Utah’s Transient Room Tax (TRT) has recently made headlines in Southeast Utah. The TRT allows a tax on “transactions involving tourist home, hotel, motel, or trailer court accommodations and services that are regularly rented for less than 30 consecutive days.”…
Last Spring, six students from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Journalism traveled to rural southeast Utah and Monticello, to serve as interns–to be “embedded with”— the local weekly newspaper, The San Juan Record. Under the direction of…
This is the conclusion of a two-part essay on New West gentrification and the designation of Bears Ears National Monument (part one here). In this part two, I will more closely examine the concrete ways in which New West colonization…
More than three years have passed since the idea of a “Bears Ears National Monument” was first introduced to the general public. One of the most far-reaching and expensive coast-to-coast marketing campaigns ever promoted by the powerful outdoor industry and…
A long-time Navajo politician and advocate for Bears Ears National Monument and related tourism development won the June 26 Democratic primary for District 3 San Juan County (Utah) commissioner. Kenneth Maryboy defeated incumbent Rebecca Benally by 39 votes, 705-666, according…
A two-part essay on the process of New West gentrification and the future of San Juan County, Utah after the designation of Bears Ears National Monument. Part one will provide historical context and define certain conceptual terms in order to…
If there is one issue that most of the polarized citizens of San Juan County, Utah can agree upon, it’s that very few of them want their communities to wind up like Moab, Utah. The fear of “Being the Next…
Bluff Goes Big The most attention-grabbing fact of the incorporation is its size: 38 square miles, which is more than 60 times the size of Bluff’s present developed footprint. The scale of the new boundary is fairly hard to contextualize,…
On Dec. 4, 2017, President Trump signed a proclamation at a made-for-media event inside Utah’s Capitol in Salt Lake City that shrank Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. The executive decree slashed two of his Democratic predecessor’s executive decrees…
In December, Jonathan Thompson, the roving contributor and former editor for ‘High Country News,’ offered his latest musings on the Bears Ears controversy from his home in Bulgaria. Responding to an op ed in ‘The Deseret News’ by Utah’s Governor…