Happy Friday from #OneUtah, a weekly update from the office of Gov. Spencer J. Cox. Reply to this email with any questions or suggestions regarding the newsletter. And thank you for subscribing!

Serving with Team Utah 

Why serve? Serving helps us build connections, give back to our communities and improve our mental health.

This week, our cabinet and senior staff partnered with the Granite School District & Granite Education Foundation to assemble food kits and school supplies for students in need. We also announced two new executive orders to encourage service throughout the state: 

• Executive Order 2023-08 encourages each state agency to organize a department-wide service project sometime over the next year and give employees two hours of administrative leave to participate.  

• Executive Order 2023-09 adds a community service component to businesses seeking economic development incentives from the state. The Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity will now require businesses that receive any kind of economic development support to provide at least 20 service hours per newly created high paying job per year for the duration of the incentive. 

We also announced a public symposium on service in January and a new pilot program for service in our high schools. More to come!

Utah leads the nation in volunteerism every year and we want to keep it that way! Thanks to Savage President & CEO Kirk Aubry who shared how his company incorporates volunteering into their corporate culture – a great role model for businesses. We’re always grateful for the opportunity to serve alongside Team Utah!

Bringing the Olympics back to Utah

This week we joined local and state leaders to reaffirm our commitment to bringing the Winter Olympic and Paralympic games back to Salt Lake City. We saw the way the 2002 Olympics unified our state to be a great unifier, which is why another bid has 100% support across all levels of government. 

We’ve got the infrastructure, the facilities, an enthusiastic volunteer base, and, the greatest snow on earth! Looking forward to continuing our efforts to once again host the Olympic games in the great state of Utah!

A new ballpark for the Bees

The Salt Lake Bees are officially moving to Daybreak! We joined community leaders at the groundbreaking of the new ballpark and the announcement of a new megaplex this week. This new stadium and community vision shows how Utah’s strong players can come together to plan and execute a once-in-a-generation opportunity for our posterity. We often thank the pioneers who settled in the Salt Lake Valley and how they laid our city streets and built our irrigation systems – but with the growth we’re seeing in Daybreak, soon we will be grateful for the way we’re building strong, master-planned communities, like downtown Daybreak. 

The Beehive state excels at working together, so let’s keep it up!

Monthly News Conference

We joined PBS Utah this week for our Monthly News Conference. Here are some highlights:

Q: What specific policies have you enacted in your time as governor that will make Utah a more livable state in the next 10 years?  

A: U.S. News and World Report named Utah the best state in the nation to live this past year, looking at 70 different rankings, ranking all 50 states, and those 70 different categories, adding them all together, and Utah came out the best place in the nation to live. I believe that’s going to continue. The opportunities are there. Economically, I think that is important. The ability to get a job in Utah is going to be critical and the economy is growing much faster than the national average. We have thousands of unfilled jobs right now and so many amazing opportunities for the rising generation. When it comes to cleaning our environment, our air quality, and water sustainability, we have just made a record investment to make sure that there is water ten years from now, that the Great Salt Lake hasn’t dried up ten years from now, and that our air cleaner ten years from now then it has ever been. We are headed in a very positive direction and I think that matters. 

There is one I am worried about, though, which is the price of housing. You will hear me be very passionate about this and just this past week, with the Utah Economic Opportunity Commission, I was very blunt in my assessment with our local leaders, with our local mayors, our county commissioners, and our local city councilors, that every single city in this state has to be part of this solution. They have to figure out a way to increase supply. We are looking at additional funding streams to help cities get infrastructure to places where people can build and have some density in the right areas. That is the only way that our kids and grandkids are going to be able to live here. We need everyone involved in this solution. We will make sure that it is a sustainable place to live, but we do need some help when it comes to building more supply of housing. 

Q: The Utah Social Media Regulation Act (SMRA) was passed by the Legislature to put additional restrictions where social media companies have to verify children and have to allow parents access to their children’s accounts for those who are under 18 years old. How would you respond to those who would say that it is a restriction on the liberty of businesses, on how they conduct businesses, on social media companies having to retool their sites specifically for the state of Utah, and also on parents parenting their children?

