A Utah automotive dealer has taken back the courtesy cars it once provided to Utah State University coaches in an apparent protest of recent firings within the school’s athletic department.

The Murdock Auto Team, co-owned by Ben, Tyson and Blake Murdock, previously provided courtesy vehicles to all Utah State head coaches. Murdock ended its relationship with the USU athletic program after associate athletic directors Jerry Bovee and Amy Crosbie were fired last month.

“I’m very aware of Murdock (Auto Team)’s decision,” Sabau told The Salt Lake Tribune. “We’re super appreciative for all the years of providing courtesy cars for our head coaches. And it’s their business and their decision and we respect that decision. Yeah, it hurts our coaches because now we don’t have cars for them.

“We understand that, and we will come together and we’ll recover from it. It should never be about Diana Sabau. It’s about our student athletes, and it’s about our coaches who work with our student athletes every day. So, I’m hoping that over time maybe we’ll get them back involved and maybe they’ll like the direction that we’re going. This community, this Utah State campus has had crimes of sexual violence for too long. And, to just continue to allow it to happen, I wouldn’t be proud to be associated with that.”

Bovee was fired on July 2 following a Title IX investigation, led by Kansas City-based law firm Husch Blackwell, that concluded that former head coach Blake Anderson, Bovee and director of player personnel and community engagement Austin Albrecht violated reporting policies regarding sexual assault and domestic violence cases. Crosbie was also terminated on July 8 for reasons that have not been made public.

After Sabau, USU President Elizabeth Cantwell and Utah State’s general counsel terminated Crosbie and Bovee, select members of the Logan community have voiced their displeasure about the moves. Last week, former and current student athletes signed a letter addressed to the Utah Board of Higher Education and Utah State University Board of Trustees, asking for an “independent investigation” to be done on behalf of Crosbie and Bovee.

Bovee also recently filed an official grievance against Cantwell and Sabau. He now awaits a decision from a General Grievance Counsel that will then write a letter on their decision and send it to Cantwell, who will either uphold, reject or send it back to the committee for further review.

Jeannine Bennett, who is the chair of the Utah State Foundation, spoke out in support of Sabau and Cantwell following the decisions to fire Crosbie and Bovee. She has been a donor to the university and athletic department and says she’s excited about its future direction.

“It just goes to show that the rules apply equally to everyone, and everybody is held to a high standard at Utah State University, and we have a president who is willing to make that happen regardless of the fallout, because that’s the right thing to do,” Bennett told The Tribune.

Bennett also hopes that Utah State donors who are now hesitant to donate or are pulling funds completely from the university will jump back on board in the future. More particularly, she feels more confident in the direction and the culture of the athletic department despite the pushback Sabau and others have faced from the Cache Valley community.

“I am very hopeful that they see the progress that the university is making, and also still see that there are so many students that still need our support to get their education, and that’s what we need to do as a university,” Bennett said.

“We are taking the appropriate steps to right any wrongs that have happened in the past, and so I’m sorry that we have alumni that have told their support, and I hope that with the more information they gain, that they will change their position.”

SALT LAKE CITY — On Thursday, one minute after midnight, the state of Utah plans to carry out its first execution by lethal injection in more than two decades.

Looking back at the state’s history dealing with the death penalty, repeal has been attempted several times. Most recently, in 2022. But it’s never had enough legislative support.

Former Republican lawmaker Lowry Snow had a large hand in the 2022 attempt. He made a plea to members of the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee.

“I think there’s a better way to do criminal justice,” he said. “We’re not moving rapidly. We’re not bringing about justice quickly. That’s why I say the system is broken.”

The repeal hearing lasted hours, and families of victims gave tearful testimonies.

“These families who had been promised (a specific outcome) were essentially given, I think, a false promise,” Snow said.

His main argument: a death sentence yields a lengthy court process that leads to decades of appeals and is rarely carried out. However, other views were shared in that hearing which pushed back.

“It’s proportional justice. If you take a life, then you run the risk of losing your own as a result of it,” said Rep. Jeff Burton R-Nephi.

It was his single vote that caused that repeal to fail, after he had a last-minute change of mind.

“I don’t think we should repeal something when we haven’t done everything we can possibly do to improve it,” Burton said.

The improvements he spoke of, he said, included mainly cutting down on the state’s portion of the appeals process. He also argued the death penalty helps prosecutors with leverage.

“To be very forthright with you, I don’t think a lot has been done on this since ’22,” he said. “That ability to offer to remove the death penalty has caused that individual to give the family some relief as to where the remains are.”

Other attempts at repeal were made in 2016 and 2018. While the discussion never moved further than a floor debate, there have been some changes to capital punishment in Utah over the years.

“The big turning point for Utah came in 1992, and that’s when the legislature created a new sentencing option for capital cases,” said Dave Cawley, Cold Podcast host.

Cawley said the new sentencing option brought another option for finality for both victims and prosecutors.

