Message Recieved

"Wait, what?" I whisper, furrowing my eye brow and leaning into photographer Nick Steffens, "Did he say the chief resigned?" I ask shocked, seeking clarification. Mayor Ralph Becker had just announced the resignation of popular Police Chief Chris Burbank, over his handling of a sexual harassment scandal involving one of the chief's top leaders. 

Becker's press conference

The bombshell caught me, and pretty much everyone in Salt Lake City, off guard. Minutes after the mayor's comments, news came that the former chief would, himself, address the media regarding the shocking news.

Becker's announcement was held atop the steps of the city county building, looking down on the gaggle of reporters and camera operators who were at a safe distance at the bottom of the concrete stairs, more than a dozen feet away.  Becker, from behind a podium, read from prepared remarks, and did not take questions after turning awkwardly towards the heavy historic doors of city hall and floating back into the sandstone structure.

Burbank addresses the media.

Burbank on the other hand, dressed in his customary blue police uniform, casually sipped water as a dozen reporters and photographers too aim at his meticulously shaved head with tape recorders, cameras and cell phones.  the former chief spoke extemporaneously and took a dozens questions after his comments.

Mayor Becker has always seemed aloof, and at times even disengaged, I remember in 2010, in the wake of the Red Butte oil spill which released 800 barrels of oil, polluting the water near homes a blackening the pond at Liberty Park and coating dozens of ducks with black ooze.

The Mayor had just held a press conference at about 5 PM, and afterwards I asked the Mayor's press handler if he would appear live on our news show at 10PM that night.  "Uh," she said reluctantly, "I think he's pretty tired." I squinted my eyes, and pulled my chin in back towards my chest, "Tired?" I repeated her words back to her, in an effort to emphasis how odd they sounded, "This is the biggest disaster of his administration, surely he can find the energy to talk to the city about how the clean up is going."  "I'll check," she said with a shrug of her shoulders.  A few minutes later she returned, "Yeah, he's not going to be able to make  it."  I didn't say a word, I was stunned.

Department of Environmental Quality

Chris Burbank, seems the opposite of that.  In 2006 he was up late as the street swelled with a crowd angry residents,  after the body of kidnapping victim  Destiny Norton was found in a musty crawlspace in the apartment of her neighbor.  The large mob gathered, seething over the way the police department had handled the case.  A riot seemed imminent.  Burbank, headed out into the night and directly into the angry sea of chaotic, emotional people.  He disarmed them with understanding and charm and at the end of the evening, 2 of the people who were most instrumental in instigating the gang,  actually went on TV and APOLOGIZED to the chief for causing problems.

Burbank's image was that of an open and approachable public servant, but that openness did have its limits I always felt.  Chief Burbank was also a ferocious protector of his and his department's public image.  When I started reporting in Utah in 1999, Salt Lake City's Public Relations department under Chief Rick Dinse consisted of one or 2 people.  

Burbank addresses angry Norton crowd (SL Trib)

After he was appointed Chief 9 years ago, Burbank expanded his PR department greatly.  At last casual count, there are at least 5 in the unit, all with the goal of disseminating information, but also, it seemed, protecting the shield.

  After I'd done an unflattering story about the police department, my relationship, which had, up to that point, always been jocular and easy, changed.  A few days after my critical story aired, I called the police PR requesting to do an interview on an unrelated story, The crew sent out 2 officers, one to grant me an interview, the other to video tape my questions.  "What's this?" I asked as the officer dutifully pointed his small handheld video camera at me, "just documenting everything," he said, staring blankly and uncomfortably at the postage stamp sized screen, occasionally glancing up, then quickly diverting his eyes back to the tiny square.  I wasn't exactly sure why they were pointing the camera at me.  Maybe it was a subtle way of saying, "we have this whole interview on tape, watch how you edit it?" Or perhaps the department was telling me, "see, two can play at this game."  Either way a message, no matter how unclear it was, was being sent.

