watching inside utah politics time now to debate some of the big stories of the week with the inside utah politics panel this week we have salt lake tribune columnist michelle quest and former salt lake city councilman charlie luke well i think that's what we're going to see yeah well we're going to move forward but i think you're going to see you know schools getting shut down when there's an outbreak and it is going to cause far more disruption than just having schools open and having kids wea
r masks but there is a little bit of a different not a little bit a huge difference in the makeup of what's happening this year in the event that the vaccine is readily available some students have gotten it so how could that potentially change things michelle well you know i you know for the older kids for the high schools and junior highs hopefully most of those kids are vaccinated i think we'll see less outbreaks but the elementary schools that you know under 12 years old you can't um you kno
w you can't get that vaccine yet and so i think you know the danger is there i think we'll see a kind of a you know from the government standpoint let's see what happens as we start and then perhaps preventive measures will come in if if it goes downhill quickly hopefully it won't okay i mentioned at the top that both of you have students in the salt lake school district so let's focus in on that a bit sure the legislature did tie the hands of school districts somewhat but the salt lake city sch
ool district certainly showed last year that it was willing to uh you know go its own route in certain areas so what do you expect from that specific district uh for this school year charlie let's start with you on that well you know i think i think it's hard to say um you know right now everything is moving towards uh more in-person education than they than they saw last year but again the utah state legislature loves local control unless it has to do with salt lake city you know anytime salt l
ake city government does something or the salt lake city school board does something that the the legislature disagrees with then they're against local control so um you know my feeling right now is that you know the legislature did tie the hands of of school districts uh with mass mandates um and so we'll just have to see where things go but you know the reality is i think we're going to see you know outbreaks and and and schools being closed but which will have far more disruption on kids than
if we just kept them in class and had them more masks and just use our heads and they would argue that they did leave it up to local control in the in the fact that really it boils down to the salt lake county council that is going to be making uh decisions on mass mandates uh anyway uh michelle you weren't happy with the district last year so what are you expecting this year you know i think it's hard for one district out of an entire state to be doing something wholly different than everybody
else you know you have one group of kids that can't couldn't go to school and everybody else was in school it was unfair i felt that way and i think it's better that there is a you know a uniform treatment where yes the the counties now are responsible the county is a broader organization than you know salt lake city in and of itself i don't think that uh salt lake city was definitely using data or medical um you know at all times to to to you know drive their decision-making and um i think it'
s okay that it's in the hands of the county council uh charlie are you were you frustrated with the fact that uh districts were able to kind of do their own thing last year and there wasn't a uniform policy no i mean that's that's the thing i mean you know we we like having a lot of different school districts um but we want them to act the same and that doesn't work you know and that's the thing if you're going to have if you want local control you are going to have school districts that are goi
ng to to react differently than other school districts and it is a it is a disservice to kids especially in in areas like salt lake county where you have you know wall-to-wall school districts all right let's move on to the infrastructure deal bipartisan bill 19 republicans ended up joining in with all the democrats to pass it 1.2 trillion dollars i want to dig into a couple of things when it comes to this bill specifically first your thoughts on the need for spending that much money michelle we
ll 1.2 trillion but 550 billion in new spending you know this is infrastructure i think you know it's the entire nation it's things like roads and bridges and water on you know tribal lands i mean can you imagine there's there's we have lands we have communities in our in our country that don't have running water like that's just not acceptable um it's hard to stomach spending this much but sometimes it's necessary charlie your thoughts on the need for this bill we've we've needed this bill for
a long long time republican presidents have talked about the need for infrastructure funding democratic presidents have talked about the need for infrastructure funding the reality is we have more deferred maintenance on major infrastructure than we ever have before now is the time that we really do have to start working together finally you know we're seeing a bill where you actually have bipartisan support on this this isn't this is not token bipartisan support you have you know almost 20 repu
blican senators crossing the line to vote for this bill that is that is very telling but it is this is long overdue it is expensive but frankly you know we we've got to do it that's what government does government is there for infrastructure for roads this is what government is for and now is the time to actually do that let's dig more into the dynamic of what we saw play out with utah's senators romney romney and lee split on the issue big time paraphrasing here but romney said look we came tog
ether it's not perfect but we put something good on the table lee basically calling it reckless spending uh michelle what do you make of the dynamic of the split playing out between our senators um you know i think any kind of a a large bill during a democrat you know administration is going to be reckless spending on on behalf of a republican's part um we have two senators and i think they represent utahns i think they both represent utahns well and i think a split is is part of the system that
