The winners and the losers

Winner/Loser: The good news is that somehow nobody got hurt. In that sense, the folks of Pleasant Grove ended up winners this week when a 105mm howitzer shell landed in the back yard of the Connors family. The bad news, of course, is that Utah Department of Transportation workers fired the shot, which was intended to relieve avalanche dangers in nearby canyons.

So far, UDOT has been up-front, promising to fix everything and to investigate what went wrong. They didn't have much choice, given the extensive damage to the Connors' house. Still, they need to continue being open.

Winner: Anne Ewers did the right thing this week by stepping away from her duties as general manager of the Utah Opera. She will retain the title of CEO of the Utah Symphony & Opera. As a recent consultant's report noted, those two titles could overwhelm just about anyone, and they also could create occasional conflicts. Thursday's announcement is, we hope, another step toward helping the merged symphony and opera regain its financial bearings.

Loser: Provo city officials tried this week to answer questions as to why they waited nearly two months to tell a family that a deceased loved one had dialed 911 on the day he died and that a dispatcher error kept emergency crews from getting to him. They were concerned about getting all the facts in place first, Mayor Lewis Billings said. There was no cover up.

But there also has been no eagerness to be accountable for what happened, either. The city has yet to explain why it took five months to tell the public about the incident, nor have they explained why an independent probe of the problem, conducted by the Ogden Police Department, has not been made public. The city also has failed to follow a state law that requires it to respond to records requests within five days. That's hardly evidence of a city doing everything it can to reassure the public.