This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A Washington Post editorial that ran in The Salt Lake Tribune recently about bias in the classroom condemned the brutal assault of a black high school student by a resource officer in South Carolina.
In response, former Salt Lake City Schools Superintendent Don Thomas shared a memory from when he was in charge several decades ago.
He received a call from Utah's iconic civil rights activist Alberta Henry reporting that a young black child had been arrested in the Granite School District and taken to a police station.
The boy was 6 years old.
Thomas called the principal of the school to learn what happened and was informed that there had been a fight between two first-grade boys, one white and one black.
When Thomas asked if the white boy also had been arrested, the principal said no. "It's the blacks that always start the fight," he noted.
"You are fired," Thomas retorted. "Tell [then Granite District Superintendent] Reed Call that I fired you and that you will not be reinstated until the black mother calls and tells me that the problem has been resolved."
When Call phoned Thomas to find out what was going on, Thomas affirmed that he had fired the principal — even though he wasn't his boss — and relayed what the principal had told him.
That afternoon, Thomas received a call from Henry, saying the boy's mother had called and the problem had been resolved.
Call then got back to Thomas and assured him that all parties were satisfied.
After a few words of advice, Thomas told Call he could reinstate his principal.
It may be the only time in Utah that a superintendent of one school district fired a principal in another school district.
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Between a rock and hard place • The Salt Lake City Police Department has been cracking down on loitering near the homeless shelters on the city's west side in an effort to reduce drug trafficking and other crimes prevalent in the area.
But sometimes those efforts can become overzealous and produce unintended consequences.
Several dozen children staying at The Road Home family shelter with their parents attend school at Washington Elementary School and take school buses for their transportation.
But unlike parents in virtually every other part of the city, the homeless parents were not allowed by police to wait on the sidewalk for the bus so they could escort their children safely inside. If they congregated in anticipation of the bus, they were hassled and in some cases ticketed for loitering.
And security at The Road Home shelter wouldn't let them wait inside the building either.
That was until Salt Lake City School Board member Michael Clara got involved recently.
After he was contacted by some of the parents, he called the police department and talked to a sergeant who, he says, at first became hostile with him about easing up on the loitering policy at that location. When Clara said he would be there himself to make sure parents weren't hassled, the sergeant accused Clara of threatening him.
But cooler heads prevailed. Clara got a return call from Deputy Police Chief Josh Sharman, in charge of the metro unit, who said he would make sure the parents were accommodated.
When Clara went to the location where parents were meeting their kids off the bus, the cops were friendly and accommodating. Clara even got a selfie with one of them.
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'Hotel California' • Jeff Allred is a regular patron at the downtown Salt Lake City Library and, knowing the first 30 minutes are free, usually parks in the library's underground lot operated by Diamond Parking.
He entered the lot and got his receipt timed at 10:50 a.m. He checked out his books at 11:11 a.m., with plenty of time to make his 30-minute limit.
But as he drove into the exit line, he realized there was a problem.
Three cars were ahead of him and not moving. After several minutes the first two cars were finally cleared, but the car in front of him could not get the system to respond.
Allred got out of his car to try to help, but then the automatic parking kiosk ate the other guy's ticket, with no way out.
After about 20 minutes trying to get out, a security guard walked over to check on the problem. After Allred and the other man explained they couldn't get out, he raised the exit bar, then told Allred he owed $1.50, because the half hour had expired.
Just like the Eagles sang in their classic song: "You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave."