Friday’s Salt Lake Tribune published an article entitled Rocky’s fallout: From threats to pats on back Bad for business? , A firm’s co-owner says the outspoken mayor made them shy away from SLC, in which it is stated that a the co-owner of The Florida based firm LexJet Corp,Ron Simkins, which had planned to bring at least 100 jobs to SLC, backed out because of SLC Mayor Rocky Anderson’s open position on the war and George W. Bush.
Simkins said the firm had been waivering between SLC and Denver and when Mayor Anderson spoke out, I said, ‘Great, it’s Denver.’ It’s [the mayor’s] job to represent his community, not to throw down a gauntlet in front of the president.”
Yesterday at the Muslim Festival we Greens spoke with a spokesperson from Mayor Anderson’s office who said that this was a “fake story”, that the firm was planning to go to Denver from the beginning and they were just waiting for an opportunity like this to create the image that Mayor Anderson was the cause for their decision. The spokesperson said that there should be a retraction in the paper. I haven’t seen it yet.
Some of us speculate that Karl Rove may be behind this…..contacting Republican business owners considering moves to Utah, as well as those already doing business in Utah, and urging them to report to newspapers that because of Rocky Anderson’s criticism of George W. Bush they would no longer consider SLC as a place for their businesses.
Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor 