Month: February 2025

On July 12, 2024, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took the stage at the National Governor’s Association conference in Salt Lake City to thank the Beehive State for helping his home on the opposite side of the globe.

“So many people and countries have united to help us save our freedom, and thus the common human understanding that evil must always, always lose,” he said, in gratitude to those who had given food, shelter, money and other resources in the face of war in Ukraine.

While clocking in at only 10 minutes, Zelenskyy’s speech elicited multiple standing ovations from a dozen U.S. governors and a crowded ballroom of hundreds of Utah legislators, state business executives and policymakers.

The visit, made possible by an invitation from Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, was Zelenskyy’s first to the U.S. outside of Washington, D.C., New York or California. A year earlier, Utah Senate President Stuart Adams led the first state trade and humanitarian delegation to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv since Russia’s invasion in 2022.

The culmination of the weeklong trip included an 80-minute discussion with Zelenskyy and members of his leadership team. The meeting focused on how to encourage support for Ukraine during the war and to provide opportunity for both Ukrainians and Utahns following the war to build a prosperous future.

On Wednesday, those same Utah leaders found themselves struggling to communicate their views on Ukraine while avoiding criticism of their party’s standard bearer who alleged on social media that Zelenskyy was a “dictator” who had swindled American aid and prolonged Ukraine’s war with Russia.

Cox, Adams call for peace in Ukraine

In their careful responses, Cox, Adams and other Utah leaders reaffirmed Utah’s support for Ukraine as well as their desire for Trump to help the conflict come to an end.

“We are grateful for the overwhelming support Utahns have shown for Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression and pray for the President’s efforts to negotiate a lasting peace,” Cox told the Deseret News in a statement Wednesday.

During Zelenskyy’s visit to Salt Lake City last year, Cox praised the leader and his wife, Olena Zelenska, both of whom he said he spent time with during their stay in the state. Cox said they are good people thrown into an impossible task and noted that lesser people would have fled Ukraine in the face of such conflict.

“This man and this woman did not do that,” Cox said. “They stood up to evil and their country rallied around them.”

Immediately following Zelenskyy’s speech, Cox signed a sister-state agreement between Utah and Kyiv Oblast with the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova. The eight-page memorandum of understanding recognized the economic relationship between the Kyiv area and Utah, building on connections made during Adam’s trip to Ukraine, accompanied and organized by World Trade Center Utah officials in 2023.

Joined by state Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, Utah Department of Agriculture and Food Commissioner Craig Buttars and two dozen business leaders, Adams met with 10 Ukrainian ministers or their deputies during his visit to promote Utah’s unique ability to build businesses, provide humanitarian aid and help Ukraine win the war.

“I hope the war ends,” Adams said Wednesday, when asked about Trump’s comments from earlier that day. “So I’m very glad that somebody is willing to engage and try to bring an end to the war. I believe President Zelenskyy has been a great leader for Ukraine. He’s led his country through a very difficult period of time.”

Adams said the people of Ukraine have “amazed” the world with the defense of their country against Putin. Teuscher, whose wife is Ukrainian, told the Deseret News a peace deal should ensure the continued existence of Ukraine.

“I hope that cooler heads prevail and that we can find a scenario where the war ends but Ukraine is able to maintain its sovereignty,” Teuscher said Wednesday in a statement.

What have Utahns done to support Ukraine?

Since Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, residents of few states have done as much as Utahns to support the eastern European country economically, according to Jonathan Freedman, the honorary consul of Ukraine in Utah.

In addition to joining the state-led delegation in 2023, Utah business leaders over the past few years have hosted former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, supported humanitarian efforts from groups like To Ukraine With Love and August Mission, and welcomed 18 Ukrainian tech companies to the Silicon Slopes Summit.

The state’s business community also saw the tremendous contribution from Dell Loy Hansen, philanthropist and founder of the Wasatch Group, in the construction of whole communities to support Ukrainians who lost their homes.

Freedman, who since the 2023 trade mission has taken over as CEO of World Trade Center Utah, said that Ambassador Markarova regularly tells representatives from other states that Utah is “leading the way in engagement with Ukraine.”

“I think that Utah Business Engagement with Ukraine will continue, regardless of what is being heard out of Washington,” Freedman told the Deseret News on Wednesday. “When the world flees a problem area, Utah, historically, has demonstrated that we will show up and engage.”