A:  The SMRA was passed by the Legislature and signed into effect by me. It won’t take effect until March of 2024. It requires age verification for social media accounts, then requires these companies remove some of the most addictive features and harmful features that research and data is showing is literally killing our kids. The significant anxiety, depression, and self-harm we are seeing is a direct result of kids who are spending more time on social media and the dangerous content and addictive features that are on social media. There is no other industry in the world where we allow companies to contract with minors to harvest their data. You can’t contract with minors, but for some reason, we have allowed this to happen with social media. We are not taking the place of parents at all; in fact, we are empowering parents. To give parents the ability to monitor what is happening with their kids, to monitor what these companies are doing to our kids, and the content that they are providing. 

There are a bunch of different ways that they can do age verification and the fact that it is just Utah will be changing very  soon. This is the most bipartisan issue that I have worked on in a long time. When President Biden came here to the state of Utah, the first thing he wanted to do was talk to me about the bills we were able to get done because he wants these done in Congress as well. I have had calls from members from Congress both in the House and Senate, both Republicans and Democrats, who are very interested in what we are doing and want to do something similarly. This is not something new, it is not that burdensome, and we are going to keep pushing forward.

A day in the Basin

Lt. Gov. Henderson spent a day in Uintah County this week, meeting with legislators, county commissioners, the county clerk, and Ute tribal leaders. Ever trying to live up to the mantra of “you can’t govern from Capitol Hill”, she always appreciates the opportunity to see local leaders in action and working together to solve problems.

Thanks, LG!

Spooky Season in Utah

Halloween is just around the corner and northeastern Utah has some spots where the past, present, and imagination intertwine. This region of Utah is home to Skinwalker Ranch, Nine Mile Canyon, ghost towns, and so much more that will put you in the Halloween spirit.

Skinwalker Ranch, also known as Sherman Ranch, is just right outside of Ballard, Utah, just bordering Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation. For decades, reports have come that there are strange lights passing the sky of Skinwalker Ranch with sightings of cattle mutilations, UFOs, and other unexplainable phenomena. The best way to view it all is by camping or taking an ATV tour on the mesa behind it at UFO Valley ATV Campground.

For those wanting to focus on more of the prehistoric side of Utah, you can visit the Dinosaur National Monument and learn more about the dinosaurs that roamed around those regions thousands of years ago. 

For those who are wanting to go on a ghost chase, visit the quaint town of Helper, Utah, a railroad and mining town that feels like you stepped back in time to circa 1881. West of Helper, up Spring Canyon, are little mining towns, turned ghost towns where there are legends of the White Lady, an ethereal woman who was said to haunt the entrances of mines.

What better way to get into the Halloween spirit than visiting these Northeastern Utah towns and learn more about their spooky stories.

Learn more about these towns and their attractions here.

ICYMI

• We were honored to attend the Department of Public Safety Awards Banquet this week. DPS employees do excellent work in the law enforcement community and we are grateful for their commitment to keeping Utah safe!

• Results from the ‘Guiding Our Growth’ survey are in! More than 28,000 Utahns responded and this data will give policymakers the information they need to make solid decisions to shape the future of our communities. For more information on the results, click here. 

• In other Utah sports news, leading ski lift manufacturer Lietner-Poma broke ground on their new facilities in Tooele. Lieutenant Governor Henderson joined them for the occasion to express the state’s excitement of their investment in our vibrant winter sports economy.

• October is national Blindness Awareness month, and we’re proud to recognize the good work being done by the Utah State Library Division serving blind and visually disabled people in western states. Learn more here.

   

Coming up

Get involved!

Looking for a new job opportunity? From great employee benefits to versatile work schedules, the career opportunities with the state are truly endless. Join Team Utah today! 

Those looking to volunteer can also consider more than 300 boards and commissions. Find out which openings are available and how you can get involved here!

Get in touch!