Who runs Utah?

Salt Lake County had experienced an ugly 18 months on its crime front.

With gang shootings and prostitution in the headlines, three of Utah's most powerful people put their heads together to do something.

In three prominent buildings near downtown, President Gordon B. Hinckley of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Gov. Mike Leavitt and Utah businessman Jon Huntsman Sr. began to build a plan to improve safety for Utah citizens.

The crime-fighting effort is one example where the three most influential and powerful Utahns — as identified in a survey on the issue by the Deseret News — exerted their influence and worked up front and behind the scenes to change Utahns' lives.

Utah has state lawmakers. Hundreds of people are elected to city councils, county commissions and schools boards. Business giants sit on corporate and chambers of commerce boards.

But when major decisions are made in Utah, those who grease the wheel or kill the deal are often out of public view.

Utah is a state of 2.2 million, but a couple of dozen people call the shots here.

Months of research by the Deseret News tells a comprehensive story about those Utahns who have power and influence.

In Utah's complex society, power revolves around religion, politics and money — in that order, according to the findings in the newspaper's study.

After a 10-month survey of powerful and influential people, the Deseret News named the three considered the most influential of all in Utah. They are:

No. 1 — President Gordon B. Hinckley of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

No. 2 — Gov. Mike Leavitt.

No. 3 — Jon Huntsman Sr.,industrialist and philanthropist.

It was Huntsman who came calling on Leavitt in late 1995 on behalf of LDS Church leaders. President Hinckley wanted more focus on the crime problem, the billionaire Utah industrialist told Leavitt. He carried the same message to Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch.

Newspapers were reporting one violent gang-related shooting after another in 1993 and 1994. "NBC Nightly News" had come to town and had featured Salt Lake City's gang problem in a series of stories dealing with youth violence in surprising places.

Simultaneously, the valley experienced the worst explosion of illegal sex activity in 25 years. Police were citing 15 to 20 women a night for soliciting sex. A prostitute went so far as to proposition Salt Lake County Sheriff Aaron Kennard while in uniform.

We've got to do something, Huntsman said.

From his office on Utah's Capitol Hill, Leavitt had been working on solutions, too, but with the mighty three-spoked wheel of power cranked into motion, the road was quickly paved for answers.