Let’s talk about justice. It has been a pervasive topic for us, especially over the past two years. We are being inundated with news stories. Our social media timelines are flooded and robust conversations are happening at our offices and kitchen tables. Collectively, it appears we are struggling. Many are expressing outrage. Some are feeling apathy. Others are unsure about how to make a difference.

Voting is our most basic civic duty. It also happens to be one of the most valuable and productive avenues to make our voices heard. In November, once again we will be given the opportunity to cast our votes. While judges are the arbiters of justice, they are also the most overlooked when casting our ballots.

In Utah, each of us has a say. We are given an opportunity to vote about whether to retain our local judges. We have an independent evaluation process that provides voters with the information they need to make informed decisions. The Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission (JPEC) is an independent body created for this purpose.

The evaluation process and the reports that are produced by JPEC are comprehensive. They include minimum competencies, community volunteer observations, public comments, and surveys of attorneys, court staff and jurors. The process is transparent and it works. I know this because I have served on the commission since 2014.

I am not a lawyer. I’m a social worker, wife and mother.

In addition to providing information to voters, the performance evaluation offers insight to judges. The commission works hard to improve the process for all of us. While acknowledging that implicit bias is hard to avoid, this year we implemented blind reviews of judges, so we could continue to uphold our responsibility to provide voters with the most objective information possible. JPEC knows how important our process and information are to help improve the judiciary as a whole.

As community members, we might have different views about policies and how our government should operate, but ultimately, we’ve always been stronger together. Let’s ensure that collectively we hold the judiciary accountable to the community. The judicial performance evaluations are in place to ensure we are educated and informed about the votes we cast in November.

Evaluation information for judges can be found in the Utah Voter Information Pamphlet. Detailed performance evaluation reports can also be found at judges.utah.gov.

Sonya Martinez-Ortiz is a JPEC commissioner and an assistant professor at the University of Utah College of Social Work. She also works as a therapist with survivors of sexual assault.

"What are these politicians going to do for us?"

A guy in Texas asked that question a few weeks back on "Full Frontal with Samantha Bee," by way of explaining why he won't be voting in the most important midterm election in modern American history. His words have been playing on an endless loop in my head ever since. You'll seldom hear electoral apathy, ignorance and cynicism more concisely illustrated.

Moreover, he reflects an understanding of politics as solely a transactional process: Vote for this, get that. But for however much casting a ballot is a way to get, it is also, and perhaps even more so, a way to say. One thinks of Norman Rockwell's famous "Four Freedoms" painting of an ordinary guy standing up in a public meeting to speak his piece. That's what voting is.

If the evocation of that image seems corny, that's OK. We could use a little corniness just now, could do with a sentimental nod to the foundation stones we claim to cherish: liberty, justice, equality, decency, democracy, compassion and all that other old-fashioned hokum. Because here's the thing:

We could lose it all. We could lose our country here.

Maybe you think that's alarmist. But anyone who is sanguine about America's future has not been paying attention to America's present.

Let’s take an episode from last week as an instructive example. As you will recall, our regrettable president claimed the power, at his sole discretion, to overturn the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which is patently absurd. That’s not the way America works. A president cannot declare some part of the Constitution — the Constitution! — null and void on his authority. Only dictators can do that.

But if this guy thinks he has that power, what else might he think he can do? Knowing him as we do, is it far-fetched to imagine a scenario where he gins up some fake crisis in 2020 and uses it to postpone the election? Or is it inconceivable that, having lost that election, he refuses to surrender power, claiming the process was "rigged"?

So yes, we could, indeed, lose our country here. And not just because of him, but also because of us — how he has changed us.

Can you imagine for a moment the explosive uproar that would have ensued had any other president made such a tyrannical — not to say fascistic — claim? If Obama had done it, Sean Hannity would’ve had a stroke, live on air. And he’d have been justified and would not have been alone. It would have been the story of the year. Opprobrium would have rained down like bricks.

But not with this guy. Under him we live with routine chaos, ordinary outrage, normal abnormality. Infants are stolen from parents, the Army is sent against refugees, America dishonors its agreements, kicks its friends and caresses its foes, while this truth-challenged man insists we’re not seeing what we’re seeing, that white is black, up is left and two plus two equals marshmallows. And it’s just another day in the life. We are inured.

Now some nonvoter wants to know what politicians are going to do for us? Wrong question. Tuesday is about what we do for ourselves, for our country. It is about whether those of us who see this madness for what it is acquiesce to it or whether, like the guy in Rockwell's painting, we stand up and speak out. It shouldn't be a hard choice.

If you find this calamity unacceptable, make your case.

If you think we should be better than this, raise your voice.

If you are disgusted and appalled, make yourself heard.

Because we could absolutely lose America. Or, we could save it.

What do you say?

Leonard Pitts is a columnist for The Miami Herald. lpitts@miamiherald.com

When eighth-grader Arden Louchheim thinks about the Trump administration’s treatment of the press today, she sees parallels to her family’s past.

“Just as President Roosevelt did 75 years ago, President Trump is trying to only let citizens see one-sided news: the news that he agrees with. The current executives are promoting racism by trying to exclude people based on their race or religion,” Louchheim wrote this fall.

Louchheim ended her essay with a warning: “The internment camps of World War II show how abuse of the free press can contribute to painful mistakes, and with the current state of the government, we could be heading down that path again. This issue is especially important to me because my grandparents and their siblings were some of the internees. We must remember that our country was built upon truth so we cannot let history repeat itself.”

The Rowland Hall student was selected as one of three winning writers in an annual essay contest held in conjunction with the McCarthey Family Foundation Lecture Series: In Praise of Independent Journalism. She will receive a check for $1,500, awarded in the category for students in grades 6-8.

Molly Chien, a 10th-grade student at the Salt Lake Center for Science Education, won in the category for grades 9-12 and will receive $2,500. Braxton Thornley, a senior at Dixie State University, won in the college category and will receive $4,000.

The three students will be recognized on Saturday, Nov. 10, at the 13th annual McCarthey Family Foundation Lecture at 7 p.m. at Rowland Hall in Salt Lake City. Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, co-hosts of “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, will discuss “Press, Politics, and the Midterms.”

The lecture is free and open to the public, and the winning essays will be printed in the evening’s program.

The essay contest expanded beyond just college students this year to encourage younger writers to consider the importance of the freedom of the press, at a time when journalists are accused of being part of a “fake press” and “enemies of the people,” said Philip G. McCarthey, a foundation trustee, in a statement.

“The quality of writing and thoughtfulness of the essays surpassed our expectations and confirmed our rationale for the competition,” he noted.

More than 400 essays were submitted, and the jurors did not know the writers’ identities as they evaluated the essays.

Chien’s essay focused on the watchdog role of the press: “The First Amendment was created as a means for citizens to hold the government accountable for its actions. The transparency that journalism provides acts as the light that keeps democracy alive.”

Thornley’s essay also explored how democracy and a free press are, he wrote, “inseparably bound, the one nurtures the other.”

With a nod to Theodore Roosevelt’s call for “relentless exposure” of evil men and evil practices, Thornley wrote: “It is the role of this ‘relentless exposure’ that is key: the public cannot be offended by that which it cannot see. The electorate of democratic societies cannot stamp out evil if that evil is never brought to light.”

Jurors included Sarah McCarthey and Tommy McCarthey; Deseret News reporter and columnist Lois Collins; Mary Dickson, director of community relations at KUED Channel 7; Nancy Melich, former theater critic at The Salt Lake Tribune; Lex Hemphill, former Tribune sportswriter, columnist and editorial writer; and Terry Orme, former editor and publisher of The Tribune.

