Sanpete County Republicans

SEMI-ANNUAL CENTRAL COMMITTEE MEETING SCHEDULED

09/01/2011 – Manti, UT:  The Sanpete County Republican Party semi-annual Central Committee meeting will be held Tuesday, September 13th at 7:00 p.m. at room 101 (Commission Chamber) at the  Sanpete County Courthouse, 160 N. Main, Manti, UT.  This will be the first Central Committee meeting held under the new Constitution and Bylaws adopted by the Party at last May’s Organizing Convention. 

Major topics the Committee will consider are redistricting, party incorporation, fundraising events and preparations for the upcoming 2012 general election cycle. 

The Central Committee consists of all precinct and area Chairs and Vice-Chairs, members of the Steering Committee (party general officers), County SCC Representative, and all Republicans elected to Countywide or Statewide political office.  As now constituted, that’s 73 Central Committee members in total.

“This is a very important meeting I hope all committee members will attend,” says Party Chairman, Steven Clark.”  Clark predicts that 2012 will be one of the most challenging and interesting political years for the party.  “It’s important that our party do all we can in the next six weeks to influence Utah House redistricting,” he says.  Clark stated that the party is going to need strong fundraising efforts to see that the party can give as much aid as possible to local candidates and support the events anticipated in statewide and federal races. 

Another priority Clark has stated is mounting a strong effort to register unaffiliated voters as Republicans.  “We have to convince these unaffiliated voters that remaining unaffiliated limits their ability to influence politics,” he said.  “As long as they remain unaffiliated they have no say in who the nominees are that they will be voting on.  Their only option is to vote for the candidates that affiliated voters nominate, a process in which they have no part as long as they remain unaffiliated.”

Although only committee members will be allowed to participate or vote at the meeting, the party welcomes attendence by members of the public.

SEN. LEE TOURS NARROWS, HOLDS FAIRVIEW TOWN HALL MEETING 

Aug. 30, 2011 – Fairview, UT:  County Commissioners and other public officials welcomed Sen. Mike Lee to the top of Fairview Canyon for a tour of the proposed Gooseberry Narrows dam site.  The tour was hosted by Sanpete County Commissioners Claudia Jarrett and Spencer Cox.  The visit to the county was the first for Lee since his 2010 election victory as well as his first look at Sanpete County’s most important water project.  Officials briefed Lee on the project history and it’s importance to the future economic viability of Sanpete County.

Later that evening Lee held a Town Hall meeting at the newly restored Fairview Dance Hall.  Approximately 100 citizens attended from all parts of the county.  In his opening remarks, Lee recited information about the recent debt limit debate and reiterated his insistence upon passage of a balanced budget amendment before he will support any future debt limit increases.

Questions from the audience included questions about how the new EPA rules will affect local coal mining.  Lee stated that the EPA regulations have gone far beyond what they were intended by Congress and he favors reining the agency in.  He also cited the overreach of the Clinton administration in creating the Grand Staircase National Monument  that locks up millions of tons of high-quality, low-sulpher coal deposits.  He said that he hopes the next Republican administration will take action to adjust the boundaries of the monument to permit energy exploration and extraction.

REDISTRICTING PROCESS NEARS COMPLETION

Sept. 19, 2011 – Salt Lake City, UT:  The 2011 redistricting (RD) process reached a milestone when the Redistricting Committee (RDC) concluded its final public meeting today.  For the past several months the committee has traveled to every county in the state seeking public input on district boundary issues and inviting the public to submit proposed district boundary maps to the Committee via mapping software the Committee made available on the official website.  The purpose of Friday’s final meeting was to have persons who submitted maps appear before the committee and explain why they drew their maps as they did.

Under the leadership of Chairman Clark, our county has been heavily involved since the beginning of the process.  “This process is the most important statewide political process we have,” Clark said.  “We have suffered with very unfairly drawn Utah House district boundaries for more than ten years.  We are working very hard to redraw those boundaries more favorably and hopefully get Sanpete County united under a single House district.”

Clark submitted proposed maps for the Utah House, Utah Senate, and for the four federal Congressional districts.  His house map proposed redrawing the 67th district (Rep. Pat Painter, Mona) to drop it’s Carbon and Utah County components and place all of Sanpete and over 95% of the population of Juab County into a single district. 

Surprizingly, Clark picked up the support of 69th Dist. Rep. Walker of Carbon County to seperate Carbon County and Sanpete County into seperate districts. Walker agrees that both counties would have better representation for their counties over the all-important water issues between them if thy had their own Representatives in the House.  However, Rep. Painter opposes changes to the current boundary lines in large part because a divided district with Juab as the dominent population group helps keep him in office.

