself. I have to account for
everything that I do: every vote that I take, every position that I advocate
for. There's a record of all of that. And it's all public. Go to le.utah.gov,
which, by the way, just won an award for the most transparent state
legislature. All of that is public.
So here's what I'm looking
forward to. I'm looking forward to going through and looking, because we
already know which schools have the best outcomes for kids. We know which
schools have the highest graduation rates, we know which schools have the
highest reading success. For the first time ever we're actually going to be
able to look at those schools, and how
much do you want to bet that our top performing schools have similar spending
patterns?
Whether it's schools that
invest more in computer labs do better, whether it's schools which spend more
money on teacher development do better, whether schools with smaller class
sizes do better...What if we find out that schools that spend more money on
their sports teams are actually more successful because kids have more school
spirit and, therefore, work harder in class--I don't think that's the case,
but, you know what? What if it is?
Robert Goble:
(laughs) Football is big business in
high schools.
Senator Thatcher:
Of course it is. Anyway, the point is, now that we finally know where the money
is going, for the first time ever we'll be able to judge where the best use of
each dollar is.
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| Magna Elementary before renovations, circa 1991. Photograph courtesy of Howard and Bonnie Stahle. |
Transparency in Education Spending
Senator Thatcher:
The most important thing that I have accomplished to date in education would
have to be the transparency in education spending. Right now we do get sort of
a general aggregate report of how money is spent, but it does not have the same
level of detail that every other public expenditure carries. With every other
agency I can tell you to the penny where all the money goes. I can tell you how
much money is spent, when it was spent, who received the money, and what we got
in exchange for that money. I can do that with every single agency in the
entire state of Utah, except public education, which, as we previously
discussed, is more than 50% of the entire state budget.
So, let me tell you why
that's exciting to me. For the first time ever, I'm going to be able to go back
and look at our top performing schools, schools that have the highest
graduation rates, schools that have the highest college readiness rates. For
elementary schools, we can look at reading rates or test scores. So we go
through and we look at all of our top performing schools, and then we compare
how they spend their discretionary funds. Some schools will spend all of their
Title One money, all of their Trust Lands money to get smaller class sizes. Are
those the schools that are the most successful? Some schools do teacher
development. Are they the most successful? Is it a combination of all of these
things? Is it computer labs? Is it the ones that are doing innovative pilot
programs the legislature keeps putting out there? Because if it's not, maybe we
should stop doing those innovative pilot programs. But what if it is?
This, for the first time,
will allow us to ask the questions that we successfully ask in every other
aspect in Utah life. And that is, is this the best use of that one dollar? In
education, prior to my bill passing, the answer is, we don't know.
Once that report hits, for
the first time ever, we will be able to compare apples to apples, dollar to
dollar. How did your school do with the limited resources that were allocated.
This is the best part: we won't have to legislate changes, because principals
are a competitive bunch. If a principal looks through and sees that all the
successful schools are the ones that have multiple computer labs and that class
sizes don't matter, I think they will voluntarily make those changes. If we
find out that it is class sizes, I think you'll see a shift in paradigm in all
those other schools that are not doing that at the moment.
The reality is I can go
through and I can show you study after study to show that each of these
different options will increase your outcomes. But I can't compare dollar for
dollar, apple for apple, where the biggest bang for the buck is, and after this
report comes out we can.
Safety Line for
Vulnerable Students
Senator Thatcher: The
single most important thing I will probably ever do with my life is the
education safety line that I am working on right now in conjunction with Steve
------- The Utah Department of Health, the Attorney General's office, the State
Office of Education and State School Board--this is one of the other things: if
you're going to be working on education issues,
you really should be working with the school board. This has been a very
collaborative effort. We have two members of the state school board. We are
working right now on putting together a method by which students of any age
will be able to contact the University of Utah Neuropsychiatric Institute,
staffed 24/7 by licensed clinical social workers, and they will be able to get
help anonymously for issues from bullying to suicide to sexual assault and
substance abuse. Right now, if a child
goes to a councilor and mentions that their household has seen domestic
violence, well, they are required by law to report that.
Robert Goble:
Then they call the D.C.F.S.
Senator Thatcher:
D.C.F.S. shows up, and maybe they take those kids. What if the kid knows that?
And because of that he's unwilling to talk about his problem? This would give
him an anonymous place where he would know he could call and just talk through
what is happening in his household, and it gives that council an opportunity to
convince the kid, if you want things to get better, you really do have to tell
an adult. If you want your dad to give help, you have to tell us where you
live. The kids then can voluntarily give that information.
They have a similar
program in Colorado, where they are getting two thousand calls a month on this
help line. Two thousand kids a month! Initially they set this up to be a tip
line where you could call up and report other kids for being bad. You could
call up and say Johnny said he's going to bring a gun to school, or Jill says
she's going to kill herself. This amazing thing happened. They set it up so
kids could tell on each other, and what they found is, kids were calling for
help. Kids were calling and saying, I'm getting bullied at school and I'm
thinking of killing myself and I don't know what to do.
How remarkable is that!
They put this tool out
there, and kids started reaching out and getting help to the tune of two
thousand kids a month. That fact that Utah doesn't have this: not okay. We have
got to get it finished. We have got to get it right, and we have to get it
active and implemented by next school year. So that is probably the most
important thing I will ever do in my life, and that's coming up next year.
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| Photo by Robert Goble. |
