This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The Rotary Club of Salt Lake City, proud mother ship of Utah's 30 Rotary clubs, might be feeling a little disrespected these days.
Especially by Republicans.
For decades, the club has sponsored debates between major political candidates. There was a time that a candidate wouldn't dare skip an election-year debate in front of a group whose members ranked among the state's top business and community leaders.
When Republican Attorney General Sean Reyes snubbed an invitation to debate his Democratic rival, Charles Stormont, in August, the Rotary's president-elect, Floyd Hatch, told the luncheon crowd that history had been made that day.
It marked the first time, to Hatch's knowledge, that a major candidate had declined the club's invitation to debate.
Now it's happened twice in the same election cycle.
Rotarians say that when they scheduled a debate between Republican Mia Love and Democrat Doug Owens, both congressional hopefuls accepted.
Love's campaign manager, Dave Hansen, insists his candidate never agreed to the debate.
The Rotarians were told in September, Hansen said, that Love had another engagement, and that's why she couldn't attend. Reyes couldn't make it for the same reason. He was attending a fundraiser in California at the time of the August debate.
So in both instances, the Democrats — Stormont and Owens — appeared solo before the Rotarians.
Hansen, who recalls that other major candidates have rejected Rotarian debates, noted Love already had one debate with Owens as part of the televised Utah Debate Commission series and will have another one on KSL Radio's "Doug Wright Show."
"There were only 100 or so people at the Rotary luncheon," Hansen said. "And [the site of the debate] was not even in her [4th Congressional] District. It was in downtown Salt Lake City."
So the Rotary Club of Salt Lake City, which at one time a politician would not dream of bypassing, is now irrelevant in some minds.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
No free lunch • I wrote recently about the Carbon County Commission passing a resolution declaring the eastern Utah county the area's sovereign authority and that any attempt at law enforcement by a federal agent (those nasty folks trying to impose regulations on the coal industry) would be viewed as a "threat to the health, safety and welfare of the citizens of Carbon County."
Now Carbon County is the unofficial cheerleader of the coal industry.
The county joined forces with Friends of Coal and the Southeastern Utah Energy Producers Association (SEUEPA) to stage a "Coal and Fossil Fuels Rally," which was to took place Thursday at the County Fairgrounds in Price.
The rally was to feature pro-industry speakers, information about the evils of federal regulations, and fun and games.
Family activities were to include a "Haunted Mine," "The Kahuna Beach Party Band" and numerous actvities for kids. The scheduled keynoter was Alex Epstein, author of "Fossil Fuels Improve the Planet."
Free food was to be offered to the first 3,000 attendees.
The event, however, wasn't exactly free. The County Commission earlier approved up to $30,000 in restaurant tax revenue to pay for the food.