While private sector support remains strong, according to Freedman, recent turns in the political environment have put public aid in question.

How much has the U.S. spent on Ukraine?

Since the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War, the United States has allocated roughly $183 billion to support Ukraine, the Special Inspector General for Operation Atlantic Resolve found.

Of this total, around $70 billion has gone toward military aid, $33 billion has been used to prop up the country’s government budget and $3 billion has been used for humanitarian purposes, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

On Wednesday, Trump put these figures much higher, totaling $350 billion, and said that Zelenskyy had “talked the United States of America into” funding a war “that couldn’t be won.”

Utah Sen. Mike Lee, who has previously spoken out against wasteful funding toward Ukraine, did not immediately respond to a request for comment by the Deseret News regarding Trump’s comments. However, the Utah senator posted on X hours after the statement to say: “Not another dime for Ukraine.”

In a statement released Wednesday, Utah Sen. John Curtis did not question Trump’s “negotiating tactics” but expressed concern about a potential deal that would encourage Russia to stir additional chaos.

“President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people have stood admirably against an unprovoked invasion. I want an end to this war just as much as President Trump does, but it must end on terms that bring lasting stability and peace,” Curtis said. “That means ensuring Vladimir Putin does not walk away with a victory.”

A Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll in 2023 found that Utahns’ interest in the Russia-Ukraine war had already begun to wane compared to the year before.

The survey found 61% of respondents are very closely or somewhat closely following the war, down considerably from the 85% a month after Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine in February 2022.

At the onset of the war, an estimated 2,000 people gathered on the south steps of the state capitol building in solidarity with Ukraine. They were accompanied by state leaders including Cox, Adams, former House Speaker Brad Wilson and Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall.

State officials bathed the capitol building in blue and yellow light and raised the Ukrainian flag, the first time a foreign flag was over the statehouse. Russia’s invasion also rekindled the relationship of Salt Lake City with its longtime sister city of Chernivtsi, resulting in video updates from the city mayor.

Astronomers have uncovered a treasure trove of feeding black holes at the heart of dwarf galaxies — small, faint galaxies containing thousands to several billions of stars but very little gas. The discovery, made with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), contains several “missing link” intermediate-mass black holes.

This is both the largest sample of dwarf galaxies with active black holes ever seen and the largest haul of elusive intermediate-mass black holes ever collected. The data could help scientists better understand the dynamics between the evolution of dwarf galaxies and the growth of black holes while building an evolutionary model of the universe’s earliest black holes.

However, there is still a mystery associated with this sample: The team behind this discovery was surprised that their data didn’t contain more of these mid-sized black holes.

“When a black hole at the center of a galaxy starts feeding, it unleashes a tremendous amount of energy into its surroundings, transforming into what we call an active galactic nucleus,” team leader and University of Utah researcher Ragadeepika Pucha said in a statement. “This dramatic activity serves as a beacon, allowing us to identify hidden black holes in these small galaxies.”

Some mid-sized black holes are big eaters

Logan • A northern Utah nonprofit that distributed 1.6 million diapers to families last year is running out of space.

As need for the nappies and other necessities swells, Logan’s Little Lambs Foundation for Kids is unable to accept large donations in its cramped 2,000-square-foot facility, potentially leaving some Utahns without essential hygiene supplies.

“We had to turn down an entire semi,” saidfoundation Executive Director Ted Chalfant, “and that was about a quarter of a million in donations that we weren’t able to accept.”

Chalfant hopes state funding can help his nonprofit create some room to grow while rising costs continue to fuel demand.

When he started Little Lambs out of his Logan basement in 2014, Chalfant had no idea how much of a need there would be in Cache County for his organization, which, at first, provided hygiene kits to kids transitioning into foster care.

Even more surprising to him is how much the nonprofit has grown — from getting its own building, to becoming one of the only diaper banks in the state, to providing essentials such as feminine hygiene products, wipes and formula to more than 70,000 low-income families throughout Utah in 2024, Chalfant said.

The need, Chalfant said, rises drastically each year. In the organization’s first year, about 750 children were served.

“Diaper insecurity, it’s not an inconvenience; it’s a public health crisis,” he said. “Families should be able to have enough diapers so that they don’t have to choose, ‘Is it diapers or dinner today?’ Every child deserves dignity, respect and love, and they also need to feel secure.”