“Life without a chance of parole,” he said

Utah’s current death penalty laws also ban execution for people with intellectual disabilities. In 2007, the murder of a child under the age of 14 became a death-eligible offense.

More recently, Utah also reinstated the firing squad as a backup method of execution if lethal injection was unavailable or was ruled unconstitutional. And as the first execution in 14 years inches closer, Utahns and their elected representatives may not be finished with the debate.

“It becomes an inflection point for all of us to collectively ask,” Cawley said. “‘Is this the way we want our justice system to work?’”

After nearly a decade of rising towers and astonishing growth, downtown Salt Lake City has added two new driving forces likely to accelerate that pace of change.

Boosters of the business and cultural sides of Utah’s urban core say with the prospect of a new sports and entertainment district around the Delta Center and news the city will host the 2034 Winter Olympics, downtown is on the cusp of even more profound transformation.

The buzz of growth is an all but customary theme, but this year’s “State of Downtown” — a snapshot on the status of the city center produced by the Salt Lake Chamber’s Downtown Alliance — is more upbeat and visionary than usual, while also highlighting major challenges to making the heart of Utah’s capital more livable.

“As long-term downtown residents,” said Kristen Lavelett, business development manager for the alliance, “we feel like the city we know and love now is going to look radically different in two, three, five and 10 years.”

“And we want to make sure,” Lavelett told downtown supporters at a celebratory event Thursday, “that the people who live, work and play in Salt Lake City are part of that process and can have an impact, to make sure the city serves them.”

Here are key takeaways on where downtown is headed:

New residents and more visitors are bringing lots of change

An ongoing population boom is expected to lift the city center from 14,469 full-time residents in 2020 to 27,000 or more by 2030. That trend is already bringing major shifts and is likely to drive more, with effects ranging from reshaping the city’s overall economy to boosting the need for wider transit access and, in a huge way, more green spaces.

“Thriving urban cities need ventilation,” said Dee Brewer, the alliance’s executive director. “As we grow our downtown population, workforce and visitation, we must invest in public space and programs in Pioneer Park, Gallivan Center, Washington Square, the Green Loop and on Main Street.”

The number of folks spending at least 90 minutes downtown — whether living, working or playing — jumped by 2 million in 2024 compared to the year before, soaring to 20.2 million — and visitors made up almost two-thirds of that total.

Growth in conventions, tourism, sports and cultural events and retail attractions downtown are all part of that, and Salt Lake County as a whole saw $5.8 billion in traveler spending last year.

Downtown’s evolution toward more of a “visitor economy,” meanwhile, is probably going to gain steam with the development of a proposed taxpayer-funded sports, entertainment, culture and convention district on several blocks east of the Delta Center.

Outlines of that plan being pursued by Smith Entertainment Group, owners of the Utah Jazz and a new NHL team, are now under review by a key state committee, before a Salt Lake City Council vote on a half-a-percentage-point sales tax hike to pump $900 million into the district.

Downtown housing and high-end office spaces remain competitive

While Utah is dealing with a severe pinch in affordable housing and elevated office vacancies due to work from home, prevailing rents on both those fronts downtown are still competitive compared to similar cities.

Average residential rents are still well below those in other Western cities such as Seattle; Denver; Portland, Oregon; and Sacramento, California; while at the same time, Salt Lake City — despite a slowdown in commercial real estate — has a robust pipeline of new apartment projects under construction.

The city also hopes to spur residential growth by investing in new neighborhoods. Key examples are Rio Grande, planned between the Rio Grande Depot and Utah Transit Authority’s Intermodal Hub on the city’s west side, as well as the thriving 2nd & 2nd commercial district, which is spurring residential construction east of State Street between 200 South and Broadway.

The University of Utah’s goals for expanding its presence downtown with satellite campuses, student housing and new programming are likely to bring an additional lift — and increase investment in new TRAX lines through the city.

“Imagine the possibilities,” Brewer said, “of mixing our university students with the seasoned professionals, entrepreneurs and artists that are creating and producing at the apex of their careers.”

Leasing in the city’s high-end office buildings, at the same time, is also relatively strong right now. In what’s being called a “flight to quality,” Salt Lake City’s employers continue to draw on competitive rents and upscale workspaces with access to dining, shopping and cultural attractions as a way to recruit and retain talented workers.

The new ‘Olympic horizon’ is, yes, a game-changer

With Salt Lake City and Utah officially chosen to host the 2034 Winter Games, the region will, Brewer noted, “enjoy literally hundreds of millions of dollars in attention that only a few communities in the world qualify for.”

That funding, in turn, can be leveraged for expanding economic opportunity, including investments in capital projects and transportation, luring new major employers, and boosting the city’s clout in attracting and retaining talented workers. Downtown advocates also plan campaigns to expand arts and cultural attractions, and to encourage property owners to activate dormant storefronts and empty parcels of land.

“Let’s use this decade of opportunity,” Brewer said, “to put forsaken properties to work.”