Finalists

• Grades 6-8: Aiden Gandhi, Rowland Hall; Avery Taylor, Lehi Junior High; Sam Gustafson, St. Vincent de Paul Catholic School.

• Grades 9-12: Gwendolyn Orme and Kalson Yussuf, both from Judge Memorial Catholic High School; Katy Dark, Rowland Hall.

• University/college: Don J. Thorpe, Salt Lake Community College; Madeline Brague and Vasiliki Karahalios, both from University of Utah.

Former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney is stumping for fellow Republican candidates as he sails toward a likely victory Tuesday in the race for a U.S. Senate seat from Utah and a return to public office.

While he’s largely avoided direct criticism of President Donald Trump since a scathing speech in 2016, Romney has said he would speak out on significant issues. On Thursday, he took issue with Trump’s characterization of the media as an “enemy of the people,” saying that a free press is essential to the “cause of freedom.”

The online essay was published in the final days before an election when Romney is knocking on doors and joining phone banks for local, state and congressional races in his adopted home state.

The next evening, he read scary stories to children at a corn maze in Lehi.

He and his wife, Ann, sat around a small bonfire with more than 100 children and adults. Mitt Romney also judged a pumpkin pie-eating contest at Cornbelly’s Corn Maze and Pumpkin Fest.

Romney has crossed state lines in recent weeks to stump for Republican candidate Martha McSally in Arizona, where she’s locked in a tight race for the Senate seat left open by Jeff Flake’s decision not to run again.

Romney has also helped with fundraising for Nevada Sen. Dean Heller’s tight re-election campaign and Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s run for the Senate.

Romney’s opponent, Democrat Jenny Wilson, also is working the phones and canvassing for her party’s slate. She has criticized Romney’s Arizona appearance as evidence that he’s more focused on national politics.

Romney’s camp points to his meetings and campaign appearances with dozens of Utah officials. It’s part of his effort to get out the vote and promote down-ballot candidates, said spokeswoman MJ Henshaw.

The two are vying for the Senate seat to replace Orrin Hatch, who is retiring from the Senate after four decades. The outgoing Republican helped persuade Romney to run. Romney appears to be a shoo-in for the seat in the conservative state that hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1977.

Wilson is a member of the Salt Lake County Council and has a political pedigree as the daughter of a former mayor there.

Romney is one of the most well-known faces in the state since running as the first Latter-day Saint presidential nominee of a major political party in 2012, as well as his work leading the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

He moved to Utah full time after his presidential loss to Barack Obama. While criticism of Trump has been a political liability for Republicans elsewhere, Romney is able to speak out because many voters are wary of Trump’s bombastic style and comments about women and immigrants.

Arguing his high political profile would be a boon to Utah, Romney easily dispatched a rival Republican state lawmaker who forced him into a June primary. He fulfilled a campaign promise to release his tax returns last week, showing he and his wife had a combined gross income of $22.3 million last year.

Washington - Let’s use this year’s elections to insist that there is still a “we” in our country. It is a “we” that crosses the lines of race and gender, country of origin and religion. “We” is the very first word of our Constitution. Declaring that it is still alive is essential to keeping our democratic republic.

As a nation, we are not as divided as we seem to be. And we do not have to be as divided as we are. Paradoxically, the best way to begin bringing us back together is to divide government in Washington by giving Democrats control of the House of Representatives and (admittedly a longer shot) the Senate.

An avalanche against President Trump and his party would be a shout from Americans who have had it with an approach to politics that depends for its success upon misdirection, division, hatred and fear.

The best indication that we are closer to each other than mounds of data to the contrary might suggest is the desperate nature of Trump’s demagogic campaigning in the twilight of this bitter struggle. Why has he invented a border crisis and unpatriotically deployed our military for purely partisan purposes? Because he has had to conjure anxieties most Americans are not feeling.

Day after day, he has ratcheted up his rhetoric and told lie after lie because nothing he has done in office has brought the country to his side. His best approval ratings have consistently shown that a majority is against him. His worst approval ratings show that majority to be overwhelming.

Even among his supporters, many know that there is something badly defective about his approach to leadership. A PRRI poll released last week found that 69 percent of Americans see Trump as having damaged the dignity of the presidency. The same proportion said they would like it if his speech and behavior were more consistent with the conduct of other presidents. On that question, 57 percent of Republicans agreed.

Further evidence that we are more united than we imagine is the extent to which conservative Republicans lack the courage of their convictions. They are not even trying to make a case for their worldview because they know that most of us reject right-wing positions on taxes, health care and regulation.

Republicans know they have failed to persuade Americans that Obamacare should be repealed. So they falsely pretend that they would protect the insurance coverage of those with pre-existing conditions.

Their one major legislative achievement, a huge corporate tax cut, has gained no traction with voters outside the boardroom. So the GOP is hoping that the president's incendiary rhetoric encourages everyone to overlook how its greatest exertions have left those whom Trump called the "forgotten" feeling as forgotten as ever.

What has long been true is still true: We have a healthy mistrust of government but still count on it to make our lives better. We know that in many spheres, the market alone will not guard us from hazard. We also know it won't invest in the public goods essential for all of us to thrive.

Notice what is happening in the key industrial states that swung Trump's way in 2016. Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin appear on their way to robust victories.

As for governorships, Democrats will hold Pennsylvania's and have decent shots in Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, all of which are now held by the GOP. Many of the blue-collar voters who backed Trump two years ago in protest were never taken by his extreme selfishness or his relentless immigrant-baiting. They are poised to send him a message.

And could there be any better response to Trump’s racial demagoguery than electing two new African-American governors, Stacey Abrams in Georgia and Andrew Gillum in Florida? Both are Democratic standouts this year and the fact that their contests are so close tells us that Trumpism is not our future.

The signal here, amidst all the noise that Trump is generating, is that Americans yearn for a very different style of politics. But their plea will only get through loud and clear if they vote in large numbers to say that we will not allow Trump and his party build virtual political walls in the heart of our nation, separating us by our backgrounds, our races or our faith.

Through our ballots, we can send forth a forceful and joyous "we." It's our right. It's also our obligation.

E.J. Dionne’s email address is ejdionne@washpost.com. Twitter: @EJDionne.

Sandy • Real Salt Lake looked like a different team than the one that stunned Los Angeles Football Club just three days ago.

It kept more possession, at times appearing to purposely keep the ball for a beat or two before passing. It mustered more shots in the first half (five) than it did in the entire game against LAFC (four).

That translated to a different result for RSL, which played to a 1-1 draw with Sporting Kansas City on Thursday in the first left of the Western Conference semifinals on Sunday at Rio Tinto Stadium. The second leg will be in Kansas City next Sunday.

Sandy

Regardless of how disappointing Real Salt Lake’s playoff draw with Western Conference rival Sporting Kansas City was late Sunday night at Rio Tinto Stadium — the final count: RSL 1, Sporting 1 — there were reasons the game was worth watching, two in particular.

1) Kyle Beckerman, and 2) Nick Rimando.

For a young RSL outfit, other players might have been more impactful on this occasion, but none has had a bigger impact for RSL. Especially interesting here was the fact that SKC has struggled of late against the two vets. Over the previous 12 RSL-SKC games, Sporting was a mere 1-6-5, including six consecutive league games at Rio Tinto without a victory.