Chalfant, who grew up in a family that cared for foster children, started the foundation after seeing child after child arrive with only the clothes on their backs, and sometimes, their belongings in a trash bag or paper sack. What began as a program to provide essentials to help kids settle into new homes grew into a statewide distribution center for Division of Child and Family Services offices throughout the state.

Because of this, Chalfant has requested $3.1 million in state funding from the Utah Legislature to help build a 16,000-square-foot community resource center in Logan. The new center would not only support these services in Utah, he said, but also create space for additional programs, including a teen resource center to assist teen mothers with care for their children.

“Populations throughout the state are struggling,” he said. “It is our number one goal to make everyone be able to have access to basic essentials.”

Former Logan Republican Rep. Dan Johnson said he supports granting these funds, adding that he saw the demand for Little Lambs’ services grow significantly during his time in the House of Representatives. Lawmakers, he said, should focus on helping those in need.

“Sometimes, if you could just give a person a leg up,” Johnson said, “if you could just help them with some very basic needs, it’s such a difference-maker in their lives.”

Nibley resident Marilyn Wilson has been volunteering with Little Lambs for nearly a decade, helping create hygiene kits, delivering feminine products to girls at school and making clothing for families in need.

Wilson, who has seen the number of people turning to Little Lambs grow significantly over the years, said there is not enough space for volunteers — who provide nearly all the services — to work efficiently.

She said a new building is crucial for continuing these services. She has seen firsthand people facing illness or other difficult circumstances that lead them to ask for help.

“We give hope to families,” Wilson said. “That’s the biggest thing. We try to break the cycle of poverty. It takes a village.”

Bolstered by Mormon voters’ distaste for MAGA politics, the center-right is trying to reassert itself in a ruby-red state.

A Utah lawmaker removed a controversial piece of his legislation that critics say would gut the state’s public records law but left in an equally controversial part that would eliminate a volunteer committee that decides disputes about access to government information.

Senate Majority Whip Mike McKell made the changes just prior to a hearing Tuesday on SB277 before the Senate Government Operations and Political Subdivisions Committee.

McKell, R-Spanish Fork, told reporters before the meeting that he wants to focus on the process used to seek records under the state’s Government Records Access and Management Act or GRAMA, which he described as “broken.”

During the packed meeting, residents panned the legislation, urging the committee to not approve a bill few have had a chance to read and that would hinder transparency and give too much power to one person to decide whether government records are private or public.

Still, the revised bill passed out of committee 6-2, though some senators voiced reservations. It now goes to the full House for consideration.

Why eliminate State Records Committee?

SB277 would replace the State Records Committee — a seven-member panel appointed by the governor — with a Government Records Office. The governor would appoint the office’s director, who must be an attorney, to a four-year term with Senate approval. The director would oversee an ombudsman who would handle records disputes. The two positions would cost the state an estimated $447,900 a year.

“I think the current records committee process is flawed, and the bill that will continue to move forward with a focus on process,” McKell said. “It’s too slow, it’s too inconsistent and we just need to do better.”

State and legislative audits found few cases in the past few years were resolved within the 73 days the law requires and last year the average time was 156 days, he said.

“The goal of this legislation is to make sure we have the ability to be efficient and responsive to these record requests. We have missed the mark today and we have to improve and do better,” McKell said.

Passing the bill, he said, would reduce delays and increase confidence in government transparency.

GRAMA more beloved than Jerry Sloan?

The Utah Media Coalition, a consortium of news outlets that works to keep government records open, says the State Records Committee has served the state well, noting the courts have affirmed the panel’s decisions 98% of the time.

“GRAMA’s a marvel. This room is full because people love GRAMA. If you polled the public about GRAMA, it would poll higher than ice cream, it would poll higher than (the late Utah Jazz coach) Jerry Sloan, it would poll higher than Zion National Park,” Mike Judd, a lawyer representing the media coalition, told the committee.

Judd said the records committee gets things right and disagrees that a lawyer would make things better. “This is a citizen-led process,” he said.

Utahns of various political persuasions lined up at the hearing to express opposition to the bill and ask lawmakers to keep the records panel intact.

Some suggested that if McKell is concerned about a lack of law training on the committee, that one member be a lawyer. Others said the state should spend the annual cost for the two new jobs to provide training for committee members and county clerks who are often tasked with responding to records requests.