There is little controversy over Clark’s proposed Senate map which is similar in many ways to the map submitted by RDC Co-Chair, Sen. Ralph Okerlund.  “The goal for both of us was to keep rural districts rural and not have rural’s power diluted by incursion of larger urban/suburban Wasatch Front populations, Clark said. 

Okerlund says the Senate is very close to adopting a base map that reflects that priority.  On the otherhand, he says the fight over House boundaries will be a real ‘donnybrook’. 

The the shape of U.S. Congressional district boundaries has come down to a food-fight over so-called ‘Pizza Slice’ districts and ‘donut hole’ districts.  The terms refer to maps that draw districts where large pieces of geography include a more representative mix of urban/suburban and rural population are included as opposed to very small exclusively Salt Lake County districts are created that have a decidedly left-wing tilt to the population.  Generally, Democrats favor donut holes while Republicans favor Pizza slices.  Chairman Clark’s Congressional map is one of these Pizza slice renditions.  He believes that the Republicans are like to win this 10-year food fight.

“I don’t think we will see a three-way partitioning of the county, Clark said.  But that doesn’t necessarily mean we will be united when all is said and done.  Several maps showed Sanpete divided into two districts, neither of which were advantageious to us.”   Clark believes that ultimately Sanpete and Carbon will be separated and places the chances of being united into a single district with Juab County at 30 to 40 percent.  We’ll keep pushing our cause and trying to gain the best advantage we can,” Clark says.  One thing’s for sure, I don’t think we could do worse than what we already have.”

Anyone wishing to view the submitted map and perhaps to comment on them can do so at www.redistrictingutah.com.

COUNTY PARTY ELECTS NEW OFFICERS, ADOPTS SWEEPING REFORMS

04/21/2011 – Ephraim, UT :  County Delegates gathered at the Party’s bi-annual Organizatizing Convention, held this year at the Ephraim Middle School, where they elected an entirely new slate of Party officers and set the Party on a new path by adopting sweeping changes to the Party’s Constitution and Bylaws. 

The new general officers are Steven Clark (Chester) Chairperson, Kim Pickett (Gunnison) Vice-Chair, and Natalie Argyle-Zabriski (Mt. Pleasant) Sec./Treasurer.  Former Chairperson, Beverly Thomas (Ephraim) was elected County Representative to the State Central Committee.  Also elected was an entirely new slate of Administrative Area Officers.  (For a full list, click on the ‘Officers’ tab above.)

According to Clark, the most important thing Delegates did was to adopt sweeping reforms contained in amended Constitution and Bylaws documents.  The amendments were authored by Clark and have been promoted by him for many years.  “Under our old Constitution our Party was a Party by Leadership, for Leadership, and of Leadership,” he said.  “That principal has now been turned on it’s head and our party is by members, for members and of members.”

Under the old scheme all power in the party was vested in the Central Committee.  The new Constitution gives the Central Committee limited power and instead vests Party power in the newly created County Delegates Council which is comprised of Party leadership and all County Delegates.  “County Delegates are the only people in our Party who are directly elected by Party Members.  Leadership is not.  The Party members elect Delegates to represent them.  Now those Delegates have the power vested in them to do that job,” Clark concluded

The adoption of the new Constitution and Bylaws was Clark’s highest priority.  Following close behind on his priority list is getting Sanpete County a more fair shake out of the redistricting process that will take place later this year.  “We’re carved up like a Christmas goose,” Clark said.  “We have three Representatives representing different parts of the county and not one of them is from Sanpete.  That’s not right and it’s not fair since Sanpete is the largest rural county in Central Utah.  I intend to work very hard to change that.”

Also on his list is better fund-raising for Party support of local candidates and increasing youth and young adult participation in Party activities.

NATIONAL GOP WINS BIG!

Nov. 3, 2010 – Washington, D.C:  Reversing disasterous elections in 2006 and 2008, GOP candidates trounced Democrats in the Nov. 2nd mid-term elections.  The party won over 60 seats in the House, more than twenty more than they needed to take over control from Nancy Pellosi and the Democrats.  Republicans had a net gain of at lease 6 Senate seats, not enough to seize control from Harry Ried and his gang, but more than enough to derail the Senate’s six-year reign of liberal terror.  The election results are widely seen as a stinging repudiation of Pres. Obama and his liberal policies.

GOP SWEEPS COUNTY

Nov. 2, 2010 – Sanpete County, UT:  It was a clean sweep for Sanpete County Republican Candidates on election night as Brian Nielson won the only contested countywide race.  Nielson was elected Sanpete County Sheriff by a wide margin.  All other candidates, including commissioners Spencer Cox and Claudia Jarrett, were unopposed in their races.