Senator- For as much as you post on this forum, I would think that you would know that the reason why the Girl Scouts can't use the schools, as per your solution, is that the schools charge excessive use fees (somewhere in the neighborhood of $65 per hour) and require insurance. It's too damned expensive to use these other "public" buildings.

This policy is motivated solely by controlling what can be done and said in the building. If they let the Girl Scouts meet, they have to let the local KKK chapter meet there and at some point those crazy Eagle Mountain Wickens might want to rally there. What absolutely terrifies them, though, is not the satanists, wickens, racists, anti-mormons, or whatever, but worse- those political groups that will want to hold meetings there to discuss opposition to the sitting councils and developers.

dnaguy wrote:

Senator- For as much as you post on this forum, I would think that you would know that the reason why the Girl Scouts can't use the schools, as per your solution, is that the schools charge excessive use fees (somewhere in the neighborhood of $65 per hour) and require insurance. It's too damned expensive to use these other "public" buildings.

This policy is motivated solely by controlling what can be done and said in the building. If they let the Girl Scouts meet, they have to let the local KKK chapter meet there and at some point those crazy Eagle Mountain Wickens might want to rally there. What absolutely terrifies them, though, is not the satanists, wickens, racists, anti-mormons, or whatever, but worse- those political groups that will want to hold meetings there to discuss opposition to the sitting councils and developers.


I don't know if Eagle Mountain has any Wiccans, but I know there is a community of them in American Fork. Perhaps the focus of the use of public buildings needs to shift to the schools and their excessive fees and insurance requirements. A lot more is paid in taxes to fund those structures than EM City Hall and there is a lot of meeting space in our public schools. Too bad the Herald couldn't mention that. They made it sound like there is not any other public buildings in EM besides their city hall and that is the one and only solution. EM should revisit its policy and come up with a fair rate to charge groups who want to rent the council chambers. If schools are charging $65 per hour, it sounds like a good way to make money. I wonder how much money city parks make in a year for using the picnic shelters for family reunions.

P.S. How about charter schools. They are funded with public tax money. Should those buildings be made available to the public or are they off limits because charter schools are only paying rent with the tax payer money?