The two hastily organized press conferences called on that historic day couldn't have been more different in tone and structure, and are, in many ways symbolic, of the way the 2 men operate.  One pulls you in close, both physically and emotionally, the other keeps you at a distance, but both have the same goal: Control the message.

Miscalculation

 "Come in, come in!"  Mark Shurtleff waves me into his home enthusiastically as I stand on his front stoop in 2001. Shurtleff is the newly elected Attorney General of the state of Utah, and I remember sitting comfortably in his living room after an interview about his hopeful agenda as AG, chatting with ease about a variety of topics.

Shurtleff, who was in the process of rounding out his staff, was oddly open about whom he was considering for positions.  He asked me about a former colleague of mine, Paul Murphy.  Shurtleff was considering him for his PR boss.  "I  don't think you could do much better than Paul," I told the new Attorney General.  Two weeks later Murphy (not because of my endorsement I'm sure) was on staff in the AG's office.

That friendliness highlighted Shurtleff tenure, I recall once, being rounded into duty during my day off. The governor was making a major, unexpected announcement at the state capitol, so I hustled up to the hill in a blue sports coat and, self-consciously, a pair of casual sandals.  While the governor spoke, Shurtleff ambled up to me, "Those sandals really go nicely with that coat," he joked.  "They compliment my eyes," I  retorted,  Shurtleff laughed and jabbed me with his elbow and marched off.

The most powerful man in Utah law enforcement, isn't particularly imposing, despite his sizable frame. Shurtleff is easily 6'6" perhaps 220 pounds, but he carries his girth rather awkwardly, like a newly born fawn, struggling to find it's gate, probably because of a badly injured knee that has required countless surgeries over the years, but it is not Shurtleff's knee that has on occasion caused his public missteps.

Shurtleff's chin out approach made the AG susceptible to public pratfalls, like the time he accidentally Tweeted his intention of running for the US Senate.

I remember wondering about his judgement after I stumbled upon this Youtube video of the Attorney General on stage at a pep rally for local, Multi-level marketing company, Usana.  Shurtleff was an enthusiastic shill for the elixir company, and I thought it seemed like a blatantly odd place for the Attorney general to be, so  I cross-reverenced the health food manufacturer against a list of Shurleff's donors, only to find they had given Shurtleff a sizable pile of cash.

At the time Paul Murphy, the man whom I had enthusiastically endorsed for Shurtleff's PR job, was exceedingly angry with me after the story ran, but I knew it was an important headline, and went to the attorney general's decision making.

More than bad Judgement seems to be at the center of the expansive investigation involving the former AG and his protege, John Swallow, who followed Shurtleff as Attorney General, only to resign recently.  Investigators have uncovered a breathtaking list of issues.  State Senator Todd Weiler, who sat in a committee meeting with dozens of other lawmakers, told me there were "audible gasps," as investigators unraveled a laundry list of alleged schemes, dirty politicking, and questionable money handling by Shurtleff and Swallow.


The jolly, deliberately goofy Shurtleff seems like an unlikely candidate for the role of political villian. He lacks the dark-hearted scowl of a Richard Nixon, and his gentle eyes are more like a Golden Retriever's, than those of crooked Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich.  The AG's sunny, self-deprecating humor reminds you of your the friendly accountant who lives next door, not the back-slapping political intimidater, LBJ, or the icy, calculated ambition of a man like Joe Kennedy.
Shurtleff never seemed calculating at all, actually the opposite, but in the end, particularly if the former AG faces charges, perhaps a little calculating is exactly what Shurtleff needed. 

An Early Christmas Gift

"So, it's not like a gay couple is going to be able to rush out and get married tomorrow," I ask attorney Peggy Tomsic, really as an aside, at the end of our interview at 3PM on Friday.  Tomsic, who argued for marriage equality in front of Judge Robert Shelby,  sits up in her chair, adjusts her reading glasses, and with some urgency, makes a dramatic correction, "they could go out and get married right now!" she peers at me.  "Wait, what?" I respond, and at that moment, I realize, history is unfurling in front of us all, and I am just now understanding the implications, and the early Christmas gift getting ready to be delivered to a large portion of Utah's population.

