SALT LAKE CITY — The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is funding a new emergency preparedness center led by a University of Utah professor. 

The Rocky Mountains and Great Plains Center for Emergency Public Health will help Utahns and neighboring states ramp up preparation for extreme weather events and public health crises. 

It doesn’t have a brick and mortar building. Center Director Dr. Kimberley Shoaf said instead, it’s an academic center designed to help us be ready when disaster strikes. 

“As much as we’d like to, we can’t control Mother Nature,” Shoaf said. 

Natural disasters like Hurricane Helene show the devastation many communities are left with after extreme weather rolls through.

‘As resilient as possible’ 

“We need to be able to respond and do the things that we can to make ourselves as resilient as possible,” Shoaf said. 

The new emergency preparedness center she leads with the University of Utah’s Division of Public Health is designed to help with that. 

“They funded 10 centers across the country, one in each of the regions, to work with state and local health departments and tribal health departments to help them be ready to respond to public health emergencies,” Shoaf said. 

The Rocky Mountains and Great Plains Center includes Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. 

“Congress has reallocated funding to ensure that each health department across the country have access to one of these centers,” Shoaf said. 

Her team, in partnership with the University of Colorado’s School of Public Health, has been working with those health departments for the last year. 

“Wildfires was what was their top priority, flooding was actually another one in some of the areas,” Shoaf said. 

They’re also concerned about severe winter weather. 

“When something happens during the winter, how do we get people to respond? How do we get people from here to there? What do we do about sheltering?” 

Prepared for earthquakes

Included in Shoaf’s list of priorities is earthquake readiness. 

“I currently have a research project looking at the earthquake in Turkey from a year and a half ago, and trying to get a better idea of exactly how people get injured,” she said. “We have some data about that we’ve done in the past, but really looking at within a specific building with a specific type of damage, what kind of injuries would we expect to see?” 

Dr. Shoaf’s team helps train members of public health agencies for emergency response. She said public health is a field where turnover is high. 

“There’s always there’s a constant need for training, and to keep them up to date on how do they work with their partners, how do they work with emergency management, how do they work with the fire department,” she said. 

It’s part of a national effort to have a coordinated response to disasters when they happen. Part of that is ensuring rural and tribal communities are included. 

“We have an advisory council that has worked with us from tribal communities across the region, and so we’ve got those relationships there,” Shoaf said. 

Nearly $1 million of the $5 million worth of funding the center has over the next five years will be allocated toward working with tribal communities. 

She said they’re working on sending out messaging and alerts to help us prepare for what mother nature could bring our way. 

“It certainly gives me a sense of hope that we’re turning the corner on recognizing the need to do this sort of thing,” Shoaf said. 

The constitutional Amendment A ballot question that asks Utah voters to consider changing how state income tax revenue can be spent is now void, a judge ordered Wednesday.

Amendment A may still appear on printed ballots but votes on the question will not be counted, 3rd District Judge Laura Scott’s ruling states.

The decision comes two weeks after the Utah Supreme Court on Sept. 25 agreed with a lower court ruling to also void Amendment D, which would have given the Legislature the power to repeal citizen-passed ballot initiatives.

In both cases, plaintiffs argued that the Utah Legislature violated Article XXIII of the Utah Constitution, which mandates that ballot language be published in newspapers statewide at least two months before appearing on ballots.

Scott on Wednesday ruled that the previous decision on the “newspaper publication issue” regarding Amendment D also applies in the case of Amendment A.

Her order came shortly after plaintiffs including the state’s largest teachers union (the Utah Education Association), as well as defendants including Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, Utah Senate President Stuart Adams and Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz agreed that “the failure to comply with the newspaper publication requirement” was a valid reason for Scott to grant a preliminary injunction voiding Amendment A.

The parties also agreed that a preliminary order regarding Amendment A would essentially constitute a permanent order, given the timing of the Nov. 5 election. Scott ultimately issued a permanent injunction to void the ballot proposal.

Though any votes on Amendment A will not count in the election, the judge noted in her order that due to the timing of the ruling, votes cast for or against the proposal will still be tabulated, because it is “too late” to reverse that process.

However, the ruling states that the lieutenant governor and county clerks cannot publish or release those tabulations to anyone, and that those tabulations will not be subject to public records requests.

Amendment A sought to eliminate the constitutional guarantee that Utah’s income tax is reserved for public education, higher education and disability services.

If passed, it would have allowed the Legislature to use income tax revenue for a broader range of unspecified “state needs.”

The motion challenging Amendment A was filed last month as a supplemental complaint to a lawsuit that the Utah Education Association filed in May. The lawsuit argues that the state’s $82 million “Utah Fits All” school voucher program is unconstitutional, because it uses income tax dollars to fund vouchers meant to cover private school and homeschooling expenses.

The supplemental complaint argued that the Amendment A ballot question failed to inform voters that passing Amendment A would “eliminate one of the key constitutional obstacles” that they allege currently prevents the Legislature from diverting income tax revenue to “anything it chooses — including private school vouchers.”

Though Scott addressed the supplemental complaint Wednesday in her order voiding Amendment A, the underlying lawsuit is still being litigated.

A hearing for arguments regarding a motion to dismiss that lawsuit is currently slated for Dec. 19 before Scott.

— This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

SALT LAKE CITY — As Utah’s newest professional sports team, the Utah Hockey Club, dropped the puck in its inaugural season, thousands of fans got into the spirit by buying hockey merchandise — hats, jerseys, flags and more that will likely become “limited edition” after the season end when the team is expected to get a new name.

Fans and leaders are weighing in on what the new mascot should be. But, until then, hockey lovers are excited about buying what’s available now.

Alan Greenberg owns Cottonwood Hockey Shop and sells licensed sports merchandise. He also just happens to love hockey, and so do his customers. He said there’s just something about being with a team from the start.

“It’s gonna be cool, it’s gonna be that hat you pull out 20 years from now and throw it on your head,” Greenberg said. “And you wear it to a game and people are gonna be like ‘Oh, I remember that year, that was the first year.’”

David Hoffmann is a hockey fan, through and through. Since he moved to Utah nearly a decade ago, he’s wanted a home team. Now he has one. He wasted no time getting on board.

“There’s nothing like having a professional team to really get excited for,” says Hoffmann. “It’s been a long wait. I love having a home team.”

He said spared no expense in showing his new team his support and he hopes others do the same.

“We got jerseys, we got the inaugural shirt, we got hat, stickers magnets, pins,” Hoffmann said.  “I didn’t know I got a limited edition pendant.”

He’s one of thousands of people gathered for Utah Hockey Club home opener and, everywhere the eye can wander, it’s a sea of fans supporting their team.