's why we have more than one uh charlie your thoughts on the dynamic we saw play out between our two senators well we have a senator that wants to do something in a senator that doesn't that's the reality the only time that senator lee seems to want to want to legislate is when his party's in charge that's not the way the system is set up i'm i'm grateful that mitt romney is at least you know willing to you know cross lines when necessary uh there's another component of the bill the human infras
tructure part that we'll talk about in a minute uh that that is different from what from this this bill it is important to keep the two separate the bipartisan infrastructure bill is a critical bill that has to happen right now it is it is a non-partisan bill and and it's great that it did pass and now we need to um wait for the the house to pass it okay all right michelle real quick yeah i was going to say you know the bill was going to pass anyway and so the fact that it wasn't just pipe bipar
tisan republicans voting for it republicans were in on the making of this senator romney was in the you know eight to ten people who were creating this and and negotiating this so the fact that they allowed republicans in to negotiate and especially utahns to get you know part of the things for uh especially for utah i think was um you know something well well worth it and we've not seen that kind of um you know cross reach in a long long time okay uh but just to be clear michelle you do believe
that senator lee was representing a portion of utah republicans who probably didn't want anything to do with it oh yes definitely okay uh we only have like 30 seconds left so i'm afraid we're not going to be able to get into this one too much but maybe i'll just ask one question is it safe to say that the human infrastructure bill the 3.5 trillion it's going to be only one party that pushes this through if it happens yeah they're going to be you they're going to be using budget reconciliation w
hich is the exact same thing that the republicans did in 2017 when they passed you know the trillion dollar tax cut uh for the wealthy uh using that same measure any quick thoughts on that uh it should be dead on arrival okay well we will see how that plays out uh great insight thanks so much for being here good to be here stay with us we'll be right back with more insane utah politics right after the break you're watching inside utah politics time now to debate some of the big stories of the we
ek with the inside utah politics panel this week we have salt lake tribune columnist michelle quest and former salt lake city councilman charlie luke welcome to the show glad to have both of you with us today good to be here thanks uh let's get back to school both of your parents you both have uh students in the salt lake city school district but let's start with what you expect from the upcoming school year it could be a pretty wild ride to say the least michelle let's start with you you know u
nfortunately i'm a pessimist at times and so i guess i expect the worst i'm glad we're still you know on schedule to start um i i hope that you know that the schools have the ability to keep the kids safe and to be in school it's so disruptive to be learning at home asynchronous study doesn't work younger kids can't do that work on their own teachers don't want to you know assign six hours worth of work a day it's just not practical so i hope that learning continues and in order to do that the k
ids need to be in school charlie what's your perspective as we here are on the doorstep of the beginning of school well the best way to keep kids in school is to have them wear masks in school when there is an outbreak and when we look at the delta variant when we look at lambda and and we're not quite sure how that's going to work i'm all for keeping schools open but we have to do it in a safe way you look at last year what happened with corner canyon and some of the other school districts that
uh that started you know didn't really push the mask requirements they ended up getting you know forced on a lockdown for a couple weeks salt lake district was was different because you know they were you know more keeping kids out of school most of the time and so this year really the best if you want your kids to stay in school have them wear a mask you know this this freedom fighting you know against public health is is ridiculous okay but and that's what's going to get us back to having sch
ool closures quicker than anything else the reality at this point is it's schools can go ahead and recommend it but uh it's going to be left up to personal choice so in that event how do you move forward well i think that's what we're going to see well we're going to move forward but i think you're going to see you know schools getting shut down when there's an outbreak and it is going to cause far more disruption than just having schools open and having kids wear masks but there is a little bit
of a different not a little bit a huge difference in the makeup of what's happening this year in the event that the vaccine is readily available some students have gotten it so how could that potentially change things michelle well you know i you know for the older kids for the high schools and junior highs hopefully most of those kids are vaccinated i think we'll see less outbreaks but the elementary schools that you know under 12 years old you can't you know you can't get that vaccine yet and
so i think you know the danger is there i think we'll see a kind of a you know from the government standpoint let's see what happens um as we start and then perhaps preventive measures will come in if if it goes downhill quickly hopefully it won't okay i mentioned at the top that both of you have students in the salt lake school district so let's focus in on that a bit the legislature did tie the hands of school districts somewhat but the salt lake city school district certainly showed last yea
r that it was willing to you know go its own route in certain areas so what do you expect from that specific district uh for this school year charlie let's start with you on that well you know i think i think it's hard to say um you know right now everything is moving towards uh more in-person uh education than they than they saw last year but again the utah state legislature loves local control unless it has to do with salt lake city um you know anytime salt lake city government does something
or the salt lake city school board does something that the the legislature disagrees with then they're against local control so um you know my feeling right now is that you know the legislature did tie the hands of of school districts uh with mask mandates um and so we'll just have to see where things go but you know the reality is i think we're gonna see you know outbreaks and and schools being closed but which will have far more disruption on kids than if we just kept them in class and had the