Peggy Tomsic

I knew that Judge Robert Shelby's ruling that Utah's ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional was big, but I assumed, wrongly of course, that there must have been a stay in place until the state's inevitable years long appeals of the Shelby's proclamation was settled.  There was not.

Shelby has ruled that banning gay couples from marrying as Utah voters had done overwhelmingly in 2004, violated those citizens due process, and consequently is a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Thus began a frenetic, electric, buzzy, and most importantly, monumental day in the news.

The Salt Lake County Clerk's office is one of a handful of a few that decides they will begin issuing marriage licenses.  The clerk's office is bulging within the hour.  Impromptu weddings are being conducted in the halls, and back offices.  For those couples it was absolute, unexpected jubilation.

For those who support the idea of traditional marriage, judge Shelby's ruling was equally unexpected, but evoked a wholly different emotion.

Judge Robert Shelby

"So, attending any weddings anytime soon?" I joke with Gayle Ruzicka, the head of the ultra-conservative Eagle Forum as the photographer quickly adjusts his focal length on the camera in preparation of our interview, "oh yeah," she laughs on her porch, adorned with a pair of fanciful snowmen and, as you might imagine, a complete manger scene.  "Can you believe it?!" she joshes, "I didn't even get an invitation to Jim's wedding!"  Ruzicka is talking about State Senator Jim Dabakis, the openly gay lawmaker, who was among the first to be married in the wake of the marriage equality ruling, and he  did so very publicly on 2News live at 5 PM.

Gayle Ruzicka, Eagle Forum

Ruzicka, is much reviled and conversely, beloved by many in Utah for her unabashed and often curt criticism of anything that falls slightly to the left of her ardently conservative views.  Despite her prickly persona, and pronounced politics, in conversation she always allows for some humor.

When the camera gears up, Ruzicka assumes the position, and begins to breath fire, using words like "incompetent," to describe the Utah Attorney General, and "disgusting," to characterize, Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker, proceeding over wedding in Salt Lake County.

Ruzicka finds herself talking about a very different Utah, a Utah that she and fellow opponents of gay marriage, ironically helped to create.

The campaign to ban gay marriage was frenzied 9 years ago, with pro-traditional marriage groups working long hours, knocking on countless doors, and sending out thousands of fliers in the mail.  They worked hard, and their work payed off for them, the Amendment passed overwhelmingly in a referendum by 66 percent of the vote.

Had the ban never existed though, Peggy Tomsic would not have had anything to challenge, and Judge Shelby would have had nothing to overturn.  Ruzicka and others it appears, made all the slapdash wedding spilling into the halls of the Salt Lake County building on 2100 South, possible.

As we pack up our gear, and leave Ruzicka's Alpine, Utah home, I turn and toss a parting quip, "Don't forget to pick up some wedding gifts this weekend," She guffaws, "Yeah right!", and waves us on cheerily, unaware that in many ways she actually helped wrap the gift of marriage equality for gay couples, just days before Christmas.

Fever

As the piercing, unsettling shriek hammers my ears, I breath in the overpowering scent of potpourri, folded in with a subtle, sickly, whiff, of recently smoked cigarettes.  In this room, shrouded in chaos and claustrophobic emotional rawness, the sweet smell of orange slices, cinnamon, and Marlboro steadies me.

The unrelenting squelch of the fire alarm ricochets at the speed of sound off the redwood paneling dotted with the portraits of a family I've only just met. 

