A few items this week on the Utah scene:

First, it appears we may be having a special legislative session so lawmakers can pass a couple of bills that would clarify how large school districts can be broken down into two or more smaller districts.

This is a very sensitive matter — and, depending how it is done, older residential areas could get out of paying for millions of dollars of new schools that must be built in new, faster-growing residential areas.

The two main concerns are Granite and Jordan school districts in the southern parts of Salt Lake County. Both districts' east sides, which have more or less grown out since WWII, have older schools and stable or dwindling student populations.

Their west sides, however, are packed with new students, school parking lots and playgrounds crowded with temporary classrooms.

The older east-side residents don't want to pay millions of dollars through higher property taxes to build new schools on the west side, while west-side residents say it is only fair that they do so.

The argument that the west-siders paid for the east-side schools 15 or 30 years ago and so now it is the east-siders' turn to financially help the west side doesn't completely stand up.

There were fewer west-siders back then, as those areas were mostly open fields. True, there were some old-timers in those areas who helped pay the east-side freight, but nowhere near the residential numbers of today. In short, many west-siders didn't pay for east-side schools — or if they did, they contributed to paying off construction bonds late in the bonds' lives.

Legislators and local officials are looking at two approaches — some kind of "equalizing" school construction costs across a county or even a statewide equalizing law for school building construction.

Historically, individual school districts themselves have been responsible for building their own schools. And asking others to pay for school construction is a touchy question.

Secondly, Utah legislators this past week took a two-day tour of Davis and Salt Lake counties.

It's traditional for the Legislature to skip August interim study committees and travel to some part of the state instead.

Financing those trips fell heavily on local businesses and individuals who kicked in cash and in-kind goods to host the 104 part-time lawmakers and their guests.

When the Salt Lake County Council was asked to make a $25,000 donation to a $105,000 tab for that county's tour, the media and lawmakers themselves asked what was costing $105,000.

Seems Utah's Big Apple county can be an expensive place to tour.