They also lamented the possible loss of the committee’s independence in favor of one person beholden to the governor. The bill allows the governor to fire the director “with or without cause.”

‘Last bastion’ of transparency

Veteran journalist and former State Records Committee member Tom Haraldsen said decisions are better when a group of people share their thoughts. He said the Legislature not filling vacancies on the panel last year contributed to the backlog of cases.

“I think that the SRC is the last bastion of transparency in this state. It gives an opportunity for every citizen who has a complaint to be heard, to be seen, to voice their concerns, not just simply file paperwork that one person looks at and decides if it’s true or valid,” he said.

Sen. Daniel Thatcher, R-West Valley City, was one of two senators to vote against the measure. He said he agreed that the records committee could benefit from legal advice but that that could be accomplished with a staff position.

He said there is a significant benefit to having diverse backgrounds of opinion on a volunteer committee rather than a person’s whose “at-will employment is contingent upon keeping somebody happy that may or may not be happy with certain rulings.”

Thatcher also said there’s a lot of things right in the bill “but there’s just one thing just I can’t get past. … The public does not feel heard and it’s something that we are seeing more and more and hearing more and more. If we listen, what we’re hearing is they are concerned about power grabs, they’re concerned about not being included in the process. They’re concerned about bills not having enough time or enough input, and I agree with them.”

Speaking in favor of the bill

The Utah League of Cities and Towns and the Utah System of Higher Education support the bill.

“Of course there’s going to be disputes about whether we classify records correctly,” Geoff Landward, state commissioner of higher education, told the Senate committee. “We think that the question of whether a record is classified correctly is a legal question that requires legal analysis and a determination that’s properly handled by legal professionals.”

He said that would bring great clarity, consistency and predictability government agencies are seeking in the GRAMA process.

Public interest balance test remains

Before Tuesday’s hearing, McKell pulled one of the most controversial provisions from the bill. His initial version would have removed a longstanding part of the law known as the “balancing test” used to determine whether public interest warrants releasing records that would otherwise be classified as protected or private.

The balancing test — in the law since it took effect in 1992 — is the “beating heart” of GRAMA, according to the Utah Media Coalition. Without it, government could withhold records even if the public interest in disclosure was compelling and the interests favoring secrecy were nonexistent or minimal.

Senate leaders said another lawmaker intends to address the test in separate legislation, though it would likely be limited to records regarding workforce harassment.

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March 10, 2011, was like no other final day of the Utah Legislature’s annual session. Hundreds of Utahns streamed into the Capitol in the waning hours before adjournment singing, chanting and banging drums as they marched in protest around the rotunda. Liberals, conservatives and everyone in between united in outrage over an 11th-hour bill on the fast-track to pass before the clock struck midnight.

No negotiation, no amendments, no debate.

What was this legislation that struck a nerve so deep that it brought people of all political stripes together?

Lawmakers’ attempt to gut Utah’s premier sunshine law — the Government Records Access and Management Act, or GRAMA.

Passed in 1991, the law provides the public with the right to access information maintained by governmental entities in Utah while also setting forth guidelines for managing and restricting access to certain sensitive or private information.

“You’re dredging up an old, bad memory,” said former Gov. Gary Herbert, who was in office and signed the infamous HB477 that riled the state.

“How it was handled was probably one of the biggest errors the Legislature made and my mistake was trying to help them out of that mess that they created for themselves.”

Fourteen years ago, the Republican-dominated Legislature wanted to eclipse the sunshine law.

Legislative leaders had decided “to send a message to the press, wall off their own potentially embarrassing emails and text messages and roll back public access. … Drafted in secret with zero public input, the bill was released, passed in both the House and Senate and signed by the governor — all in less than 72 hours,” as longtime Salt Lake City media attorney Jeffrey Hunt wrote in a 2021 column published by the Deseret News.

But lawmakers underestimated the backlash, not just from the media, but from the public, who make the vast majority of the requests for information under GRAMA. Utahns care deeply about keeping government open, transparent and accountable to the people it serves. Citing a “loss of public confidence,” Herbert called lawmakers into special session just two weeks later to repeal HB477.

“I don’t think there’s any question, never should have been any question before or since, that people want to have access, have openness and transparency to what their elected officials are doing,” the former governor said in a recent interview.

