This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A Bountiful couple's quiet evening was interrupted Wednesday by what seemed to be space aliens taking over their telephone and blasting messages through the speaker.
The wife said that the phone began to ring during dinner. She looked on her caller I.D. and it said "Town Hall Meeting," so she didn't answer.
Normally, their phone rings three times then goes to voice mail. But this call kept ringing, possibly up to 20 times, she said.
Then, the phone answered itself, on the loudspeaker, and the town hall meeting with Sen. Orrin Hatch blared throughout the house. She tried to hang it up, to no avail. The talking continued. Finally, she pulled the cord out of the wall jack and it stopped.
She called Qwest to complain and they had no answer for her, adding that she was the only customer who had complained about such a problem.
Hatch spokesperson Heather Barney said the telephone town hall meeting, arranged through an independent company, was set up Wednesday to call all the telephone number in certain ZIP codes in Davis County. She said she has "never heard of such a thing. That's weird. But I hope she enjoyed it."
The couple later went to bed, half expecting the face of Rush Limbaugh to suddenly emerge from their bedroom ceiling.
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Panicking in Moab • The Grand County Council was aghast. They didn't know what to do after Moab Mayor Dave Sakrison reported Tuesday that a powerful rural legislator — later identified as Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab — was going to kill a bill designed to help schools in 15 rural school districts. Noel targeted the bill because Grand County had been too restrictive on energy companies trying to set up operations on school trust lands.
The Moab Times-Independent reported that council members also were told Noel threatened to hold the bill until the passage of his House Bill 400, which would forbid a county from imposing regulations that are more restrictive than state law concerning school trust land development.
The bill under threat is House Bill 98, sponsored by Rep. Christine Watkins, D-Price, which would make it easier for rural school districts to take money from their capital outlay funds and use it for maintenance, operations and salaries.
Noel said he just expressed his concerns to the Moab mayor when the two were attending a legislative rural caucus meeting. He said he never intended on killing the bill, but he did want his bill passed first, since development on school trust lands also benefit school districts.
He said he circled Watkins' bill when it was ready for a vote on Wednesday and that move actually saved it, because it would have been defeated by a vote in the House. Watkins agrees that Noel's action did save the bill and she since has made amendments to satisfy most of the complaints.
But she and Noel are not aligned on the issue of what bill needs to pass first, she said. Noel's HB400 currently has just a title, with no language. So it needs more work before it's ready to go, and she doesn't want to wait. "The session is halfway over and my bill still has to go through the Senate if and when it passes the House."
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The scene of the crime? • State officials will stage a dog and pony show Friday at 9:30 a.m. to highlight a new program requiring restaurants, bars and state liquor stores to post warning signs about alcohol and pregnancy.
Speakers will include Rep. Ronda Menlove, R-Garland, who sponsored the bill last year mandating the program, as well as officials of the Department of Health and Alcoholic Beverage Control and familes affected by alcohol use during pregnancy.
The news conference will be at Chili's Grill and Bar, at 668 E. 400 South, which just happened to be the establishment used as an example by Senate President Michael Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, of a restaurant looking too much like a bar.
"I am totally convinced that any lay citizen would go in and say, 'This is a bar,' " Waddoups said of Chili's at the time.
Wonder if the national chain is beginning to feel a bit picked on in the Beehive State.