Make it 1-6-6 and seven now. Still, RSL gave up a weighted road goal to SKC, as the teams head for Kansas City.

Back to Kyle and Nick, here’s the thing: Who knows how much longer these old guys/RSL icons will continue playing, how many more playoff games they’ll suit up for? Their excellence might not be everything it once was, and this is the cruel world of professional sports, not anybody’s continuing sentimental toast to past glory. But in these two cases, you have to wonder what RSL would be and would have been without them.

Not what it is and not what it was.

Watching them now, in the twilight of their careers, in the West’s semifinals at Rio Tinto, is like watching great performers sing their last few songs, like watching Sinatra at The Sands, like Springsteen at The Stone Pony, and it’s more than worth the time, the attention and the appreciation to give.

Nicholas Paul Rimando is 39 years old. Kyle Robert Beckerman is 36.

Rimando has played in 382 games for RSL. Beckerman 373. They are the only two players to have competed in every MLS Cup playoff game for which RSL has qualified, every minute.

Rimando is the best goalkeeper in MLS history. Given the man’s dimensions — 5-foot-9, 184 pounds — that assertion is that much more remarkable. Many keepers are built like an octopus. Rimando is built like a Cattle dog. But his command of the box, his shot-stopping have combined to boost him to the top of MLS’ all-time keeper list.

On Sunday night, Rimando made diving saves, tipped rising shots over the crossbar, stopped bang-bang SKC rockets in the second half, but couldn’t prevent one SKC goal.

Beckerman, with or without the dreads, has been the face of the franchise pretty much since RSL acquired him in a trade in July, 2007. Every season, he’s the team’s leader, its heart and soul, having anchored the club throughout. He’s not the equal of his past, but he remains the primary connection between Real and its fans.

On Sunday night, Beckerman steadied the attack, chipped a would-be assist that wasn’t finished, played technical defense … did what Beckerman does.

And so it is that the dynamic duo will plow through what’s left of their careers, straight through to sundown. Nobody knows how much longer they will ply their trades. Not even themselves.

That’s why seeing them on the pitch together in a meaningful playoff setting on Sunday night at Rio Tinto, where their legends were made, now with or without success, was memorable.

Real already has surprised, lasting as long as they have in this postseason, prompting coach Mike Petke to proclaim after Thursday night’s win over favored Los Angeles FC: “You’ve got to love sports.”

You’ve got to love the people who play sports.

Beating LAFC was a big deal. Now, having completed the first of two legs against Sporting KC, awaiting the aggregate score after the second leg to move on or to close down the season, it’s worth underscoring what everybody knows: Even with the emergence of the club’s young players, appreciation for RSL’s longtime mainstays is fitting and proper.

Win or lose, these guys have earned it.

GORDON MONSON hosts “The Big Show” with Jake Scott weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on 97.5 FM and 1280 AM The Zone.

Top Workplaces outperform average organizations on many levels, but one key distinction stands out: Leaders of Top Workplaces see the competitive advantage of creating a workplace culture in which employees are highly engaged.

And they make culture a strategic priority, day in and day out.

Every organization has a culture. Some are intentional, some accidental. Companies that claim culture as a priority but don’t back it up are just fooling themselves. Failing to focus on culture is how leaders lose their jobs and how companies cease to exist.

In fact, culture is the only remaining sustainable competitive advantage. Great business strategies can be copied, but culture cannot. When an organization’s culture fails, it’s only a matter of time before it becomes public and costly.

Nationwide, less than a third of employees are truly engaged at work. But it’s a different story at Top Workplaces. Of the 50,000 organizations Energage has surveyed in more than a decade, Top Workplaces achieve almost double the engagement rate. Companies that score in the top 10 percent on our surveys see engagement levels above 85 percent.

Of the 125 companies surveyed in Utah this year for the Top Workplaces program, 13 had engagement rates of 75 percent or higher.

Recognition and bragging rights aside, employee engagement translates into stronger retention, higher productivity and better performance. Employee engagement is the outcome of a healthy workplace culture. In today’s business environment, culture distinguishes the world’s most valuable companies. It’s where value is created or destroyed.

Leaders at Top Workplaces are intentional about defining and crafting a culture that directly supports specific business goals. Not that all cultures are the same. Even among Top Workplaces, some thrive on high energy and fun, while others benefit from quiet intensity. So ask yourself:

• What defines your workplace culture?
• How do you know?
• Are you happy with it?  
• Is it helping or hindering your business objectives?

Whenever I ask leaders these questions, the answers spur terrific discussions. The challenge is understanding how to measure culture and how to change it.

The most tangible measure of culture is employee engagement. Great workplace cultures flourish when a team of talented people shares an organization’s values and embraces its objectives. We look at these key factors in engagement:

• As an employee, do you feel you are giving your best?
• Do you want to stay?
• Would you recommend the organization to others?

Strong cultures become self-sustaining: They attract like-minded people who will thrive in that environment. That’s why Top Workplaces can be picky about whom they bring onboard, whereas other organizations have to pay more money to keep people.

Creating a great workplace culture requires raising the level of trust and connection among employees so they commit their best every day. Top Workplaces do this, and they do it consistently well. So when leaders at aspiring organizations ask me how they, too, can capture this advantage, my answer is this: Get intentional about workplace culture.

Doug Claffey is the CEO of Energage, a Philadelphia-based research and consulting firm that surveyed more than 2.5 million employees at more than 6,000 organizations in 2017. Energage is the research partner for Top Workplaces.

For the fifth straight year, The Salt Lake Tribune has partnered with Energage Utah’s Top Workplaces.

To see the 2018 list, click here.

On the road to success, organizations need to know where they are. That’s the motivation behind the annual Top Workplaces survey, which gives employees the chance to rate their workplace.

“Becoming a Top Workplace isn’t something organizations can buy,” said Doug Claffey, CEO of Energage. “It’s an achievement organizations have to work for.”

For the fifth year, The Salt Lake Tribune has partnered with Philadelphia-based Energage, an employee research and culture technology firm, to determine Utah’s Top Workplaces based solely on employee survey feedback.

Starting in March, The Tribune welcomed anyone to nominate companies as Top Workplaces. In all, 723 employers in the state were invited to take the employee survey. Any employer was eligible, as long as it had at least 35 workers in Utah. Employers could be public, private, nonprofit or governmental. There is no cost to enter the Top Workplaces program.

In all, 125 organizations agreed to take the survey. Combined, they employ 38,789 people in Utah. Of those employees who received questionnaires, 22,686 responded, either on paper or online. For 2018, 85 Utah employers scored well enough to earn recognition on the Top Workplaces list.

The employee survey gathers responses on 24 factors covering seven areas, including organizational health factors that measure how well employees are working together toward a common cause:

• <b>Alignment </b>— Where the company is headed, its values, cooperation.
• <b>Effectiveness</b> — Doing things well, sharing different viewpoints, encouraging new ideas.
• <b>Connection</b> — Employees feel appreciated, their work is meaningful.
• <b>My manager</b> — Supervisor cares about concerns, helps employees learn and grow.&nbsp;

In addition, the survey asks employees about other factors:

• <b>Employee engagement </b>— Motivation, retention and referral.
• <b>Leader </b>— Confidence in company leadership.
• <b>The basics</b> — Pay, benefits, flexibility, training, expectations.

Statements relating to “Connection” and “Alignment” are consistently judged most important to employees, while remarks about pay and benefits rate least important for workplace satisfaction.