Besides offering access to a host of public records, GRAMA created an appeals process for when a government agency denies a request. The State Records Committee — a seven-member panel comprised of the director of the Division of Archives and Records Services, a Utah League of Cities and Towns representative, two citizens, a media representative, a private sector records manager and an electronic records and databases expert — settles the dispute. If the parties don’t like the committee’s decision, they can take the case to state court.

Lawmakers target GRAMA again

State lawmakers are this year once again targeting what some observers have deemed a model for open records laws.

At least two bills under consideration in the current legislative session — SB277 and HB69 —could affect public access to information under GRAMA.

Senate Majority Assistant Whip Mike McKell’s SB277 would do away with the “balancing test” used to determine whether public interest warrants releasing records that would otherwise be classified as protected or private. The Spanish Fork Republican told reporters that there are some records that need to be protected and “we’ve missed the mark on that in many cases.”

The public interest balancing test — in the law since it was enacted — is the “beating heart” of GRAMA, according to the Utah Media Coalition, a consortium of news outlets that works to keep government records open. Without it, government could withhold records even if the public interest in disclosure was compelling and the interests favoring secrecy were nonexistent or minimal.

SB277 would also replace the State Records Committee with an attorney who has “knowledge and experience relating to government records” and is appointed by the governor and approved by lawmakers. The person’s title would be records office director. The bill notes the governor can remove that person “with or without cause.”

McKell rejected the idea that the seven-member panel brings diverse perspectives to records disputes. He said following the law is the priority and having somebody with legal training “just it feels like a better process to me.” An attorney, he said, would be bound by ethical rules and the Utah State Bar.

“I want the law followed. When you look at the seven members today, that just leads to subjectivity,” McKell said. “I want some consistency.”

Courts have affirmed the records committee’s decisions 98% of the time, so law-trained judges think the panel is getting it right, according to the Utah Media Coalition.

Joel Campbell, an associate teaching professor at the Brigham Young University School of Communications and an expert on sunshine laws, said the records committee has especially benefited ordinary people who can’t afford to go to court to wage a legal challenge to denial of access to records.

For instance, students at Weber State University had questions about the school’s student body election some years ago but their records request was denied. The committee allowed them access to information that forced an election do-over.

Under the proposed SB277, the records office director would have total discretion to reject holding an appeals hearing where someone could speak to a request, relying instead solely on paperwork submitted with the request for an appeal.

The bill also lets a court order confidential treatment for a record that isn’t covered by a GRAMA exception if the judge believes there is a compelling reason. The judge would not be allowed to consider whether there’s a compelling public reason to disclose the record or try to weigh the for-disclosure, against-disclosure interests even if the record has never been classified as not public.

SB277 will be discussed Tuesday at 4 p.m. by the Senate Government Operations and Political Subdivisions Committee at the Capitol.

First Amendment attorney David Reymann called McKell’s proposal “as bad as I’ve seen in over a decade. And the attitude towards the public and the public’s right to know and the public’s ability to hold the Legislature accountable for what it is that they do is the most cavalier that I’ve seen,” per KSL-TV.

Hunt said the bill is a solution in search of a problem, “unless you think the problem is open and transparent government.” Utahns have a right to know how their elected officials and government entities are conducting the public’s business,” he said.

“This bill seriously undermines that right by abolishing the State Records Committee and prohibiting release of records even if a court determines there is no good reason to keep them secret,” he said.

The Utah Media Coalition issued a statement over the weekend noting that the State Records Committee has served the public well. The group said that the public interest balancing test protects the public’s right to know. “Public transparency laws should serve the public interest, not discard it in favor of categorical secrecy, which is what SB277 does,” per the statement.

The group noted a number of cases where the public interest balancing test led courts to order release of records. They include the names of lobbyists and subcontractors who received more than $5 million in taxpayer money, records in a criminal investigation of campaign finance violations, public corruption charges against an elected official, a lethality assessment protocol record, sexual harassment allegations in a government office and records related to officer-involved shootings.

Another bill, HB69, sponsored by Sen. Calvin Musselman, R-West Haven, could also affect the public’s access to government records. Among provisions, it prevents someone who successfully gets access to records on appeal from recovering what it cost them to make that appeal, unless the government showed bad faith. That means they could incur an expense opposing the government even if it’s decided they should have been given access in the first place.

