DELTA, Utah — Diane Mecham was born and raised here.

And she’s a reader of the local newspaper, the Millard County Chronicle Progress, which traces its history to 1894.

“It’s just the hub of our wheel of the whole community,” Mecham said. “It gives us our information all the time.”

Mecham calls a lawsuit threatening the newspaper “scary.”

“They keep us up to date on the county progress, the city,” she said. “There’s birthdays, obituaries. There’s wedding announcements. It’s a social as well.”

Businessman Wayne Aston filed a lawsuit against the Chronicle Progress in December. The suit asks for “not less” than $19.2 million. A judge Wednesday in Fillmore will hear an argument from the newspaper asking the lawsuit to be thrown out, citing a statute the state Legislature passed in 2023.

If Aston receives even a fraction of the money he’s seeking, the Chronicle Progress — 2,500 copies of which land in mailboxes and on store shelves once a week in desert communities stretching from central Utah to the Nevada line — would likely close.

BUSINESS PROPOSAL

In early 2023, Aston proposed to manufacture modular homes and other projects at a parcel across from the airport in Fillmore, the Millard County seat. The Chronicle Progress reported how Aston sought public funding for infrastructure improvements that would benefit his projects.

In December, Aston sued the Chronicle Progress in state court. He claims defamation, contending the Chronicle Progress published “false and defamatory statements.”

The Chronicle Progress in Wednesday’s hearing will ask the lawsuit be dismissed because of the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act. Passed in 2023, the Utah Legislature was concerned that lawsuits — and the cost of litigation — were being used to silence First Amendment activities.

The Act provides a legal mechanism for a judge to quickly determine whether slander lawsuits have merit and to dismiss such suits if they don’t. The defendants also have opportunities to recover their legal fees.

At a Utah Senate hearing in January 2023, media law attorney Jeff Hunt testified in favor of the bill. He was representing a media coalition that includes FOX 13.

“And the purpose, I think it’s important to emphasize,” Hunt testified, “in bringing these lawsuits is not to vindicate someone’s legal rights, but rather to intimidate citizens and subject them to costly litigation for speaking out on matters of public concern.”

Hunt now represents The Chronicle Progress in the suit filed by Aston. (Hunt has also had FOX 13 News as a client.) In their written briefs, Hunt and the newspaper have argued the reporting was accurate.

They’ve included citations to Aston’s bankruptcy cases and the business lawsuits filed against him. Aston has claimed reporting on those issues was false.

“This case is a retaliatory lawsuit brought by a litigious real estate developer,” the defense brief says, “who seeks to silence the voice of the small-town newspaper that dared report on his efforts to convince Fillmore city to help him raise hundreds of millions of dollars….”

PLAINTIFF ARGUMENTS

Aston’s lawyer, Ryan Fraizer, sent FOX 13 News a statement on behalf of his client. It reads:

“We support the constitutional rights of free speech, including those espoused in the principles behind the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act.  However, the statute (is) not intended to shield media outlets from the consequences of publishing malicious and demonstrably false allegations or information that harms individuals or businesses.

“We believe that is the situation at issue in the lawsuit. We trust that the Court will carefully examine the facts and hold the newspaper responsible for any damages they have caused.”

Meanwhile, Aston’s plans for the Fillmore development have not come to fruition. City Council minutes show no discussion since March.

Mecham calls the Chronicle Progress “very factual.”

When asked whether she thought the newspaper was the reason Aston’s project hasn’t blossomed, Mecham replied: “I think our communities can think for themselves. They don’t need someone telling them how to do it.”

The Trojans were impressive defensively against LSU while the heavily favored Ducks struggled to put away Idaho.

Originally Published: September 2, 2024 at 8:51 a.m.

After almost two years of meetings and listening sessions, the Utah Legislature’s Ethnic Studies Commission drafted its first list of potential recommendations. The draft recommendations, however, don’t offer a lot of specifics.

Ethnic studies were required to be incorporated into Utah’s K-12 core standards by a 2022 law. However, the new proposed recommendations focus mainly on staying in line with HB 261, the state’s recent anti-diversity, equity and inclusion law. It prohibits DEI hiring practices and offices aligned with identity at state-run universities, public schools and government entities.

Beyond those impacts, it has also had a cooling effect on discussions of race and identity.

“The Utah State Board of Education should carefully consider the use of ethnic studies in core standards and curriculum to ensure a narrowly tailored incorporation of age-appropriate opportunities that naturally arise through education without pretextual effort in courses, programs, or activities where ethnic studies is not a primary focus,” reads the first suggestion to the state board, which will ultimately be in charge of incorporating ethnic studies in public school standards.

Some commission members said this means including ethnic studies in topics like history but not requiring it in subjects like math or science.

The second recommendation directs the public education system to “incorporate curriculum of people and cultures that reflect the state’s various demographics without commentary that seeks to violate the neutrality standard established in H.B. 261.”

The drafted guidance was presented at the group’s first public meeting of 2024 on Aug. 29. The commission will continue workshopping the recommendations and vote on them in the future, potentially at an October meeting.

Throughout the commission’s duration it has repeatedly struggled to cohesively define ethnic studies or a vision for how it should be incorporated in schools, and the anti-DEI law has complicated that further.

At the meeting, co-chair Republican Sen. Kirk Cullimore said the law put “parameters” on their work and “colors what those recommendations can be at this point.”

Rep. Ryan Wilcox, the other Republican co-chair, told KUER after the meeting that he doesn’t know if the law changed “what any of the recommendations would have ultimately been, because I think the commission was already headed that direction.”

Democratic commission members Reps. Angela Romero and Sandra Hollins both said they were confused by parts of the drafted list and what “neutrality” means in this context.

Wilcox said the short version is the curriculum shouldn’t say one race or ethnicity is better than another.

For Hollins, that further confused the issue, “because you’re saying that we’re not to promote one race over another. But if you have teachers who are not teaching any diversity because they are scared to, they are promoting one race over another because one race is being taught.”

Hollins said teachers are telling her “they’re scared to talk about anything, for lack of a better word, that’s not white.”

The draft was not uploaded where the public could see it before the meeting started, and while the co-chairs said the list was based on feedback from commission members, others said they hadn’t seen its full contents before the Aug. 29 meeting started.

The committee is also tasked with giving guidance to the Office of the Governor and the state Legislature, one of which suggests “The Legislature should continue to examine the neutrality standard in HB 261 to strengthen positive outcomes and address any unintended consequences.”

In 2022, Gov. Spencer Cox held a ceremonial signing to celebrate the passage of the law requiring ethnic studies to be taught in K-12 schools. The law created the committee to “consider and review” the contributions of diverse Utahns and figure out how to best incorporate ethnic studies into core standards.

School districts and charter schools had until Aug. 1, 2024, to select a curriculum for teaching ethnic studies. However, it became clear that the deadline would not be met since the state’s committee hadn’t even produced guidance to the board.

In a January email obtained by KUER through a public records request, Republican Rep. Candice Pierucci asked state school board member Jennie Earl for guidance on a new deadline.

Earl responded, “I would strike the time completely. The problem is [charter schools and school districts] are continually updating curriculum, but they may only purchase new curriculum for a specific subject every 5-7 years. We update standards every 7-10 years but never all at once. We just finished our English standards and are now starting math. Any date is unsustainable.”

In a 2024 education omnibus bill, lawmakers moved the curriculum selection deadline for districts and charters to Dec. 31, 2025.

Wilcox said they’ll adjust the timeline again in the future if necessary.