Sure, it’s a lot of fun to blame some out-of-state, or even out-of-country, tele-entrepreneur/movie star for the frightening and massively unpopular plan to build a huge energy-hogging data center in the wilds of northwest Utah.
But the Stratos Project almost certainly wouldn’t exist if it were not for something that’s totally Utah-grown. It’s called the Military Installation Development Authority — MIDA — and its state-granted authority to create and manage developments with little to no oversight from any local government has suddenly become about as questionable as it should have been from the start.
Members of the Box Elder County Commission complained about being blindsided by MIDA’s plan a short time before they unanimously voted to rubber-stamp it.
Even Gov. Spencer Cox, who at first lashed out at the idea that anyone should try to slow this speeding locomotive, later said that the project roll-out “was not good.” He went on to explain that neither he nor the Utah Legislature were behind, or had authorized, the project, and that appropriate layers of regulation and review were going to be in place.
None of that would have happened if it were not for MIDA.
The agency’s under-the-radar — one might even say secret — nature and the fact that its board of directors includes sitting members of the Legislature make it a convenient way for developers, current and future, to funnel large campaign contributions to some of its members.
Most notably, Stuart Adams, who is both president of the Utah Senate and chairman of MIDA, sucked up some $140,000 in campaign contributions for his political action committees from businesses that are involved in other MIDA projects around the state. All completely legal under Utah’s amazingly permissive campaign finance laws.
Adams argues, as politicians do, that their decisions are not swayed by the fact that people and corporations with business before them are simultaneously filling those same politicians’ campaign coffers. Their claim to be immune from such financial influence indicates a state of human nature unknown to the rest of us.
No such contributions, so far as we know, have come from anyone associated with the Stratos Project. They are from lobbyists, developers and construction firms related to operations including resort projects that supposedly reserve affordable lodgings for members and veterans of the armed forces. Hence the word “military” in the agency’s moniker and its alleged mission.
It still doesn’t pass the smell test.
The people of Utah, and their elected representatives, should take a hard look at MIDA and determine whether it really does any good for the state and its people — other than making it easier to lay concrete more quickly.
If it doesn’t, we should do away with it. Or at least see to it that none of its members are simultaneously holding out their hands for campaign donations.
Editorials represent the opinions of The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board, which operates independently from the newsroom.