Robert Allen Page

 Robert Allen Page, a solid man of farmer's stock, is crying deeply, as his wife Joy grasps his rough, creased, and calloused hand.  Robert, emotionally naked in front of two television cameras, is about to share his most personal moment about his granddaughter, who recently died during a unreal, freak accident.  As he prepares to share a tale about Nikki, the radiant heat from our studio lights trigger the alarm in his tiny living room.

"I'm sorry," I offer as photographer Mike DeBarnardo scurries to snatch off the light, and uses his ball cap to whisk away the heat from the white pod on the ceiling  "It's.  It's OK," Robert sniffles, as he drags his hardened paw across his face, self-consciously erasing the tears from his cheeks and blinking wildly as if he is trying to wake himself from a trance.  As the piercing pollution finally relents, I awkwardly return to my line of questioning, "so you were saying how Nikki could light up a room?"

Robert's 11 year old granddaughter, Nikki Clark, died yesterday after a terrible accident.  The girl is running up the stairs of her home, with a rod, used to adjust blinds, when she falls, plunging one end under her skin, just below her clavicle bone.  As Robert tells it, the rod only enters about an inch into the girl's body, but it also partially severs an artery.  As Nikki scurries to her father, she blurts with wide-eyed terror, "look what I did." she yanks the rod from her chest, and instantly begins to bleed out.  hours later the little girl is declared brain dead, then later dies at a hospital in Ogden, Utah.

Nikki Clark

I meet Robert and his family at his home in Hyrum, Utah.  The house is warm and inviting but also very small.  As Mike zips open canvas bags filled with lights and light stands, Nikki's two sisters, and another little friend begin to perch themselves right behind me.  The living room is about 10 feet by 10 feet, and decorated with several large chairs, and a room engulfing, billowing sofa, that likely swallows up a third of the space.

The body heat, and the warmth radiating from the blinding lights, is beginning to raise the physical temperature of the room exponentially.  As Robert settles into his chair, the tiny space has the feel of a greenhouse.

A photographer from another station finds her head swiveling from left to right, as she surveys a room for a place to stand.  There is none to be found, because every foot is occupied by cables, cameras, and bodies.

She clumsily gravitates to the only empty space in the room to my left, and I find her just a few  inches from my shoulder, as Nikki's sisters hover behind me.  They are so close, I can feel the air wisp past me when one of them moves her head or scratches her nose.

The room is like a fever, physically hot, and getting emotionally hotter as Robert, and his wife cry, claw, and search for answers to a tragedy that has none.

As Robert begins again after the uncomfortable interruption of the fire alarm, He speaks calmly for  a few minutes, then the tears well, and stream down his face once more, and the quiver, again, takes hold of his lower lip, "She was our little "Red," he says of the redheaded little girl, "She was our every..." his heartfelt recollection, shutters to a stark end, as that alarm, that blasted alarm, screams at us once again.  "That's been our luck," he says showing his exasperation.  My throat is pulled towards my stomach, as I sigh, and close my eyes.  I am mortified.

Kevin Clark, Nikki's Father

As the interview winds to a finish, the room squeezes tight with even more people, all of them draped in the pall of pain.  Ten people total, now submerge themselves into the sweltering, and aching ocean that is filling the paneled room.

 I prepare to signal to Mike that the interview is over, when Nikki's father Kevin, crushed by grief, darts into the room, grabs the grandmothers's hands and tells us, "there is nothing we could do!"  His frantic sorrow, catches like a summer wildfire fueled by brittle cheat grass high in the Wasatch Mountains.  Robert and Joy begin to weep loudly and openly, as the children at my back move in even closer, and the temperature, slowly ticks up a few more degrees.

I thank the family for sharing their story, then step outside into the brisk openness, unzip my coat, and flaunt it away from my body with both arms as if I have wings, as I invite the cool, almost frigid air to engulf me.