Smaller employers tend to score higher than midsize employers, and midsize employers tend to score higher than large employers. Employers are ranked among groups of similar size to most accurately compare results. Within those size groupings, companies are ranked, and those that score high enough are recognized as Top Workplaces. Energage also determines special award winners based on standout scores on specific areas of the survey.

Why aren’t some companies on the list? Perhaps they chose not to participate or did not score high enough based on the survey results. To ensure organizations are accurately administering the survey, Energage runs statistical tests to look for questionable results. Sometimes, it disqualifies employers based on those tests.

To see the 2018 list, click here.

To participate in the 2019 program, go to www.sltrib.com/nominate.

Bob Helbig is the media partnerships director for Energage.

While racially charged rhetoric is nothing new for this president, last week marked a new low with President Trump’s push to end birthright citizenship and the outright racist political ad currently promoted on the president’s Twitter feed.

Trump began by claiming the U.S. is the only country with birthright citizenship. Wrong. More than 30 countries grant it, many of which are in the Americas. And there’s a history here that escapes Trump and his supporters: As the Americas were colonized by Europeans, birthright citizenship is how those first generations claimed their stake in the New World.

Trump and his supporters now want to cast birthright citizenship as a loophole of sorts whereby immigrants cheat their way to gaining citizenship for their children. This is truly and historically un-American.

Regardless of Trump’s claim that he can repeal the 14th Amendment with an executive order, the simple fact is he cannot. We’ve seen the brain trust behind Trump’s legal team and I’m not worried about the legal fight should Trump attempt such an executive order. I am concerned that this man took an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and is apparently willing to throw out its most basic protections.

Most concerning is that I don’t believe Trump will ever issue such an executive order.

This is a ruse to win an election. The timing here is too obvious. A week to go in the midterm elections, the GOP down and in terrible field position, and now this Hail Mary pass. The hope is that this red meat will motivate certain people to the polls. Now, let’s be honest here: Nobody’s talking about white or European immigrants in this conversation. The birthright citizenship debate is not about immigration policy, it’s about race.

More evidence can be found by watching the political ad currently pinned to the top of Trump’s twitter feed. The ad is largely composed of courtroom footage of Luis Bracamontes, a previously deported Mexican drug dealer who re-entered the U.S. and killed two California deputies, alongside selective clips of the migrant caravan forcing its way through the Mexican border. The narrative and the effect of the ad build on each other to say Democrats let this Mexican killer into the country and now want to let in lawless hordes of brown people who must all be murderers, rapists, drug dealers, and gang members.

This ad, like the hollow campaign promise to end birthright citizenship, appeals only to those who have xenophobic and racist fears about immigrants and brown people. That’s Trump’s target audience and the brand he’s selling is one of fear, hatred and racism. This is no longer a debate about immigration policy where reasonable people can disagree on the number of visas issued, the nature of our border security, the efficacy of a wall, how to address economic push and pull factors, and what to do with the 11 million undocumented living here. When the talking points are about invaders and anchor babies, the path has been set to dehumanize immigrants. That’s a racist agenda.

Rather than seeking to raise the level of civility in our political discourse, Trump is stirring up the muck that lurks at the bottom of our society. So what does it say when Trump plays to his racist supporters in the final days of a campaign? Hopefully, that the rest of the country is moving forward and that these racists are the only ones left that are actually buying what Trump is selling.

Richard Jaramillo serves as president of UCLR | Utah Coalition of La Raza, a Utah nonprofit focused on advancing the rights and opportunities for Utah’s Latino community.

Utah Senate President Wayne Niederhauser says Prop 4 isn't about creating better boundaries, "just better boundaries for Democrats.”

Why are we getting all that national money? Sixty-nine percent of pro-Prop 4 money this election cycle came from out of state.

But let's look at Niederhauser's record. He serves on the board of ALEC, a national group of state legislators allied with big corporations. Ninety-nine percent of ALEC’s funding comes from corporations and foundations, including Altria (tobacco), the Koch Brothers (fossil fuels), Wal-Mart, Exxon, Peabody Energy (coal), GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer and PhRMA (pharmaceuticals). Lobbyists for these groups write model legislation to favor corporate interests and give the suggested bills to ALEC's members to present to their states.

ALEC aside, let's look at Niederhauser's campaign contributions. Vote Smart lists his 2014 out-of-state contributions as $122,690.48, with Altria giving $10,000 and PhRMA $4,000.

Niederhauser has no problem accepting out-of-state contributions or partnering with corporations that craft legislation. He only has a problem with out-of-state contributors working to end gerrymandering. He wants officer holders to choose their voters, which is backward. Gerrymandering harms American democracy in blue states (Maryland) and red states (Utah). It’s contributed to our dismal voter turnout. Prop 4 enjoys bipartisan support. Vote yes on Prop. 4.

Rochelle Kaplan, Cottonwood Heights

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Born in Garfield County on his grandfather’s birthday 87 years ago, James Robert Ott was named after the patriarch who was among the first to homestead near the Utah settlement of Cannonville, where the family continues to run cattle just north of what would become Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

Ott, who goes by Bob, bought an old sheep permit on state trust lands on 519 acres at a place called Yellow Creek abutting his property, just south of his Garfield County town under Bryce Canyon’s pink cliffs. The Otts converted the permit to cattle and have kept their herds there ever since.

But much to the dismay of Garfield County leaders, the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA), a land-management agency that prioritizes raising revenue for public education above all other considerations, last month canceled the Otts' grazing permit.

After 50 years of grazing this land, Ott has 90 days to clear his animals, fencing and other improvements off two parcels, which sold Oct. 24 at auction for the princely sum of $774,000 to a nonrancher.

“We don’t want to buy that property. You can’t develop it. You can’t raise crops on it. It’s too hilly,” Ott said. “School trust lands are a bit of a thorn in our side. It bothers us we have a lease, and the next thing we know, they sell it.”

Ranchers consider their grazing allotments on federal land a property right that cannot be revoked without just cause. But trust lands are a different creature, managed not for multiple use or public enjoyment but rather to maximize revenue for schools.

As southern Utah’s scenic lands become more valuable, SITLA has increasingly looked beyond grazing on its holdings that are rich in beauty. Sometimes they are sold to the highest bidder; other times they are developed or tapped for minerals.

The agency’s aggressive development posture has often angered environmentalists, tribes and neighboring property owners. But its willingness to evict longtime ranchers is now alienating conservative rural leaders who have long championed SITLA as a driver of economic development.

Garfield County Commissioner Leland Pollock sees sales and development that displace ranchers as an existential threat to rural Utah’s culture and heritage.

“Just 3.5 percent of [Garfield] County is private land. You have to have federal and state lands to graze on. We absolutely have to have it,” Pollock said. “We consider SITLA public lands. These lands were zoned [for agriculture] when we started having trouble with [federal] agencies putting restrictions on grazing.”

More than 90 percent of Utah’s 3 million acres of trust lands are grazed — just as the state’s public lands outside of national parks are available for grazing. As a revenue source, however, grazing barely registers, and trust lands managers say they must look elsewhere to meet their fiduciary obligations.

“While grazing is important, we simply cannot let it take precedence over all economic opportunities that present themselves,” SITLA Deputy Director Kim Christy wrote in an email. “SITLA takes seriously its relationship with that industry. However, [fiscal year] 2018 cash proceeds from grazing yielded $1.332 million to the trust, while all revenue-generating programs combined generated $70.87 million.”

The Yellow Creek parcels netted SITLA just $128 a year. It would take more than 6,000 years of grazing to match what St. George-based sculptor Lyman Whitaker paid for this land at auction.

