This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2005, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The 20-year-old USS Salt Lake City, which has had a colorful relationship with the city for which it was named and has been the site of a couple of events relating to gubernatorial politics in Utah, will soon be no more.
Because of to budget cuts, the U.S. Navy is decommissioning the nuclear submarine Oct. 26 during a ceremony in San Diego. The sub will then take a skeleton crew around the Arctic ice cap and on to Connecticut, where it will be taken apart.
Kerry Casaday, president of the 716 Club, which is the Salt Lake City community support group for the sub, says he is working with U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop's office to see if some of the sub's equipment can be salvaged for permanent exhibition in Utah, preferably at the new Children's Museum in Salt Lake City.
The USS Salt Lake City, when not on official missions, has been accommodating to groups from Utah and generous in taking Utahns on submarine tours.
Such generosity has twice come into play during races for the Utah governorship.
When Gov. Mike Leavitt was at a Western Governors Association meeting in Southern California in late 1999, he and his entourage were taken on a tour of the USS Salt Lake City. While Leavitt was at the bottom of the ocean, supporters of House Speaker Marty Stephens met with lobbyists and legislators to try to nail down commitments of support for Stephens, who wanted to run against Leavitt in the 2000 Republican convention.
Word got out and Republican leaders rallied around Leavitt, persuading Stephens to drop his attempted coup.
Fred Lampropoulos, who ran for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 2004, met Michelle Deus while he was on a tour of the USS Salt Lake City and married her just before his big, albeit unsuccessful, push for the ballot.
Only on Sunday? The Utah Special Olympics games at the University of Utah on Friday attracted hundreds of athletes who use wheelchairs and have other special needs.
There were portable toilets available, but many lacked the equipment the athletes needed.
So quite a few of the athletes went to the nearest building, an LDS wardhouse near the Huntsman Center, only to be confronted with signs telling them the restrooms were closed.
Watering priorities: On the east side of Foothill Drive where it converges with 2100 East in Salt Lake City next to Bonne-
ville Golf Course, several sprinkler heads shoot straight into the air or just bubble like a big drinking fountain.
They have been on several times during the past week, resulting in extremely clean gutters. Also, the vegetation between the golf course fence and the street where the sprinklers are located consists of very tall, brown weeds.