"Shoe less" Mia Love

Mia Love isn't wearing shoes.  The mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah, a woman who is on the precipice of knocking off 6 term congressman Jim Matheson, to take her seat in one of the most vaunted chambers in American politics, is barefoot.  Love knows I am coming.  The mayor has just been tapped by the Republican National Committee to speak at the nominating convention for Mitt Romney in Tampa, Florida, and our assignment desk has arrange for me to show up with a camera at Love's new and spacious Saratoga Springs home.  She is dressed like a congresswoman might dress, Orange power blouse, brown power suit, but no shoes, and no socks.

Mia Love speaks at the Republican National Convention

Love is an indefinably disciplined candidate who seldom, if ever veers off script.  Even in casual conversation, she, sometimes with awkward adherence, will not drift from her talking points.  "Man this must be exciting, and nerve wracking as well," I attempt to make small talk as photographer Matt Michela sets up lights in anticipation of our interview   Love, isn't going to break from character, "it's an opportunity to talk about real issues that affect real Utahn's," she recites, unwilling to express giddiness  fear, or awe, about the surreal world in which this once unknown mayor from a tiny Utah town has now been thrust.   

During our interview  Love is confident, energetic and bold, if not repetitive.  The answers I hear today, do not vary significantly from the quotes she's given to other newspaper reporters and TV journalists in the past.  

When I ask her if race, (Love is black, the daughter of Haitian immigrants) may have been a factor in her selection as a speaker at the Republican National Convention, she pulls out a soundbite I've heard before, "Saratoga Springs does not have the highest bond rating in the state of Utah because I'm black," she repeats.  I understand her reluctance to veer from script, at the time, she is 15 points behind the incumbent  and she certainty doesn't want to utter a gaffe that would end up destroying her then slim chance of knocking off Matheson in November.

"What do you think about Todd Akin's comments?" I ask, referring to the Missouri Republican, who had just made that infamous "legitimate rape," statement that was exploding into a full-fledged media disaster for his run for the US Senate race in the "Show-me State."  

It was a question the mayor hadn't received in the past, and one for which she was not prepared, "Well we don't know what happens in a person's personal life," Love wanders, searching for an answer, before shutting down the meandering word grasp and finally concluding, that she doesn't adhere to Akin's views.

Congressman Jim Matheson

As Matt removes the lapel mic from Love's collar, I flopped down casually onto her large leather sofa, "We might be sending someone to cover your speech," I  announce, to which a man with a shaved head,  and oddly ornate button-down shirt whose been standing nearby, silently texting and emailing on his smart phone, finally interject curtly, "who?"  Probably Decker," I say benignly, referring to our eccentric, political reporter, Rod Decker, a surly  disheveled  yet thoroughly entertaining, and wildly competent reporter.  Decker is a Utah institution, he  doesn't delivery his stories as much as he bellows them into his microphone, peaking the VU meters on the control board back at the station.  "We've got nothing to say to him," announces the bald man.  "Listen," Love says, eyes burrowing into mine, "if you are fair to us, you will get your access.  If not..." Love trails off, leaving the rest of her  sentence a mystery for me to interpret as I will.  

"Well," I say to the woman who may be the next representative from Utah's 4th District, "You'll find, if you win, some stories will be positive, some stories will be negative, but in the end, the coverage will even out and be fair overall."  Love just stares at me, unconvinced  unmoved, and silent at my answer.  

"well," I slap me palms together, "it's nice to meet you mayor, good luck in Florida." I turn and head towards the large, heavy oak front door of her home. "What time will this be on?" she asks, "Four, Five and 6 PM," I answer.  "OK," she moves in closer, eyes locked on mine, "I'm going to watch them all," she warns, "each and every one of them,"  her eyes squint, then she smiles, "have a good day," she announces as she rustles her bare feet across the pile carpet and escorts me to the door.

Oh, the places we will go.