When GRAMA took effect in 1992, it was lauded for achieving balance between transparency and the need to keep some records confidential, such as those involving trade secrets or the identity of confidential informants. In 2005, a joint study by the Better Government Association and Investigative Reporters and Editors ranked Utah No. 3 in the U.S. for its records-access law.

Not all of the bills being proposed were criticized by the media coalition.

Sen. Wayne Harper, R-Taylorsville, has introduced legislation, SB163, that requires government entities to annually review their records retention policies and make sure they’re complying with the law. It contains penalties for those that don’t.

Harper told the Deseret News he wants to clarify the process and make sure it’s cleaner, more precise and more understandable.

“I’m trying to make sure that things are open and accessible,” he said, adding his proposed legislation makes the process “more transparent and more responsible.”

Hunt called the annual review provision good public policy. The coalition supports the bill in its current form.

Changing the law midstream

The State Records Committee has overturned some government agency’s denials of records requests, which has riled legislators. It’s not unusual for legislators to make changes to GRAMA when they disagree with a records committee decision or when a government agency doesn’t want to share requested records. It happened at least twice last year.

The Deseret News sought college athletes’ name, image and likeness agreements between athletes and third parties submitted for review to public universities in the state, largely as a check against undue influence and in protection of Title IX and women’s sports. The schools denied the request and the case made its way to the records committee. That panel unanimously ruled in the newspaper’s favor and ordered the schools to release the records. The universities appealed to state court.

In the meantime, the Legislature passed a law making NIL deals private and made the law retroactive, voiding the records committee’s order that the schools divulge the records. That took the appeal out of the court’s purview, as well, and slammed the door on challenging the denial.

Interestingly, a bill this year would make direct NIL payments from universities to athletes public records subject to GRAMA. HB449 would treat direct payments differently because the contract doesn’t involve a third party such as a business that compensates an athlete for NIL.

So legislative proposals can go both ways, though most often the attempt is to decrease rather than increase access.

In another instance, KSL-TV was in a prolonged legal fight with former Attorney General Sean Reyes over his work calendar. While a judge ruled in the station’s favor, lawmakers passed a bill concealing all elected officials’ schedules going forward.

“We work with legislators and leaders in the Senate and House to establish fair procedures for public access that results in good law and transparency. GRAMA and the records committee are good results of that work,” said Doug Wilks, Deseret News executive editor. “But there’s no other way to say it: Lawmakers who disagreed with the decisions of the records committee and didn’t want to leave it up to the courts said, ‘Let’s just change the law.‘”

Hunt fears transparency and open access to records in Utah is dying from a long series of alterations that makes how government functions more opaque and dims the vitality of the sunshine law.

Slowly obscuring transparency

GRAMA was created by a committee that included members of the public, the legislature and other stakeholders, such as media representatives, local governments and nonprofits. It originally contained about 50 exceptions — categories of information that were not deemed publicly accessible because their release could cause tangible harm.

In the Open Government Guide, Hunt and other attorneys from Parr, Brown, Gee and Loveless note two constitutional rights that were recognized by the Legislature within the law: “the public’s right of access to information concerning the conduct of the public’s business and the right of privacy in relation to personal data gathered by governmental entities.” Lawmakers also recognized that the public’s interest is served by restricting access to some records.

But when “countervailing interests” are about equal, the law is supposed to lean toward making records available.

Former Utah legislator Curt Bramble served 24 years in the state Senate before retiring last year. Bramble told the Deseret News that earning Utah GRAMA Watch’s “Shining Light” Award in 2012 was among the highlights of his time as a state lawmaker.

That distinction came in the aftermath of HB477, thanks to a Bramble-sponsored bill from the 2012 legislative session, SB177, that made improvements to GRAMA. Changes included clarifying distinctions between the personal and public calendars of public officials and strengthening a test that gave more weight to the public-interest factor in open records decisions.

There are now more than 230 exceptions to GRAMA, created by amendments that add new categories to the information the public can no longer learn. That count only includes information set behind a wall of secrecy by the act itself. There are other rules that govern different types of information, like child welfare records or those pertaining to consumer complaints to the Division of Consumer Protection. At least 30 statutes have restricted access to information outside of GRAMA.

There’s a lot the public now has no right to know. Lawmakers keep adding items to the list.

