Call me a cynic. Call me sarcastic. But this was just too good to pass up.
The morning of Aug. 12, St. George City Mayor Jon Pike posted this on Facebook: “Thanks to Dave DeMille and The Spectrum for the coverage of this exciting announcement by SkyWest!”
He linked the announcement by SkyWest of an additional flight added to their St. George schedule and presumably wanted to share the good news with everyone.
I pondered what I considered to be an obvious observation, took a sip of stout, black coffee, and replied in the comments of his post:
“Right on Dave! The mayor approves of your work. Just what every journalist should aspire to. Thanks for consensual journalism at its finest! Keep shooting high by aiming low brother.
BREAKING: The mayor is on the same board of trustees that tried to influence the county attorney to take a bogus case where a cop fabricated evidence after the fact and a public university continued in a documented pattern of civil rights violations. Then, the city he serves as mayor for took the case where a judge and an attorney from the Utah Attorney Generals Office conspired to suppress evidence in the case. The defendant was found not guilty but the school where the mayor sits on said board of trustees continues to defame and damage the man and the mayor is curiously quiet about the whole matter.”
The occasional banter not withstanding, Jon and I have had a good rapport over the years. I have considered him a level head and a more than apropos changing of the guard in city leadership, but the facts I belabor in that makeshift breaking news clip … well, they beg for an answer, and he has not answered. What you do (or do not do), Mayor Pike, screams so loudly in our ears that we cannot hear a word you say. What you do not say however, screams even louder.
Maybe I should give him a call?
The silence in these matters on behalf of the leaders in this community is not only deafening; it is in fact indicative of something perhaps sinister and ugly. It infers at the least a capitulation of sorts. Surely they know this.
But I digress.
Unless you have been watching television on your old thirteen-channel black-and-white and using a rotary telephone, you have probably heard by now that the conviction of Brendan Dassey was overturned by a federal court judge.
Dassey is the nephew of Steven Avery who was at first wrongfully convicted of a sexual assault crime. When a nonprofit organization — the Innocence Project — investigated, the conviction was subsequently overturned. While Avery was suing for damages, he was suspiciously charged with the murder of a female photographer, and his nephew was unconstitutionally interrogated by police and allegedly coerced into a confession. Dassey would go on to be sentenced to life in prison until the ruling that, unless the state opts to retry him, will set him free.
It was a documentary film called “Making a Murderer” that would compel the general public and attorneys to pressure the government to take action in this aberration of justice. If you have the time, it is well worth the watch to witness firsthand just how scary things can get when our executive and judicial branches cannot be trusted to abide the laws and protect the rights of all of our citizens.
It’s a theme that is all too familiar, it seems, and one that is especially poignant here locally given the recent outcome of the Varlo Davenport trial.
At the risk of some redundancy here — and if I could scream it loudly in your ears, I would — there is a corrupt system of justice here in Washington County.
A cop named Don Reid is illegally carrying out the hostile personal agendas of the administrators at Dixie State University, and a local city court is violating the constitutional rights of the accused from the bench. This cop actually perjured himself under oath in the Davenport trial and faced no consequences as of yet. The judge who conspired to suppress evidence is still trying cases, and the assistant attorney general who conspired with him has not been held to account on the matter. There is no accountability, and when they are defeated in court by an actual lawyer, one of their people — presumably a public relations person or an unlicensed attorney — publishes defamatory and libelous statements about anyone opposed to them.
These people represent what is most repugnant of all in the eyes of man and God, which is the refusal to repent. They will not admit to wrongdoing and furthermore commence in more wrongdoing to cover themselves up.
I will confidently represent to you here today that DSU has had several more instances of egregious policy and due-process violations in the handling of the removal of students and some faculty.
Furthermore, it is cavalier about it, because the Utah State Risk Management attorneys seem to be content in their job security as DSU racks up a hefty list of civil rights violations. I have spoken to two of them at great length, and they quite honestly are not the least bit concerned or aware for that matter of their sworn oath to either the constitution or the citizens of Utah. They work tirelessly to get the school off the hook for the lowest dollar amount possible and allow the institution to carry on business as usual.
An insurance company would cancel the policy of a driver with a high incidence of recurring accidents, but DSU has an unimpeachable policy, it seems.
But a curious thing happened at the Davenport trial. In spite of working rather effectively at stacking the cards in their nefarious favor, the school and the co-conspirators in the city and the court were defeated not only by the law but by an informed — and, shall we say, “sick and tired of your bullshit” — citizenry.
The jury that acquitted Davenport, in my estimation, was the voice of a people who have had enough of government overreach both federally and locally. Enough of heavy-handed administrators at DSU who seem less interested in university-level education than they do glorifying themselves and their legacies. Enough of the numerous questionable financial dealings of that school and certain local business and church leaders.
Dean Strang, an attorney who represented Avery, had this to say about the recent ruling in favor of Dassey: “Our federal courts are often the last protectors of our liberties and justice. We are thankful and proud that a federal court fulfilled its fundamental role for Brendan Dassey today. In doing so, this federal court served all Americans.”
Perhaps it is just time for the federal courts, preferably ones outside of Utah, to fulfill their fundamental role of cleaning this place up. Because our own courts sure don’t seem intent on doing it themselves.
Perhaps it is time to take these people from their fortified positions of “self-investigation” and favor dealing government employees who sit on boards of trustees with no question of the glaring conflict of interest and drag them into the open waters of real courts and the even more relentless court of public opinion.
My parting shot to you here this week comes in the form of an assurance. This is to say that in case you have a mind that I advocate the demise of DSU here, nothing could be further from the truth. I am a student there, go figure. The leadership there still has an opportunity to come to the table, own their mistakes, and do what real leaders do: compromise and make advocates of their adversaries.
The leadership still has the opportunity to sensibly and reasonably admit that they have gone about things the wrong way, make amends, and commit to being the shining beacon of universities in the country that takes the rights of all citizens with the gravest of seriousness.
Or they can stay the course — the collision course with the consequences of their actions, that is.
See you out there.
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Well, there’s always the possibility that Mayor Pike just wasn’t paying much attention to the news while the Davenport trial was going on. Clearly he was following other developing stories of far greater import: what’s happening at Skywest!!! Surely you can’t think that his silence on the Davenport case suggests his complicity in trying to get Davenport convicted of a crime. C’mon Mr. Hyland, Pike is a MORMON for crying out loud, and, by all accounts, a really good one. I hear he’s never even tried coffee (and certainly not the straight black variety). I hear the same’s true for Biff, by the way–only healthy, muscle-restoring pickle juice for him! I just thank God for leaders that don’t drink coffee and other drinks forbidden by the Lord. Why? Because that’s how I know they don’t do anything else wrong!