As candidates running for the Salt Lake City Council, we oppose the decision to charge the 14 people who protested the Utah inland port. We call upon everyone in the Salt Lake area to support dropping the charges.
For months, we have heard accounts of diligent civilians resisting the inland port. The protesters, many of whom are disabled, women, people of color, and working-class, have taken risks because they know that the inland port represents a political system that ignores and silences their voices.
Resistance, as the protesters understand, includes adopting peaceful strategies that expose immoral laws upholding this system. It is unethical to prosecute those speaking on behalf of the marginalized and our threatened environment.
These charges are collateral damage in upholding a civic-engagement process that renders the voices of the most marginalized silent within the democratic process. This decision maintains the unjust political and economic institutions undergirding the inland port. The charges are an attempt to intimidate people from further civil disobedience to unjust and immoral laws, policy, and state action.
As candidates for District 2 and District 4, we oppose the inland port every step of the way. The port is not a done deal. As civilians continue fighting the port, our city needs an organized movement that includes both the City Council and a diligent public committed to stopping the project.
We sell ourselves short if we focus only on mitigating the port’s harms. Everyone should commit to stopping the inland port, not to placating state bureaucrats who do not have our city’s interests in mind.
The inland port is immoral. Listening to voters, we recognize that they have legitimate safety concerns about the port. The inland port can attract federal ICE and customs patrol officers into our city, putting immigrants and communities of color in harm’s way. Furthermore, the port also has the potential of human trafficking, which threatens people living on the edges of society, including women, people of color, LGBTQ and Two-Spirit folks and disabled civilians.
And the inland port will be an ecological disaster. In a time of climate crisis, Utah should take all necessary means to avert, not exacerbate, ecological violence. The port will undoubtedly harm our local environment, severely impacting the sensitive ecosystems in the Great Salt Lake area.
Furthermore, the inland port will negatively impact Utahns’ health, worsening their quality of life. Constructing the port will make it harder for Utah to improve longevity and save lives.
We call upon civilians and political leaders alike to condemn the decision to prosecute the protesters. Charging the protesters will undeniably chill further expressions of speech, inhibiting people from exercising their civil liberties. For the sake of political justice and our environment, our local leaders must be allies with the popular resistance against the inland port and demand Sim Gill to drop the charges.
Moroni Benally
Leo Rodgers
Moroni Benally is a candidate for the District 2 seat of the Salt Lake City Council.
Leo Rodgers is a candidate for the District 4 seat of the Salt Lake City Council.