Pollock has been a leading voice in Utah’s fight to take ownership of federal land, but he has now become disenchanted with the state’s trust lands administration, led by Kamas rancher and retired lawmaker David Ure.

“SITLA has more lawyers than the federal government,” Pollock said. “If you go up against SITLA, you are going to have some serious muscle come back on you. If something doesn’t happen, we are going to have a mess on our hands.”

While Gov. Gary Herbert has complained about some SITLA oil and gas leases in the past, he sides with Ure in the Garfield controversy.

“SITLA has a very important responsibility and we support that. We think generally this shouldn’t be seen as a zero-sum game,” said the governor’s spokesman Paul Edwards. “When SITLA is seeking to get a decent return on their lands, that should support the local economy in an important way, whether or not that is the traditional use."

Under reforms implemented in 1994 that ended decades of self-dealing and sweetheart deals, SITLA is overseen by an independent board credited with building up the school trust from almost nothing to more than $2 billion.

The governor has a representative on the board, but he is not interested in “micromanaging” the agency and selecting winners and losers, according to Edwards. “There is a market that is giving strong signals as to what economic activity is valued by consumers."

While southern Utah is known for ranching, these arid lands are not well-suited for sustaining cattle lines bred for Northern Europe’s damp climates. It can take hundreds of acres to provide forage for a single animal.

All of SITLA’s Garfield County holdings support 8,720 animal-unit months, or AUMs, each representing the forage consumed by a cow-calf pair in a month, according to Christy. Grazing there nets the agency $48,131 annual, hardly enough to cover a single teacher’s salary and benefits.

Furthering the county’s ire, SITLA recently canceled a grazing permit on trust lands near Bullfrog, where developers propose a fancy tent resort for “glamping,” an expression combining the words camping and glamour.

Citing the importance of livestock to Garfield’s way of life and social fabric, county leaders responded by passing a resolution in August to “use any and all legal means at its disposal” to preserve grazing on state trust lands. For good measure, county commissioners also imposed a six-month moratorium on any new glamping operations.

They also proposed an ordinance that would ostensibly obligate property owners to accommodate historic cattle operations.

The draft ordinance would require “any and all privately owned incorporated land” to be used “for livestock grazing purposes only.” The language alarmed many property owners, but Pollock said it is intended to target SITLA rangelands that the agency sells.

“It was written to hold up in court, not to regulate private property,” Pollock said. The idea would be to ensure such land would remain available for grazing, but last month the commission tabled the ordinance in the face of opposition.

The commission’s moves risk fettering Garfield County to an industry that is losing economic relevance and undermine trust lands’ legal obligations, according to SITLA bosses

The proposed resort, named after the nearby community of Ticaboo, sits just a few miles from Lake Powell’s Bullfrog Marina. It represents $200 million in investment, complementing the governor’s economic development initiative to create 25,000 new jobs in rural Utah, Christy said. The project could bring $26 million into the school trust. In contrast, that parcel supports just 24 AUMs, netting about $140 a year from grazing.

“It is ironic that [Pollock] opposes an opportunity to see lands privatized, as well as being added to the county tax rolls,” Christy said. He stressed SITLA goes out of its way to maintain strong, cooperative relationships with county leadership and residents.

“With thousands of leases in nearly every county of the state, these types of disagreements over development will occur,” he added, “but we have made, and will continue to make, every effort to seek and implement reasonable resolutions to these types of conflicts.”

As for Bob Ott, he said his family members are in no immediate danger of going out of business since they hold federal allotments and private leases elsewhere. But removing the fencing, squeeze chutes, hay and feet lot off the former trust lands will be a burden.

“I sure would like to talk to the fellow who bought it. We would like to work with him and pay a yearly fee until he decides what to do,” Ott said. “We plan on taking care of the next generation, and we would like to take care of this land. We raise beef, and it would mean a lot if we could maintain control.”

Four years ago, in what now seems like a picture-perfect forecast, Fraser Bullock called Salt Lake City and Utah “the poster child for what should happen after an Olympics.” The onetime chief operating officer for the 2002 Salt Lake Olympic Committee wasn’t wrong then. And, four years later, that hasn’t changed.

Salt Lake City is, by all logical standards, the front-runner for another Winter Games bid by the United States Olympic Committee set to be announced by year’s end. That is due largely to everything that’s happened since the Olympic cauldron was extinguished inside Rice-Eccles Stadium over 16 years ago. While the Olympiad bounced around from continent to continent in the decade-plus since Utah first welcomed the world, the city and state have taken calculated steps to keep their name in the conversation.

The venues where top winter athletes won gold, silver or bronze are not a shell of their former selves like several sports sites around the globe. No, the bobsled and skeleton track at the Utah Olympic Park near Park City is still humming, the cross-country course in Midway is still replete with jagged track courses knifing through the Wasatch Back, and the Utah Olympic Oval in Kearns remains one of the annual stops for several speedskating World Cup events. Of course, the Olympics have ballooned since 2002, as well. There were 24 more medal events in Pyeongchang, South Korea (102 in total) this winter than during Salt Lake City’s Games.

If the USOC once again picks Utah’s capital as its bid city in what the organization continues to call a “future Games,” not tied yet to any specific cycle, would the International Olympic Committee have a hard time passing on the infrastructure and vibrant Olympic legacy already in place?

“In Salt Lake, you do tend to have a very positive view of the Olympic Games and a fair number of people who look at the Olympic experience and say, ‘Yes, this is something that we would like to do again,’” said Matthew Burbank, an associate professor of political science at the University of Utah, who studies urban policy and the Olympics. “That’s something that some cities were just never going to do again. In many other places, there isn’t that sort of broad-level spread of support.”

The advantages

While other potential bid cities around the globe are saddled with internal strife regarding whether spending several billion dollars for an Olympics would be beneficial, the new Salt Lake City brain trust is simply awaiting its turn to prove what it says could be one of the most economically run Games ever.

In the first meeting between the new Salt Lake Executive Committee for the Games and the Salt Lake Olympic and Paralympic Exploratory Committee (OEC) on Tuesday afternoon, Bullock, now a co-chairman of the OEC, said he’s seen absurdly high estimates some cities say putting on a Winter Olympics would cost. An OEC report stated that an Olympic return to Utah would cost less in the future, at $1.29 billion, than it did in 2002, at $1.389 billion.

The 2002 Salt Lake Olympic Committee brought in more than $1.5 billion in revenue, and reports from earlier this year indicate that a future Games would bring in more than $1 billion through various revenue platforms like broadcasting, ticketing, merchandising and other streams deemed “high-confidence.” The $292 million gap to simply break even, budget analysts have said, must be made up through Utah-based sponsorships and donations.

Bullock also said the IOC wants to change the way cities bid to avoid shelling out millions and millions in what eventually becomes unnecessary cash spent if the bid goes to another finalist. Chicago’s failed bid for the 2016 Games is still impacting its residents a decade later. According to a report from the Chicago Tribune, the city still remains on the hook for $140 million in principal and interest on purchase of property for what would’ve been the Olympic athletes village.

“It’s actually better for us to know that we’re the choice when the opportunity comes,” said Utah Senate President Wayne Niederhauser, R-Sandy. “I think it will be less expensive for everybody, for the benefit of everybody. If we’re chosen, Denver’s not going to be spending a ton of money now, and Reno’s not going to be spending a ton of money now.”

Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski, a co-chair with Niederhauser of the newly formed executive committee, said the fact her city could stage a financially responsible Games benefits everyone, especially Utahns.

“We don’t have these high costs looming over our heads,” she said. “We are well-positioned to show the world how to have a sustainable Games, how to make sure that as you become an Olympic city, that you do your part to maintain your venues, so that you have a sustainable future in the world of Olympics.”

Burbank said he’s noticed a trend worldwide in recent years in which opposition to Olympic bids runs deeper than in year’s past. Now more than ever, cities and governments are bucking bids for fiscal reasons, taking the long view instead of falling for the romanticism of showcasing a city, state or country at the expense of more important needs elsewhere.

“They’re very demanding, and, over time, they’ve just become more so,” Burbank said of hosting an Olympics.

Local support

Since launching the OEC last October, opposition to a potential second run at an Olympics hasn’t been heard all that loudly. Committee officials are convinced that, 16 years after Utah made a historic impression on the world, they could do it again, this time with a much larger, more diverse population. The Olympics, after all, are part of the reason why Utah grew in the aftermath of the Games.

Burbank warns that it might not be as warmly received as 2002.

“The second time around, it’s not as clear if you’ll be able to sustain that support in the same way,” he said. “I think that does change the dynamic.”

But the 2002 Games is why several Olympians and hopeful future Olympians eventually relocated to Utah full time — to train, to live, to keep the pursuit of the Olympic dream alive and well. A recent poll said 83 percent of Utahns would support another Olympics in the Beehive State a few months after 89 percent voiced their backing. Biskupski said the public support stems from so much of the community being involved firsthand in the 2002 Games as volunteers or as spectators — or both.

Biskupski said the USOC will soon conduct its own independent poll to collect data to compare with various in-state polls taken in the past year that show Utah would overwhelmingly support another go. It helps, too, that young fans of the 2002 Games are now at the forefront of the U.S. Olympic team. Several Utahns who might’ve been too young to remember the Games in Utah were part of Team USA in South Korea in February.

Four years ago, Bullock said: “All along, what we wanted to do is put on our Games, have a lasting, enduring long-term legacy that would allow our children to participate in these great sports, and get out there and be active and have these great venues with the potential hope we would host again someday.”

The stars might be aligning for Salt Lake City for an encore. The ongoing $3.6 billion rebuild of the Salt Lake City International Airport is in full swing. The proximity of the airport to the city and venues, Niederhauser explained, is crucial.

“Several Olympic associations are headquartered here, and we’re compact,” he said. “The airport is very close to the city. The housing is very close to the city. And in this very compact area, we have transit. We’ve invested in our roads. ... We have that more robust infrastructure [to offer].”

The USOC is scheduled to decide on its domestic bid city by year’s end. Will this long game Salt Lake City has been playing since the city first lit the fire within in 2002 pay off? Burbank said the IOC, without outrightly voicing it, prefers a place like Salt Lake City where venues, housing and transportation would be tightly clustered, where important pieces are already firmly in place.

“We all can be proud,” Jeff Robbins, CEO of the Utah Sports Commission and co-chairman of the OEC, told the respective committees Tuesday. “There’s nobody doing what we’ve done. It’s a team effort. The only way you win is if you’re a good team.”

Many House Republicans initially welcomed President Donald Trump’s talk about the migrant caravan and border security, hoping it would fire up the GOP base in some at-risk, Republican-held districts. But now, they’re worried Trump’s obsession with all things immigration went overboard and will exacerbate their losses in the chamber. “Trump has hijacked the election,” said one senior House Republican aide of Trump’s focus on immigration. “This is not what we expected the final weeks of the election to focus on.” [Politico]

Happy Monday.

Topping the news: North Ogden Mayor Brent Taylor, who was temporarily on hiatus from his elected position for a deployment to Afghanistan, was killed during an apparent insider attack in Kabul on Saturday, leaving behind his wife and seven children. [Trib] [DNews] [Fox13] [KUTV] [ABC4]

-> The Republican candidate for Salt Lake County Clerk has filed a lawsuit against her Democratic opponent and boss, contending that an unknown number of by-mail ballots did not made it to residents in a timely manner. [Trib] [DNews] [Fox13]

-> With a long list of candidates, judges, tax increases, amendments and propositions, here’s what to expect on your 2018 ballot. [Trib]

Tweets of the day: From @dubbucket07: “I am ready to swear my life-long allegiance to any party that makes abolishing “daylight saving time” part of its platform. #utpol @UtahGOP @UtahDemocrats @YDUtah”

-> From @elforesto: “Fun fact: youth voter turnout rates are lower in presidential election years than for voters 45+ years old in midterms. This is why nobody listens to you young people spreading memes on Tumblr. Want a voice? Actually show up. #utpol”

In other news: An unaffiliated candidate for the Utah House is suing to change the wording on ballots about independent or unaffiliated candidates, which she alleges is biased to make them seem unfit for office. [Trib] [Fox13]

-> Statistics show numbers of homeless veterans in the state have increased slightly, despite efforts in Utah to ensure that all military veterans would have a place to live. [Trib]

-> The Utah County Commission is suing Gov. Gary Herbert, who has not appointed any of its nominees to the new Utah Transit Authority board. The commission alleges that state law says he has to select from their initial pool of names. [Trib]

-> The Utah Supreme Court still hasn’t decided if Holladay voters can decide the fate of a massive planned housing, office tower and retail project at the old Cottonwood Mall site — meaning voters will likely weigh in on a ballot initiative to overturn the city’s approval without knowing for sure if their votes will be counted or mean anything. [Trib]

-> James Singer, the Democratic candidate for Utah’s 3rd Congressional District, has been cited by the Federal Elections Commission for failing to file a financial disclosure report by a federally mandated deadline. [Trib]

-> Legendary Utahn and political pollster Dan Jones died Friday at age 84 after a prolonged illness. [Trib] [DNews] [ABC4]

-> Draper’s City Council voted to begin the process of restricting future mining on the Draper side of the Point of the Mountain following a number of complaints from residents concerned about air quality. [Trib]

-> Actors Jennifer Lawrence and Ed Helms are starring in newly-released videos that urge Utahns to vote for Prop 4, an anti-gerrymandering initiative. [Trib]

-> The Utah Department of Transportation estimates that up to one third of drivers in the carpool lane aren’t supposed to be there, so it’s funding quarterly “blitzes” to have Highway Patrol troopers monitor the express lane and catch violators. [Trib]

-> Tribune columnist Robert Gehrke argues for more transparency in the prison system after multiple inmates have died from treatable medical problems. [Trib]

-> Pat Bagley illustrated how propaganda can promote fear and hate to divide the country. [Trib]

-> LaVarr Webb and Frank Pignanelli hedge their bets for Tuesday’s elections, but look at national demographic changes and the circumstances that drive turnout to make their predictions. [DNews]

Nationally: The Trump administration announced it is planning to reinstate sanctions on Iran on Monday that had previously been removed under the 2015 nuclear deal. [BBC] [Fox] [WSJ]

-> Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping talked trade on Thursday, and the president said the talks went very well — but the suddenly soothing tone might be motivated by a desire to ease fears in trade-dependent states in the U.S. ahead of the midterms. [NYTimes]

-> A lawsuit over the Trump administration’s efforts to add a new citizenship question to the U.S. Census goes to trial on Monday and could have profound consequences. Critics say the question could deter an estimated 630,000 households from filling out the form, preventing it from being an accurate measure for determining how hundreds of millions of federal dollars are spent and how political districts are mapped. [NYTimes]

-> Trump reversed his statements that the U.S. troops dispatched to the Mexico border could shoot at someone in the migrant caravan if the person threw rocks at them, saying he doesn’t want the military to actually shoot in response. [CNN]

Got a tip? A birthday, wedding or anniversary to announce? Send us a note to cornflakes@sltrib.com. And if you want Cornflakes to arrive in your email inbox each morning, subscribe here.