Transparency is fading, Hunt told the Deseret News, the balance tipping to government secrecy.

“You just keep cutting and cutting and cutting, creating all these exceptions, and eventually the patient dies,” Hunt lamented, likening the situation to “death by a 1,000 cuts.”

Kate Lahey was one of the principal authors of the original GRAMA legislation and a private lawyer working on behalf of a consortium of media outlets when the bill was crafted.

The work group that collaborated on the law in the early ‘90s included a wide range of stakeholders representing both public and government interests, Lahey said. The panel’s task was to craft rules that guaranteed robust public records access while ensuring appropriate protections where they were necessary.

Lahey said a common dynamic in that work was for state agencies to bring records forward that they believed should be “locked down” in their entirety from public access. When the work group dug into the specifics of those concerns, Lahey said it was frequently determined that only an aspect of the document, like the name of an individual or company or a reference to some proprietary information, justified redaction and the majority of the record remained accessible for public review.

She said among the scores of exceptions that have been added since the passage of GRAMA, there are some that are “probably appropriate” but she believes many of the carve-outs represent a grievous erosion of the public’s right to access records that account for the work and conduct of public officials and agencies.

For example, state lawmakers have added additional exceptions under GRAMA restricting access to, among other things:

• Official calendars of public officials
• Garrity reports, which involve internal investigations after officer-involved shootings
• Initial police reports
• Police body camera footage, particularly in cases deemed sensitive or ongoing
• Correspondence and internal memos between government agencies about policy recommendations or the decision-making process
• Information regarding “at risk government employees.”

“I’m really concerned about the constant efforts to restrict access,” Lahey told the Deseret News. “There seems to be a deep opposition on the part of legislators that the public really shouldn’t be putting its nose in that sort of business. And that’s dangerous. Government operates better with more public involvement … it’s not like we don’t have an investment in how things are run.”

The outcry from the public in 2011 — not just the media or organizations like Eagle Forum and the American Civil Liberties Union — was so ferocious that elected officials walked the action back almost immediately. Members of the public clearly felt protective of their right to know and to govern the governing bodies created to represent them. They expressed it loudly with public protests and complaints about the action.

Confidence in government

Records that are not deemed part of GRAMA don’t even have to be kept, Hunt said. If the rules were to change to favor transparency, they might not even be available.

Garrity reports — the internal investigations after an officer-involved shooting or other serious law enforcement event — are among records walled off from public access, a legislative move taken just two years ago. Before that, they were public, though they have never been admissible in court. That possibility was removed to encourage officers to be open and honest about the event being examined.

“That’s different than saying the public can’t find out about them,” Hunt said of making them inadmissible in court. He added that Garrity reports are designed to help law enforcement improve procedures and learn from interactions. “How is the public supposed to know whether they’re actually learning from these and putting new procedures in place if you don’t get those kinds of records?”

Although members of the public testified the Garrity process should be open, Hunt said the Legislature walled it off.

Along the way, access to body camera footage in some cases, notes or internal memos that are part of judicial (or quasi-judicial) deliberation and booking photos, among other things, have been removed from public view.

Some GRAMA-related changes may be prompted by a constituent request or complaint, as well. Harper told the Deseret News that SB163’s origin story began with a conversation with a constituent who was displeased with an experience in an open records appeal.

When the United Kingdom was considering its own freedom of information law, the biggest selling point was that it would improve both confidence in government and government systems, Campbell said. The U.K. pondered academic research showing freedom of information raises accountability and lowers corruption, improves the quality of decision-making and how the public understands it, and also increases public participation. It also, researchers noted, improves security.

“Transparency I think is good,” Campbell said. “We call them sunshine laws. We say sunshine and showing how things happen is good. I think it also makes sure there’s balance in government.”

But Campbell said the other freedom of information law, the Open Meetings Act, has also seen its list of exemptions grow. It started out with about nine, he said, and now there are at least 20.

In Utah, Campbell can think of only one time lawmakers expanded access to records or broadened what counts as public information. Usually, they narrow it down. The exception was when the Legislature decided information on the five finalists for any Utah university presidential search must be open. While critics of the move predicted candidates might drop out rather than have current employers know they’re considering a job change, it allows people to see how diverse the candidate pool is and what those making the decision seek. And Utah universities have never not hired a suitable candidate because the process was open.

