Salt Lake County | featured news

The Mountain Accord — a group created to plan for land and population issues in the Wasatch Mountains — is a public body that is subject to open meetings laws, a judge ruled Monday.
Third District Judge Laura Scott refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed in January by a group of Big Cottonwood Canyon residents and landowners who say they were illegally barred from participation in the $8 million planning project that was finalized in 2015.

When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Miranda v.

Before Micah Vorwaller headed to a meeting Monday on the state’s Medicaid expansion proposal, he picked up a woman who couldn’t get there without him.
She wanted to share her thoughts on the plan, which would extend health coverage to about 6,000 of the state’s most needy childless adults — those who are chronically homeless or in need of mental health or drug addiction treatment.

When Provo Mayor John Curtis discovered that his city came in second in a nationwide ranking of the best-run municipalities, he had just one word in response.
“Darn!”
Though Curtis has joined the race for Rep. Jason Chaffetz’s now-empty congressional seat — and looks to have a fair shot at winning — his first concern while he finishes his eighth year as mayor is still Provo’s success.
“We should be No. 1,” he said with a laugh.

A federal judge has agreed to a short continuance of the criminal trial of former Utah County real estate guru Rick Koerber, who is accused of running a $100 million Ponzi scheme.
U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby set a trial date of Aug. 21 for Koerber on 18 charges of securities and wire fraud, money laundering and tax evasion. That’s a two-week postponement, not the 90 days that Koerber’s attorney, Rebecca Skordas, had sought.

Granite High School, which has been a Salt Lake City landmark since 1907, will be gone by the end of August — and construction will begin before then on 76 single-family homes that will take the place of what was once the school’s baseball diamond.
Historic memorabilia was removed prior to the start of the $2.5 million demolition project at the end of June, said Ben Horsley, a spokesman for Granite School District.

A wrong-way driver was sentenced to prison Monday for up to 10 years for killing another driver last year on Interstate 80 in Summit County.
Stuart Riley Miller, 32, of Kamas, was charged in 3rd District Court with second-degree felony automobile homicide and class C misdemeanor drinking alcohol in a vehicle in connection with the March 28, 2016, death of 39-year-old Amanda Kae Streit, of Park City.
In May, Miller pleaded guilty to a lesser third-degree felony count of auto homicide and an amend...

Lyle Jeffs, the former bishop of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints who was apprehended after almost a year on the run, pleaded not guilty Monday in federal court to the latest indictment against him.
U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Brooke Wells ordered Jeffs, 57, to remain in jail pending trial.
Wells scheduled that trial for Sept. 18, though Jeffs’ lawyer, Kathryn Nester, said she would ask for more time to prepare.

Cafe Guanaco Mix in South Salt Lake has been shut down for the second time in two years for “presenting an imminent health hazard” to the public.
According to a notice on the Salt Lake County Health Department website, inspectors found flies, ants, mouse droppings and a sewer vent problems causing “excess odor,” in the building at 499 E. 2700 South.
The restaurant, which serves Salvadoran and Oaxacan food, also was cited for operating “two different food operations” in the same kitchen without a...

Jim Webster was enjoying an early evening walk in his neighborhood near the University of Utah recently when he came across at least 40 buses, he says, idling their diesel engines in a parking lot next to Guardsman Way.
That bothered him, but the frustration turned to anger when he returned to the area about two hours later, and they still were idling in the lot.
The buses were part of a contingent of up to 130 transport vehicles that brought patrons of a multilevel-marketing convention to Rice-...

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