-- Taylor Stevens and Cara MacDonald

https://twitter.com/tstevensmedia and Twitter.com/carammacdonald

The U.S. Justice Department will send a watchdog to San Juan County on Tuesday to monitor polls in the rural southeast corner of Utah as it holds its first election under new boundaries meant to realign political influence there to those in the majority population: American Indians.

The announcement comes after months of tensions leading up to Election Day in the county, including accusations that the clerk’s office has purposely ignored the court-ordered redistricting, that hundreds of residents have received incorrect ballots and that a Navajo Democratic candidate wasn’t qualified to run for an open commission seat. Those issues have previously prompted the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah and the state elections office to pledge to send their own staff there to observe.

The county’s administrator, Kelly Pehrson, said Monday that he welcomed the oversight.

“San Juan County elections have been monitored by the DOJ for decades,” he said in a statement. “They have never found anything wrong with how San Juan County elections are administered.”

A federal judge ordered in December that the county conduct a special election under redrawn boundaries that give Navajos, who tend to affiliate as Democrats, a significant majority of voters in two of three commission districts and three of five school board seats. The decision was meant to reverse the historic political domination by whites there where the population is slightly more than half American Indian.

But it has worried Republicans, who for three decades have been the dominant political party in the county and are now looking at potentially losing their hold over it.

Wendy Black, a GOP candidate who lost her bid at convention to run for the commission seat in District 2, for instance, filed a complaint against Navajo Willie Grayeyes, who is running for the same spot and won the Democratic nomination. She alleged he didn’t live in Utah and therefore couldn’t run.

County officials, most of whom are Republican, then booted Grayeyes from the ballot, saying they, too, couldn’t find his home within the Utah portion of the Navajo reservation. But a federal judge ordered them to put his name back on in August, saying the county clerk likely backdated evidence in the case.

With Grayeyes’ name on the ballot, San Juan County faces the possibility that its commission will feature two Navajo Democrats — both prominent backers of the former Bears Ears National Monument there that President Donald Trump slashed into two smaller designations last year.

A group of Navajo plaintiffs lost a bid to reopen the redistricting case this summer after saying many on the reservation didn’t receive ballots or got incorrect ones. The judge said the county was working to implement the order but that it would take time. Tuesday’s election will serve as the test of that.

San Juan County is one of 35 jurisdictions spread over 19 states where the Justice Department will send monitors from its Civil Rights Division for Election Day. Those staffers will be available by telephone to receive complaints and can be reached at 1-800-253-3931. They will gather information, according to a news release, on whether voters are subjected to different qualifications or procedures based on “race, color or membership in a language minority group.” They also will watch for violations of language provisions — which in San Juan include providing Navajo translations of the ballot.

“Voting rights are constitutional rights, and they’re part of what it means to be an American,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement. “The Department of Justice has been entrusted with an indispensable role in securing these rights for the people of this nation."

Twelve years ago, coach Dave Rose’s BYU basketball team took on No. 5 UCLA in a highly anticipated season opener. The Cougars pushed the Bruins, who were led by Russell Westbrook, Nick Collison and Arron Afflalo, to the limit before fading late in an 82-69 loss.

For the first time since that memorable lid-lifter at famed Pauley Pavilion against a team that eventually made it to the Final Four, the Cougars will open a season against a preseason top-10 team. BYU meets Nevada, No. 7 in the AP Top 25 and No. 9 in the USA Today Coaches Poll, on Tuesday at 9 p.m. MT at Lawlor Events Center in Reno.

“You can’t ask for anything better,” said BYU star forward Yoeli Childs. “It is an unbelievable opportunity to go out and do what we think we can do, and [if] we can go out and get a win, that changes everything. Everybody looks at you differently.”

At least, the NCAA tournament selection committee will look at them differently, the Cougars hope. That’s why Rose set up the “Quadrant 1” game in the NCAA’s new classification system, hoping to take advantage of Nevada’s top 25 RPI and status as a program on the rise after the Wolf Pack made it to the Sweet 16 last March before falling by a point to Loyola Chicago, the tournament Cinderella.

Nevada will return the game in Provo within the next few seasons.

“This is obviously a Quadrant 1 game, on the road,” Rose said. “Those are hard to find, and it is a great opportunity for us. Hopefully we can go over there … and win the game. But we will learn a lot about ourselves and where we are. It is a very athletic team. It is a very big, long, quick team that has a lot of experience, a lot of returning guys.”

The risk is small. The reward could be great.

“We are going to really rely on our returning guys, but it will be interesting to me to see the new guys and some of the guys that didn’t have big roles last year, how they perform in this type of environment,” Rose said. “It is probably going to be a sellout, a packed house. Right out of the chutes it will be pretty interesting.”

And extremely difficult.

Nevada coach Eric Musselman’s team is a popular pick to make it to the Final Four, and expectations have never been higher at the Mountain West school. Twins Cody and Caleb Martin are back from a 29-8 team that won the regular-season conference title for the second-straight year. They tested the NBA draft waters but decided to return and chase an NCAA title, and Jordan Caroline is also a conference player of the year candidate.

Expectations heightened when the program added Jordan Brown, a 6-foot-11 McDonald’s Prep All-American from Roseville, Calif.

Nevada trailed San Francisco State 39-38 at halftime in an exhibition game last week, but outscored the visitors 47-21 in the second half. Caleb Martin led the way with 19 points, while Cody Martin had 15 and senior Tre’Shawn Thurman chipped in 15 off the bench. Graduate transfer Trey Porter had 14 points in 14 minutes.

“We’ve had some good success early in the year on the road,” Rose said. “Hopefully this is a team that can go over there and play well.”

Last 12 BYU Basketball Season Openers

2017 — at Princeton

2016 — Princeton

2015 — Utah Valley

2014 — Long Beach State

2013 — Weber State

2012 — Tennessee State

2011 — at Utah State

2010 — Fresno State

2009 — Bradley

2008 — Long Beach State

2007 — at Long Beach State

2006 — at No. 5 UCLA

BYU at No. 7 Nevada

At Lawlor Events Center, Reno, Nev.

Tipoff • Tuesday, 9 p.m. MST

TV • CBS Sportsn Network

Radio • KSL 1160 AM, 102.7 FM

Records • BYU 0-0, Nevada 0-0

Series history • BYU leads 13-6

Last meeting • BYU 76, Nevada 55 (Nov. 25, 2011)

About the Wolf Pack • They begin the season ranked No. 7 in the preseason AP poll, their highest ranking ever, and are a popular pick to make the Final Four after making it to the Sweet 16 last season. … Seniors Caleb and Cody Martin, twins, elected to return to Reno after testing the NBA draft waters last spring. Jordan Brown, a 6-foot-11 freshman who was a five-star recruit in some publications, is expected to start.

About the Cougars • Coach Dave Rose enters his 14th season having led them to 13-straight 20-win seasons and a postseason appearance (NCAA or NIT) in each of his previous 13 seasons. He is second all-time in BYU history in wins and first in winning percentage. … Junior F Yoeli Childs is a preseason All-WCC selection and averaged 17.8 points and 8.6 rebounds per game last year. … TJ Haws, Jahshire Hardnett, Zac Seljaas and Luke Worthington are expected to round out the starting five.

