This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated.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.
Susan Way is a longtime community activist and a former Democratic candidate for the Utah Legislature.
She has been involved in enough civic affairs that she knows how government works and how to get things done.
Except renewing her driver license.
Way received a notice from the Utah Driver License Division in April that her license would expire July 24, and she could renew either on the Internet or by mail. So she called the number provided on the notice and asked that the necessary forms be mailed to her for renewal.
Six weeks later, she got a notice in the mail that she could not get the renewal forms until she cleared things up with Oregon's Department of Motor Vehicles.
It turns out Way got a speeding ticket in the Beaver State in 1996, and instead of paying the $135 fine through the mail after she got home, she sent a letter of protest, believing it was unfair.
At the time, Utah did not have a reciprocal agreement with Oregon, so the fine was unenforceable here, and she has renewed her license three times since then.
But now there is a reciprocal accord and the outstanding ticket blocked her renewal. It just took Utah six weeks to tell her that.
Way contacted Oregon, paid a $75 settlement and finally got her renewal forms from Utah last week. The notice that came with the forms said it would take six to eight weeks to get her license, well after the expiration date.
So she went to the renewal office at the Fairpark, handed her forms to the man at the front desk and got a number. An hour later, she took her forms to the woman at the available window and was told she was missing the medical form.
She gave the workers everything that had been mailed to her and the man at the front desk who had reviewed her forms said nothing about a missing medical section.
The woman did wait for her to fill out that form, though, and she finally walked away with a temporary license.
A slimmer paycheck • Utah legislators don't make much money from the state — $273 per working day for the 6½-week general session, plus the monthly interim committee days and whatever other assignments come up amount to roughly $12,000 to $15,000 a year.
But a new Utah senator is getting even less than that, thanks to a $38,000 judgment against him and a garnishment action tapping his legislative salary to help pay off the debt.
The judgment against Sen. Alvin Jackson, R-Highland, was awarded to Maritime Services Corp. in Oregon for renovation work done on Jackson's home there.
Jackson disputes the judgment and says his attorneys are working to get it overturned, claiming he paid for the work that was done.
The Swan Law Firm in South Jordan is attempting to satisfy the judgment for the creditor and originally filed a writ of garnishment on Jackson's former employer. But the freshman lawmaker now is a consultant doing contract work and there's no salary to tap. So Jackson's recent election to the Senate, with the relatively meager salary it brings, has afforded the law firm another opportunity to tap his pay.
So far, though, Jackson has logged only one month in which he made enough from the state to qualify for garnishment. The threshold is about $400 a month for that action to kick in.
More Mormon fun spots • I also wrote last week about LDS Church-owned Deseret Ranches in Florida going through that state's bureaucratic process to convert 133,000 acres of farmland into a commercial and residential metropolis of a half-million residents not far from internationally renowned Disney World in Orlando.
Now The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has its eye on another resort area, this time in Utah.
The Lehi Planning Commission is poised to approve a proposal to convert the golf driving range at Thanksgiving Point in northern Utah County near the Jordan River Parkway into a business center with two four-story buildings (one for offices, the other for a family history center) and a 767-car parking lot.
The land, being sold by Thanksgiving Point to the LDS Church, is in an area already zoned for commercial development.
The Planning Commission delayed the approval for 30 days because nearby residents said they had been given no notice of the sale and planned project. They fear it would heighten the traffic along an already-busy street.