In commemoration of the state centennial, a screenwriter friend of mine wrote a play earlier this year called "The Raid - The Trial of George Q. Cannon."
It was commissioned by the Utah State Bar and produced locally to good reviews, which found it an engaging account of Utah's most famous polygamy prosecution and the one that perhaps ultimately changed the course of Utah history.Writer Paul Larsen conjures up characters at the center of that day's controversy who are historical or composite - all of them believable in either case. One of them remarks at the end of a prosecutor's soliloquy against polygamy that perhaps the good lawyer has a political motive or two and that Mormons maybe aren't quite the wild animals the government makes them out to be.
"You'll find that behind every high-sounding speech there usually stands some self-interest," the character says.
When I read this passage over the weekend, time suddenly zipped forward to 1996, and I was reminded of the current fight over control of the Utah Transit Authority.
As UTA directors were scheduled to meet this afternoon to consider firing General Manager John Pingree, across the bridge of time echoed that voice again: "Behind every high-sounding speech there usually stands some self-interest."
Pingree's critics would have everyone believe he's a bad seed who should be dumped posthaste out of deep concern for the well-being of the agency that runs 500-plus buses up and down the Wasatch Front and wants to build a light-rail system in Salt Lake County. This despite accolades from outside Utah that UTA is one of the best-run transit agencies of its size.
Still, he isn't fit to do the job, County Commissioner Randy Horiuchi and board member Dan Berman will tell you. Ditto, says Steve Booth, leader of the 1,000-strong Amalgamated Transit Workers Local 382.
Pingree is arrogant, they say, and he is overpaid (a point that might have to be conceded, considering his $175,000 salary, although it's worth noting that board members are the ones who approved it). The union doesn't like him because they think he's cold and hard and mean, and directors who don't like light rail don't like Pingree because he does.
"If Mr. Pingree really cares about the future of transit in this great county, I think he'll find it in his heart to do the right thing," Horiuchi said.
This means quit, Mr. Pingree, or else you just don't care about the future of transit in this great county, which is to say you're not quite the same swell guy Randy Horiuchi is.
Pingree might bail, or he might fight this palace coup (stay tuned for Thursday's paper and the next episode of "As the Board Turns").
Whatever the outcome, it ought to be known by the public that when critics lash out at Pingree for whatever reason, they - like the polygamy prosecutor of old - may well have an unspoken agenda of their own.
So let's call a spade a spade here.
This is a skirmish in the battle over who will control and/or hold sway over UTA over the next few years. Labor interests closely allied with Horiuchi want gentler management. Anti-light-rail forces closely allied with Berman want to stop the light-rail steamroller. Losing Pingree would help both causes, and this is what the struggle is about.
Horiuchi and Berman also know that the Legislature will likely clarify an arcane state statute this winter that will probably dilute Salt Lake County's ability to appoint as many board members as it has in the past. The window of opportunity gapes open for only a little while longer, then. Thus the sudden push to purge.
If Pingree's lost control of the agency, that's one thing. But if his head is on the block because he's lobbied for light rail and lacks the warmth of, say, Bill Clinton, and isn't very popular with the rank-and-file then, well, maybe that's another story.
Keep in mind that line from the polygamy play:
"You'll find that behind every high-sounding speech there usually stands some self-interest."