* The payroll for all state and local agencies has ballooned from $266.5 million in 1997 to $462 million in 2007 - a 73 percent jump. The total number of employees has shot up 25 percent.

* Education saw the biggest gains in employee numbers and pay: 20,624 employees, or 59 percent of all government workers added from 1997 to 2007, and $108.7 million, or 56 percent of all new payroll.

* Transit, highways, natural resources, social insurance administration, health and some "other" categories lost government jobs between 2002 and 2007. But none reported a drop in payroll.

* Employment at Utah liquor stores has swelled 76 percent from 1997 to 2007, with an addition of 364 workers.

Bureaucrats vs. boarders

Less than two weeks after getting rolled by Utah's skateboarding community - leading to the reversal of a backyard skate-ramp ban - the health board boss took more lumps recently from the Salt Lake City Council.

"My main purpose is to offer an apology to you," a contrite Gary Edwards, executive director of the Salt Lake Valley Health Board, told the council publicly, hours after he was admonished privately for agreeing to the (short-lived) ban.

In the days after the prohibition, council members were bombarded with angry e-mails even though they had nothing to do with the decision.

After the backlash, Edwards acknowledged officials have no evidence skate ramps jeopardize public health. That flimsy premise - some residents complained of noise pollution in certain neighborhoods - now will be studied before the health board makes a permanent ruling next spring.

"We found out the skateboarding community is alive and well and active," Edwards said, "and nationwide."

If health officials want input, the city has "quite an e-mail list," Council Chairwoman Jill Remington Love joked.

Councilman J.T. Martin, the loudest critic of the move, insisted future crackdowns first see plenty of sunshine. "We will look forward," he said, "to the results of your very transparent, very public report."

Main Streeters vs. the elitists

He never invoked presidential politics or Sarah Palin's disdain for elitists, but Salt Lake City Councilman J.T. Martin twisted eyebrows last week when he landed a good-natured jab at colleague Luke Garrott.

Talking to Local First Utah guru Betsy Burton, Councilman Soren Simonsen remarked that four councilmen work Main Street-like jobs. Martin runs a grocery store, he said; Van Turner, a burger joint; Eric Jergensen, a manufacturing business; while Simonsen himself is a partner in an architecture outfit.

"And we have the academic," Martin interrupted sarcastically, as Garrott, a political science professor at the University of Utah, grinned sheepishly.

Garrott was wearing a sweater vest, but people who know him recognize he may be more "street" than the rest of the council combined.

In other words, Garrott may think like Barack Obama, but he lives like Joe the Plumber.

Watch your mouth - and your horse

It seems Provo's reputation for seemingly puritanical laws didn't start with then-Mayor George Stewart's diktat closing the city swimming pool on Sundays or the Municipal Council's edict that dance halls have airport-like security.

The roots date back to pioneer days. While explaining a grant the city received to digitize old records and make them searchable electronically, City Recorder LaNice Groesbeck reviewed some of the ordinances the council's predecessors enacted in 1851.

For example, "If anyone is found guilty of horse racing on the Sabbath within the city limits, they shall be fined $25 for each offense."

Another ordinance required a $5 fine for anyone who took the name of a deity in vain in public. If the foul mouth couldn't pay that fine, the equivalent of $123.19 in 2007 dollars, the offender could work it off on a road project.

"That would solve our budget problem," Councilwoman Sherrie Hall Everett said.

Heck, after a game like BYU's loss to TCU, the city could eliminate all taxes with that ordinance.

Food flight

Jim Croce once sang that you shouldn't tug on Superman's cape, take off the Lone Ranger's mask or spit into the wind. He could have added not leaving a food table unattended at a university - especially when the economy's tanking.

Utah Valley University and the June Sucker Recovery Implementation Program sponsored a symposium recently about Utah Lake at the Orem campus' new library. A buffet table - with bagels, muffins, granola bars, soda and coffee - was set up outside the lecture hall for the participants.

Unfortunately, when the first break came, organizers discovered that apparently hungry college students, ignoring the nearby Starbucks concession, picked the table nearly clean.

Sam Rushforth, UVU's science and health dean, quickly directed that the table be restocked and moved inside the hall's outer doors where conference attendees would have a fighting chance at getting the food.

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