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Utah County Commission chair calls for resignation of Tom Sakievich over ability to work

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Utah County Commission chair calls for resignation of Tom Sakievich over ability to work


PROVO —  One of Utah County’s three commissioners has been battling a tumor causing him to miss a series of recent commission meetings and other county work.

Tom Sakievich announced the health issue back on Jan. 3 in a Facebook post.

Emails obtained by KSL TV reveal it was even before that when the health issues started, landing him in the hospital in early December.

And the other commissioners now say that three months later, they have been left in the dark about his diagnosis and when Sakievich might return.

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Commissioners Amelia Powers Gardiner and Brandon Gordon said county business is being left undone and Gordon, who chairs the commission, is calling for Sakievich to step down.

“Resignation is an option that’s been used in in other counties. And there’s nothing wrong with that that,” Gordon said.

Commissioner Brandon Gordon said county business is being left undone and Gordon, who chairs the commission, is calling for Sakievich to step down. (KSL TV)

“We are getting almost daily complaints from community organizations, internal departments, citizens, other governmental entities that say that they can’t get a hold of that office,” said Powers Gardiner.

“Part of it is that there’s just no communication. The other part of that is we have, you know, financial approvals that are happening. And if he’s not well enough to call into a meeting via Zoom, but we have financial approvals happening, I question who’s making those approvals,” Powers Gardiner said.

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Sakievich did not return KSL’s calls for an interview.

Sakievich’s policy advisor, Lisa Shephard, did agree to a Zoom interview.

She said she has been filling in for Sakievich in meetings, whether on Zoom or in person when she’s known about them. But she denied that she’s covering for his ability to work.

“He has communicated mostly through me, but his phone has been available, and he has been able to have conversations,” she said. “There could have been an in-person meeting at any point to come do a check on him, see how he’s doing. And that didn’t happen,” she said.

She also accuses the two commissioners of playing politics with his health. Sakievich is not running for reelection, because of his tumor, his post said.

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“To me, it seems like we’re trying to use Commissioner Sakievich’s health condition as a political weapon,” she said.

“There are candidates vying for [his seat] right now. I think the commissioners all have their chosen people. And, you know, it appears that some people want Commissioner Sakievich to resign so they can get somebody else in that seat,” Shephard said.

County business stalled

In December, Sakievich missed two of three meetings. The one he did make was via Zoom. In January, he was in person for three meetings and attended one via zoom. In February, he missed two of four meetings, and so far in March he has missed one meeting but attended another one via Zoom. He has not been at a commission meeting in person since Jan. 17.

“It’s interesting that a man who’s facing this fight of his life is still dedicated to the people of Utah County and making sure that he is prepared for all the meetings, even the meetings that he didn’t attend. He was prepared to attend those. And so those were last minute calls, whether he could be on those or not,” Shephard said.

Powers Gardiner and Gordon said it’s not just the commission meetings, but that Sakievich hasn’t attended important county business like the boards and councils he sits on, and that they weren’t sure if they were going to be able to canvass the Democratic primary in their county.

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Tom Sakievich, policy advisor, Lisa Shephard said, ““It’s interesting that a man who’s facing this fight of his life is still dedicated to the people of Utah County and making sure that he is prepared for all the meetings, even the meetings that he didn’t attend.” (KSL TV)

They also say he missed the county’s State of the County. Further, he manages a portfolio of county contracts and serves as the chair of Wasatch Behavioral Health.

“We only have funding for our public defenders through June. And so we’re trying to negotiate a contract right now. And I’ve actually had to step in and start doing that negotiation,” Powers Gardiner said. “Another example is our attorney’s office needs another civil attorney and they’ve been unable to get a hold of anybody in his office to make that case to him,” Powers Gardiner said.

Recently, in a county commission meeting, Powers Gardiner and Gordon disagreed on an issue, which then couldn’t move forward because there was no tie breaking vote.

“We ended up just waiting to see if he would be in the meeting the next week and he was, fortunately able to vote to break that tie.” Gordon said.

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But it was the day prior to that meeting that Gordon sent an email to Sakievich, Powers Gardiner, Ezra Nair (Utah County’s county administrator) titled, “Urgent meeting Request Regarding Commissioner Sakievich’s Work Plans.”

“While we wish well for Commissioner Sakievich and hope for the best with his prognosis, his prolonged absences from his Commission office has left significant duties unfulfilled, despite our additional efforts,” Gordon wrote.

March 22 deadline

It then outlined a list of assignments that the county needed answers on by March 22, and a call for his resignation if he couldn’t provide them.

“If you are unable to immediately return to work and fulfill the duties of your office, it would be appropriate and honorable to submit your resignation so that another person could be selected to finish your term and perform the substantial and important work required of a Utah County Commissioner,” Gordon wrote.

The commissioners both said that they empathize with what he’s going through, and they are trying to balance his health with the needs of their county.

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“I want people to remember the three great years that he served and not remember that his will last year was spent having cancer treatments and not being in meetings and and not being able to sign documents,” Gordon said.

As for when Sakievich might return, Shephard said she was hopeful in the “next few weeks.”

“The treatments that he’s had, he’s not been sick. So that’s been a good part,” Shephard said. “But the radiation did make him very tired.”



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Utah

Amid traffic, Utah walked to Leafs’ arena pregame

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Amid traffic, Utah walked to Leafs’ arena pregame


TORONTO — The Utah Hockey Club said players were forced to walk to their game against the Maple Leafs after their bus got stuck in Toronto traffic Sunday night.

The team posted a video on social media of team members walking to Scotiabank Arena, with player Maveric Lamoureux saying the bus was “not moving at all.”

