What, you haven't yet filled out your Envision Utah growth questionnaire? Can't find a 33-cent stamp? Too busy rearranging your schedule to fit the new NBA dates? All tied up strapping yourself to backhoes?
Or is the enormity of deciding how we should look 20 years from now too much when how we're going to look by Friday is slightly more pressing?Personally, I wondered why there weren't more Scenarios than A, B, C and D. How about:
Scenario E: Everybody lives in Larry Miller's basement.
Scenario F: "Hey, there's plenty of room in Nevada."
Scenario G: Return to the serf-peasant, moat-drawbridge system.
Scenario H: Can't we all just inhale?
I personally voted for Scenario A. The bourgeoisie coming out in me, I guess.
I mean, why not? Scenario A costs the most, gives everybody nicer houses, at least a two-car garage, room for a dog run, and lets you keep your car. Who wouldn't vote for that? This is still America, si?
Question: If you vote for the "Let's look like Brooklyn But With More Stucco" Scenario D, do you also have to volunteer to live in a high-rise?
The honorary chairmen of the growth project are Gov. Leavitt and Larry "Back in Business" Miller, but the idea is from a man named Robert Grow -- no pun intended -- who is president of U.S. Steel.
And the mass mailing of the 573,500 ballots -- yes, that does take into account wind damage since it works out to more than one per Wasatch Front household -- is orchestrated by a man named Steve Holbrook, executive director of the Coalition for Utah's Future.
Holbrook is the right man for the job. He knows how to get out the vote. In 1964, when he was a student at the University of Utah, he spent his summer vacation in Jackson, Mississippi, helping black people register to vote.
Wait a minute, I can hear you asking, didn't people get thrown in jail for that back then? Especially long-haired college students from Bountiful, Utah?
Yes, as a matter of fact, they did. Holbrook spent "several nights" in the Jackson jail, paid for by the great state of Mississippi.
Like many Utahns who were around in the '60s and '70s, Steve Holbrook wouldn't mind a return to the days when you could hike and "not run into people if you didn't want to."
"The only real improvement I've personally seen around here is more choices in restaurants," he says.
In Jackson, Miss., of course, different story.
Officially, neither Holbrook nor Grow nor the governor nor Miller have a stated scenario preference. Whatever the people say with their ballots, that's the plan Envision Utah will work toward.
And if Scenario A wins, what then?
"Not a whole lot to do," says Holbrook. "Just stand back and let 'er rip."
Every household along the Wasatch Front getting a ballot is the most all-encompassing planning meeting in Salt Lake Valley history. The only thing that comes close is Brigham Young hiking to the top of Ensign Peak three days after arriving in the summer of 1847 and deciding where to put the city blocks, animal pens, malls, 7-Elevens, Lamb's Cafe and the block U.
But that was a totally different situation. Back then, there were no houses at all, no urban sprawl, not even a Sierra Club. The biggest concern was whether oxen, with the turning radius of a Hummer, could make a U-turn.
"Make the streets wide enough for an ox cart to turn around," said Brigham Young, reportedly.
The next thing he did was allocate two nice, roomy building lots for himself and his rather large family, smack in the middle of the new, un-named town.
Write down "Scenario A" for Mr. Young.
Lee Benson accepts faxes at 801-237-2527 and e-mail at (lbenson@desnews.com). His column runs Monday, Wednesday and Friday.