Qualtrics? Quantricks?
Our Indigenous people have a wonderful tradition of stories with a coyote character. He’s a trickster, you see? Likes to play games with what you know and what you don’t.
Arizona had an ice hockey team named “Coyotes.” Still have the name. “We” got the franchise with the label peeled off. “We” actually didn’t. Something called the Smith Entertainment Group did. Darned if they didn’t bring that famous coyote behavior along with them, though! Magnified! Into a land and power grab! As if to say:
“We’ll revitalize your city! Connect Eastside and Westside, housing, make you famous hockey winners, brighten your upcoming Olympics!”
“All you have to do is give us a 99-year lease on the land beneath symphony hall — no sports in that place! We’ll also want two more blocks now in private hands and the city building height restrictions lifted. And $900 million from taxes.”
The coyotes cut a deal with our Utah Senate, always happy to stick it to our capital city. The legislators created SB272, never mind “unintended consequences.”
In fact, the overbuilding proposed will hurt both City Creek and the Gateway Center economically. Moreover, and I’m serious, who wants a skyscraper and that dysfunctional, ugly set of proposed structures, so rendered, anywhere near Temple Square? Well, the coyotes apparently do.
What to do? We urge a speedy repentance.
Utah has one grand tradition. Make a generous gift so that Abravanel Hall can update its infrastructure. Do it without tricks.
It will only take a portion of what you pay a single player. The building represents the finest of symphony halls of its period with outstanding acoustics for a musical experience few people elsewhere can have. The thousands of people who made it possible are the best of souls and don’t deserve being so disrespected with that self-serving proposal.
Remember the cartoon Wile E. Coyote? Roadrunner always won.
W. David Smith, Salt Lake City