Several city streets had been closed during the day for an annual Santa Claus parade.

The Maple Leafs earned their fourth consecutive win by defeating Utah 3-2.

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The viral incident prompted Ontario Premier Doug Ford to call the congestion “embarrassing” and “unacceptable,” highlighting his government’s plan to address the city’s gridlock through bike lane legislation.

It wasn’t the first time a Toronto visitor had to ditch their vehicle to make it to an event on time.

In June, former One Direction band member Niall Horan had to walk through traffic to get to his concert at Scotiabank Arena.



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Utah Highway Patrol responds to your suggestions on making Utah roads safer

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Utah Highway Patrol responds to your suggestions on making Utah roads safer


SALT LAKE CITY — FOX 13 News is Driven to Change and that includes bringing you reports on important topics like road rage, construction, and wrong-way drivers. During our coverage, we continually ask for any questions or concerns you may have along Utah’s roadways.

The feedback has gotten an enormous response, so FOX 13 sat down with Lieutenant Cameron Roden on Good Day Utah to help address input we have been getting, from the perspective of Utah Highway Patrol.

Speeding in Utah, there’s so much of it, and then you can sometimes say that that leads to tailgating, which may lead to road rage incidents. What are you seeing out there in terms of speed and what can we do to lessen the effects of that?

Lt. Cameron Roden: Speed is our number one thing that we see. That’s our number one traffic stop that we make, and we know that it leads to the majority of crashes in the state of Utah. So we definitely put an emphasis on speed and it does lead to other things. Not just crashes. It leads to road rage and other things .So, as far as what changes can we make, we need to start with ourselves, and really say, ‘Hey, do I have a problem?’ You know, we just need to start with ourselves and not think that it’s something else’s problem. If we slow our speeds ourselves, and then it’ll start to to catch on and people will do that speed limit. So, but the legislature has definitely taken some steps to help us address, especially the the speeds that are those excessive speeds where we have that one zero five law now that addresses those speeds and increases fines and and hopefully discourages people from those extreme speeds.

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Some of our viewers talked about maybe capping some of the speed limits for truck drivers. Is that something that’s even feasible?

You know, that would be something that would have to go through that, that legislative process to see whether we that would be something that would help. But ultimately, if we we start with ourselves, hopefully that will make that change and reduce crashes and fatalities.

There are things being done to try and intervene and stop wrong-way drivers before they happen. But some of our viewers propose things like spikes. What are your thoughts on implementing something like that?

We’ve had over the last several years, a rash of wrong-way drivers, and it’ll come in onesie twos, and then we’ll go for a period of time without that. And so, but this spike over the last couple of years has caused us to to create a task force to look at wrongly driving what things can be done. And so getting all these stakeholders together between UDOT and Highway Safety, looking at what technologies and things that could be implemented, and and things like, wrong way detection cameras. Those are some things that are being actually used in the state of Utah right now to help us spot those and and advance signage, getting people to realize they’re going the wrong way and turn around. The the spike strips have actually been talked about in our task force a little bit. And if something like that would even be, it is that technology available right now. And as what we could actually implement in the state of Utah, there’s nothing that really fits the bill right now because of our environment. We have our snow plows. We have snow and things like that. Something like that really wouldn’t be practical right now.

Probably the most talked about topic that we’ve received was distracted driving, texting while driving. You went out, I saw on the UHP social media page, that you guys just driving and you look to your right and left and you can find someone texting. What kind of enforcement do we have against distracted driving specifically on your phone?

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This is something that we like you said, we see it every day. We go out to crashes,and and we may suspect that a driver may be distracted. And so, it’s something that’s definitely under-reported. It’s it’s a bigger problem than than the numbers really show.And so not only do we address it during our normal patrols.Our officers are seeing it, and addressing it while they’re out there.But we’ll also do targeted patrols where the highway safety office actually gives out additional funds for that targeted enforcement, where we’ll get an unmarked vehicle. We go out driving down the roads where we try to spot these vehicles and and get them stopped because those are those are a big danger on our roadways where our attention and our focus needs to be on driving.

If you have ideas or suggestions for how to make Utah’s roadways safer click here to be taken to our Driven to Change form. There you can share your ideas or suggestions.

DRIVEN TO CHANGE

Share your ideas on how to make Utah’s roads safer





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Utah National Guard gets new, top-of-the-line Apache helicopters

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Utah National Guard gets new, top-of-the-line Apache helicopters


WEST JORDAN, Utah — The Utah National Guard has been serving the state since 1894 with roots dating back to the Minutemen of the 17th-century American colonies.

This weekend, they received quite the boost in the form of the Army’s most advanced attack helicopter.

“These aircraft are extremely fast compared to our other aircraft,” said Col. Patrick.

On Saturday, the Utah National Guard took their new Apache helicopters for a spin.

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“The flight went better than we could have hoped for. A little weather on the east coast, but after that, it wasn’t bad at all,” Patrick said.

The first four of 24 Apaches arrived early Saturday morning after they went under full inspection.

“They’ve got software on there that it’s like playing a video game. You just fly the video game and the airplane… is fast and smooth, which is the good thing, and so it’ll just hold the altitude and airspeed and just keep on trucking along. It’s pretty good,” Patrick said.

The first Apache helicopters arrived in Utah back in 1992.

“It just continues the legacy of the air pirates and what we bring to not only Utah, but really to the global fight and security, really,” Patrick added.

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The colonel calls it a major step forward.

“What a great day for Utah as we advance into the next couple decades of combat operations and what we can provide to, you know, the global security.”





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