Mine, mine, mine: Attention voters. You can take the Salt Lake County Council out of politics, but you can't take the politics out of the Salt Lake County Council. Last week, the Republican-controlled council refused to cede their right to redraw voting districts for school board and county council seats to a proposed independent, impartial redistricting commission. "To the victors go the spoils," several GOP council members said. Democrats promised to make the decision a campaign issue. We never saw any public good come from the gerrymandering of voting districts, no matter which party draws the map.

Atlas piles: Utah Congressman Jim Matheson speaks for us all when he says he's tired of the Department of Energy delaying the cleanup of 16 million tons of nasty Atlas Corp. uranium tailings from the banks of the Colorado River. DOE had said it wouldn't get around to moving the toxic junk for 20 years, but Matheson, a member of the new Democratic majority in Congress, finally had the clout to contest that timeline. His amendment to a Defense Department bill sets the deadline at 2019. Sooner would be even better, but we'll take it.

Out from under: After 14 years of close monitoring, the Utah foster care system has been released from court oversight. A lawsuit brought in 1993 by the National Center of Youth Law said Utah was not keeping children safe in state care. Improvements over the years have lifted the program to "one of the best in the country," prompting a U.S. district judge to agree to end court monitoring. We commend the state officials who have made the foster-care system one that helps rather than harms the children it serves.