"Gimme a dollar! Gimme a dollar! Gimme a dollar! Gimme a dollar!"  The little man in the dirty green sweatpants barks incessantly, almost manically, as we quickly disengage and turn back to our news truck.  Just a few seconds before I am rapping on the front door of what is the last known address of the mother of Curtis Allgier, Maxine McNeeley.  Allgier, who is about as despicable a human being as you might ever imagine, has just plead guilty to gunning down a Utah corrections officer, and we hope to get a comment from the woman who likely knows Allgier best.

I track down the address using old court records, and photographer Mike "D" and I find ourselves rolling into a neighborhood, inhabited by worn and weary apartment buildings near the end of a dead end street.  McNeeley's unit is #1.  The black entrance is framed by a wooden storm door  with three panels of mesh.  The top quadrant is torn and tattered, the second panel remains somewhat intact and the third has been kicked or stripped out years ago leaving a jagged, border of steel.

The access to the apartment is shrouded in an uncomfortable touch of claustrophobia,  The unit is planted to the right of a narrow, crumbling sidewalk, straddled to the left by a tattered, weather-worn wooden planked fence that lilts and leans, and strains to stay standing. As I knock on the door, that fencing to my back seems just a bit too close, like a customer pressing near you in the grocery store line, who lingers a little too long in your personal space as you finger the minty gums and magazines at the checkout.

The paint chipped awning overhead seems to press down on my head, as I wait for some response.  I can hear the muffled tones of the TV blaring inside, and with each pop on the door with my knuckles, I hear the shrieking bark of what is sure to be a tiny little pooch.

To my left are yards of used, but for some time, underutilized building supplies, old mops, ladders, buckets, and a pile of rags, tarps and towels, long discarded, and colonized by ants and rats and Box Elder Bugs, years ago.

The close proximity of the tri-plex to the fence makes for a spider web wonderland, as clear strands of silk criss-cross back and forth from the tattered, uneven boards of the listing fence to the broken rain gutter that jogs jaggedly across the eave of the home.

Somebody nearby has, or had a cat, and never fully potty trained the feline, because with each breath the slight scent of ammonia from cat urine lofts occasionally and uncomfortably into you olfactory.

The old man inside jerks, turns and pops the tired old medal door knob, and lifts, wrestles and jams the door open, but instead of standing inside his threshold waiting for my question, he darts onto his front stoop, and I find him quickly within inches of my face.  His grey mane of hair is wild and wispy, his beard is long and untamed, I can tell he is a smoker, his mustache is stained with a sickly yellow glaze of nicotine   His top is clad in a faint grey sweatshirt that was, years ago, a potent black.  He's been wearing it for a while, as evidenced by what appears to be the dribble from a meal enjoyed days ago.  His green sweatpants hike up high on his left leg exposing his hairy calf, and rides low on his right leg, the dirty, tattered hemline having been dragged under his right heel for days.

"I'm looking for Maxine McNeeley?"  I ask doubtfully, assuming now that she must have moved some time ago.  "McNeeley, McNeely, I don't know any McNeeley," he says moving in to me even closer, "Well ok," I turn to see Mike 'D' has received the hint seconds earlier and is already strolling back to the truck with his camera in tow.

"Well, wait, wait," the man says eagerly, and begins "hey, gimme a dollar, gimme a dollar, gimme a dollar, gimme a dollar," He chants as I speed up my gate, "gimme a dollar, gimme a dollar,"  I've got to laugh as I wonder how long he will continue to holler these three words after we roll away.  Then I find, not too long as he changes tactics, noticing the camera slung over Mike's shoulder, "take my picture, take my picture, take my picture, take my picture, take my picture!"  As I glance back, I see he has choreographed a little dance to accompany his monotonous, monotone tune.  His hands are propped next to his shoulders, palms towards his audience, and he is hoping from one foot to the other, with each bark of the phrase, Take my picture," now to the right, "Take my picture," now to the left...

I was a bit taken aback by the whole scene, the oppressive surroundings, the manic chant and dance, Mike sees it a bit differently, as he hops in the truck, turns the key to crank the engine, he proclaims calmly, "that was awesome."