m more masks and just use our heads and they would argue that they did leave it up to local control in the in the fact that really it boils down to the salt lake county council that is going to be making uh decisions on mass mandates uh anyway uh michelle you weren't happy with the district last year so what are you expecting this year you know i think it's hard for one district out of an entire state to be doing something wholly different than everybody else you know you have one group of kids
that can't couldn't go to school and everybody else was in school it was unfair i i felt that way and i think it's better that there is a you know a uniform treatment where yes the the counties now are responsible the county is a broader organization than you know salt lake city in and of itself i don't think that uh salt lake city was definitely using data or medical you know at all times to to to you know drive their decision making and i think it's okay that it's in the hands of the county co
uncil uh charlie are you were you frustrated with the fact that uh districts were able to kind of do their own thing last year and there wasn't a uniform policy no i mean that's that's the thing i mean you know we we like having a lot of different school districts um but we want them to act the same and that doesn't work you know and that's the thing if you're going to have if you want local control you're going to have school districts that are going to to react differently than other school di
stricts and it is a it is a disservice to kids especially in in areas like salt lake county where you have you know wall-to-wall school districts all right let's move on to the infrastructure deal bipartisan bill 19 republicans ended up joining in with all the democrats to pass it 1.2 trillion dollars i want to dig into a couple of things when it comes to this bill specifically first your thoughts on the need for spending that much money michelle well 1.2 trillion but 550 billion in new spending
you know this is infrastructure i think you know it's the entire nation it's things like roads and bridges and water on you know tribal lands i mean can you imagine there's there's we have lands we have communities in our in our country that don't have running water like that's just not acceptable it's hard to stomach spending this much but sometimes it's necessary charlie your thoughts on the need for this bill we've needed this bill for a long long time republican presidents have talked about
the need for infrastructure funding democratic presidents have talked about the need for infrastructure funding the reality is we have more deferred maintenance on major infrastructure than we ever have before now is the time that we really do have to start working together finally you know we're seeing a bill where you actually have bipartisan support on this this isn't this is not token bipartisan support you have um you know almost 20 republican senators crossing the line to vote for this bi
ll that is that is very telling but it is this is long overdue it is expensive but frankly you know we we've got to do it that's what government does government is there for infrastructure for roads this is what government is for and now is the time to actually do that let's dig more into the dynamic of what we saw play out with utah's senators romney romney and lee split on the issue big time paraphrasing here but romney said look we came together it's not perfect but we put something good on t
he table lee basically calling it reckless spending michelle what do you make of the dynamic of the split playing out between our senators um you know i think any kind of a a large bill during a democrat um you know administration is going to be reckless spending on on behalf of a republican's part um we have two senators and i think they represent utahns i think they both represent utahns well and i think a split is is part of the system that's why we have more than one charlie your thoughts on
the dynamic we saw play out between our two senators well we have a senator that wants to do something in a senator that doesn't that's the reality the only time that senator lee seems to want to want to legislate is when his party's in charge that's not the way the system is set up i'm i'm grateful that mitt romney is at least you know willing to you know cross lines when necessary there's another component of the bill the human infrastructure part that we'll talk about in a minute uh that tha
t is different from what from this this bill it is important to keep the two separate the bipartisan infrastructure bill is a critical bill that has to happen right now it is it is a nonpartisan bill and and it's great that it did pass and now we need to um wait for the the house to pass it okay all right michelle real quick yeah i was gonna say you know the bill was gonna pass anyway and so the fact that it wasn't just pipe bipartisan republicans voting for it republicans were in on the making
of this senator romney was in the you know eight to ten people who were creating this and and negotiating this so the fact that they allowed republicans in to negotiate and especially utahns to get you know part of the things for uh especially for utah i think was um you know something well well worth it and we've not seen that kind of um you know cross reach in a long long time okay uh but just to be clear michelle you do believe that senator lee was representing a portion of utah republicans w
ho probably didn't want anything to do with it oh yes definitely okay uh we only have like 30 seconds left so i'm afraid we're not going to be able to get into this one too much but maybe i'll just ask one question is it safe to say that the human infrastructure bill the 3.5 trillion it's going to be only one party that pushes this through if it happens yeah they're going to be they're going to be using budget reconciliation which is the exact same thing that the republicans did in 2017 when the
y passed you know the trillion dollar tax cut for the wealthy uh using that same measure any quick thoughts on that uh it should be dead on arrival okay well we will see how that plays out uh great insight thanks so much for being here you better good to be here stay with us we'll be right back with more insane utah politics right after the break
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