Petty crime isn't petty when it happens again and again. In the lower Avenues, each day starts with glittering cubes of auto glass splashed across a passenger seat. And in those blue squares you can read someone's day ruined.
It seems thieves roam Salt Lake's sidewalks without shame and smash into people's cars without fear. What's lost is more than a CD or a window; what's lost is the confidence and community we should feel.
Ben Franklin wrote, "Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day." Salt Lake has the opposite: little violations that create discomfort every single day. The fabric of our lives is threatened, tugged and torn with each unhappy crime. This repetition makes us insecure as citizens, displeased as taxpayers and angry as voters.
Jeff McCarthy
Salt Lake City