From Deseret News archives:
Who runs Utah?
Behind-scenes efforts helped cut crime rate
With gang shootings and prostitution in the headlines, three of Utah's most powerful people put their heads together to do something.
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.
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.
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.
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