Campbell remembers when young reporters on the “night police” beat regularly looked through police reports at the local police station to see what had happened that day in their communities. Access to information about arrests and crimes and related issues that the public unquestionably cares about was available.

“I’ve seen police reports kind of disappear,” Campbell said. “Instead, police departments may write their own summary, containing what they want to put in it. It’s like a press release,” he said. “It’s not the original police report. We can no longer get access to that.”

If someone does manage to get an initial report, it’s often heavily grayed out and it’s hard to tell what kind of information has been redacted or if the redaction is appropriate, he added.

He said access should be a concern for people who care about safety in their communities, among other reasons.

Raising the cost of open government

Government bodies also sometimes block records access simply by making it very expensive to obtain. GRAMA allows for reasonable charges to copy material and even for staff time, but reasonable seems subject to interpretation.

Campbell said he knows of cases where reporters were told the cost would be thousands of dollars. He cites a specific recent request where $7,300 was the announced charge. Most members of the public — who are again the most apt to make a public records request — can’t afford that. There are provisions for fee waivers and the State Records Committee can allow that, too. But the panel itself is under attack.

Sign of the times or of politics?

When asked about the increasingly long list of exceptions that have been passed by Utah lawmakers since 1992’s landmark GRAMA legislation, Bramble said he believes many changes have been attempts to keep up with innovations in technology.

“This is a statute that must remain current as technology, business models and processes change,” Bramble said. “Look at calendars as an example. When GRAMA was introduced, most of us were still using Franklin day planners. No one was anticipating body cameras, Ring doorbells or cellphone text messages.”

But Bramble also acknowledged that some of the backslide in records access and government transparency could be due to the “ebbs and flows of the political landscape.”

He said the current effort to remake the State Records Committee could be a response to some manner of perceived bias or tendency and that “sometimes perception becomes reality.”

“When there is a perception from various political factions, and this is true whether you’re a liberal or conservative, when there’s a perceived weaponization of government, a perceived slanting or tipping the scales based on particular membership or affiliation, you lose confidence in the system,” Bramble said.

Utah was at the forefront, protecting the public’s right to know from the moment GRAMA was enacted, said Katharine Biele, president of the League of Women Voters of Utah. From the beginning, however, tension has existed between public access and the right to privacy, she said.

Parent organization the U.S. League consistently supported open meetings and open records as a “hallmark of our democracy.” Biele shared the group’s position, adopted in 1988. It heralds the public’s right to know, understand and be part of decisions around health, the environment and education, among other issues.

While much of the statement focuses on environmental issues, it states that “public records should be readily accessible at all government levels.” And it adds, “Mechanisms for citizen appeal must be guaranteed, including access to the courts. Due process rights of the affected public and private parties must be assured.”

Rick Hall, whose career as a Utah journalist spanned four decades before his retirement as managing editor of the Deseret News, called the right to know when it comes to government records “part and parcel to our Republic,” adding that “if we’re not an informed people we are in trouble.”

Hall added that all the institutions, including those of the government and the media need to be accountable.

Bramble echoes that. The longtime senator said he believes transparency is a critical element of government operations and that with “freedoms and authority comes responsibility and accountability.”

“I think our system provides for enduring polices to begin with,” Bramble said. “We have these skirmishes, but long term, the system tends to survive and prevail. I think what we’re seeing now is a manifestation of a whole bunch of dynamics happening in the political landscape.”

All or nothing solution?

Lahey said she believes some of that all-or-nothing viewpoint has been in play when it comes to the creation of new GRAMA exceptions, an approach in which entire records or categories of records are deemed out of reach for public access, due to one objectionable item or subset of information.

“I think sometimes the Legislature does the same thing,” Lahey said. “It gets agitated about the release of some part of a record, or doesn’t like the fact that they are not winning with the records committee, and there’s a knee-jerk reaction to just shut things down.”

Lahey said the constituent response to 2011’s HB477, and what she’s heard from members of the public before and since that time, reflects an ongoing concern about government transparency issues and public records access and it’s one she believes transcends the lines of partisan politics.

“I think people do believe that access to public records is important and I also think trust in our Legislature has been greatly eroded, and appropriately so,” Lahey said. “It’s a bipartisan sentiment, as far as I can tell. Both Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, think they should have access to and be able see what the government is doing.

“And they don’t like it when things are concealed.”