Ever since women's basketball practice started in September, any discussion of Utah's team has featured two distinct groups: the seniors and the freshmen.

The roster has a gap between those two classes, partly explained by two key freshmen having redshirted last season, an injury to a sophomore and some attrition as coach Lynne Roberts has established her program. Allowing for the contribution of junior guard Kiana Moore, the Utes will go as far as their seniors can take them in 2018-19 — with the freshmen needing to come along quickly, as Utah opens the season Wednesday at Nevada.

Now in her fourth season, Roberts arrived at Utah with credentials as a program builder. It took her three years to make Chico State a Division II power and six years to turn Pacific into a Big West contender. She would love to accelerate that timetable with the Utes, although breaking into the top four in this conference would be quite an achievement for the program, whenever that happens. The immediate question is whether the Utes can rise above eighth place, where they finished last year and where they're picked this season.

Roberts feels settled, and that's a good starting point. Her rebuilding experience suggests “it takes three full seasons, going into your fourth , where you really feel like the culture is sticking,” she said, describing her program as “still pushing the boulder up the hill.”

Three seniors will do the bulk of the pushing this season. Forward Megan Huff is an All-Pac-12 player who averaged 14.7 points and 7.8 rebounds last year for a team that finished 18-14 overall, 8-10 in the conference. Another forward, Daneesha Provo, is the team's most dynamic athlete and a good 3-point shooter. Guard Erika Bean has started 61 games in her career. The Utes also have shooting specialist Sarah Porter, a graduate transfer from UC Santa Barbara.

Utah lost 6-foot-5 sophomore Maurane Corbin to injury and 6-3 freshman Lola Pendande of Spain has yet to join the team, due to the admission process. The lack of size will affect Utah's defensive presence, beyond the graduation of shot blocker Emily Potter. “We're also going to be able to do some things differently,” Roberts said, “because we don't have that traditional center.”

The Utes showed that new style in a 118-80 exhibition victory over Westminster College. They ran and pressed, playing fast and aggressively. Redshirt freshman guard Dru Glyten thrived in that approach. Her 16 assists would have been a school record in a regular-season game.

The pace “takes so much pressure off your offense,” Provo said. True freshmen Dre'Una Edwards and Andre Torres scored 20 and 12 points against Westminster, and redshirt freshman Jordan Cruz also was in the rotation.

“A lot of us had fun out there,” Provo said, “celebrating each other.”

The Utes hope to do more of that in 2018-19, blending the old and the new.

Provo • Junior guard Brenna Chase says the BYU women’s basketball team “is doing more rebounding drills than I have ever done in my life” in preseason camp as the Cougars prepare for the 2018-19 season.

There are a couple good reasons for that.

First, the Cougars will start the season without their only other returning starter, 6-foot-7 sophomore center Sara Hamson. She was BYU’s best rebounder last season, averaging 7.7 boards per game, but sustained an ACL injury in early August while preparing for volleyball season and won’t return to the basketball lineup until December, at the earliest.

Second, the Cougars were a bad rebounding team last season, even with Hamson in the lineup, and that shortcoming was especially evident when they were bounced out of the West Coast Conference tournament quarterfinals last March by San Diego.

“Rebounding is definitely something we have to get better at,” said coach Jeff Judkins, who is entering his 18th season.

As can be expected of a team that went 16-4 last season, 11-7 in the WCC, and returns just two starters, the Cougars will be young and inexperienced. But Judkins, Chase and 6-3 junior center Shalae Salmon said its not a rebuilding year.

“We have a team expectation of us winning a WCC championship and hopefully getting into the NCAA tournament,” said Chase, a 5-9 junior from Thornton, Colo., who averaged 13.5 points a game last year.

BYU is picked to finish third in the WCC this season, behind Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s, and Chase and Hamson were named to the preseason All-WCC team.

“Brenna is a leader,” Judkins said. “Two years ago she was running around as a dumb ‘ol freshman, and now she’s a seasoned veteran that has gone through everything. … I told her, ‘you are going to have the other team’s best defender on you every night. You are going to have to do things a little bit differently.’”

The roster includes 11 underclassmen, including five true freshmen and three redshirt freshmen.

Of the newcomers, Judkins is especially excited about 5-9 guard Shaylee Gonzales of Gilbert, Ariz.

“She is going to be a really good player,” he said.

The only seniors are 6-2 forward Jasmine Moody, who missed last season with an injury, and Caitlyn Alldredge, joining the team this season after playing softball for BYU the past four years. Six players on the roster were born outside the United States. Three are from New Zealand, two are from Brazil and one is from Sweden.

“The biggest thing is we are really deep,” Judkins said. “I can play a lot of players. Last year the injury bug hit us and that hurt us. Now I have a lot of depth. That’s good. It pushes people. These freshmen are good and will push the seasoned players a lot.”

Sandy • Mike Petke couldn’t wait to give Corey Baird the news.

On the flight back from Los Angeles last week, Petke pulled Baird aside and informed him of something many around Real Salt Lake and Major League Soccer thought would happen: he won Rookie of the Year.

On Monday, the league made it official.

“It was a pretty surreal feeling when I found out,” Baird told The Salt Lake Tribune by phone before the league’s official announcement. “It’s amazing. I can’t really put it into words sometimes.”

Baird, 22, started 21 games as a rookie and scored eight goals with five assists. He is one of Real Salt Lake’s homegrown players.

Baird said he did not think about gunning for the award when the season started. But as the season wore on, buzz began to accumulate.

Baird was named a finalist for the award last Wednesday. Petke told the team during a training session ahead of the road playoff win over Los Angeles Football Club.

Petke said at the time that he loved that Baird was being recognized by league.

“To me, he’s the obvious choice, just from his production,” Petke said. “I think it’s good. It shouldn’t give him anything more than confidence that he could play at this level and he has a lot to build off of.”

Fellow rookie Aaron Herrera, also a homegrown player, said RSL probably would not have qualified for the playoffs if it weren’t for Baird.

“I don’t even know if there should be any other nominees for that,” Herrera said Wednesday. “Corey’s killed it this year.”

When his teammates learned the news, they joked with Baird and said they knew he was going to win, Baird said. But he was still skeptical.

“I was never sure,” Baird said. “I was always nervous about it. So to actually have it be official is pretty cool.”

Baird said last week that the league-wide attention affected his play earlier in the season. As a result, he tried to put it out of his mind and just focus on the playoffs.

Now that he won the award, he is going to take some time to soak it in before focusing on the task at hand: advancing in the MLS Cup Playoffs.

“It’s definitely something where I’m not going to completely forget about it, but it’s something I can’t be focusing on,” Baird said. “I have to use it in the right way. Just get some confidence from it, but stay true to who I am.”

Ogden • An iconic statue of a “doughboy” in the Ogden Cemetery has been restored in time for the centennial of the end of World War I.

The Standard-Examiner reports the statue has been cleaned and repaired and will be rededicated at a ceremony Saturday.

“Doughboy” was the nickname given to members of the U.S. Army or Marine Corps during World War I, which ended when German signed an armistice agreement with the Allies on Nov. 11, 1918.

The Weber County Heritage Foundation started raising funds to restore the sculpture two years ago.

It was created by Gilbert Risvold and dedicated in the 1920s.

The statue formerly stood at an old American Legion Post but was relocated to the cemetery shortly after World War II.