Transcripts For CSPAN2 Campaign 2020 Utah Governors Debate 20240712

The questions for the debate will come from myself, students from Utah Valley University, members of the news media and the viewing audience participating on social media and response times to questions are defined but will vary from one to two minutes if needed. Candidates will have the opportunity for a 32nd rebuttal. Prior to the debate tonight, a virtual coin toss determined spencer cox will provided the pe initial response to the first question and will alternate who answers first on the remaining questions. And lets get right to those questions now. This is to both of you and it will go to you, Lieutenant Governor, first. If you are elected, certainly you will affect the history and the direction of the state of utah for at least four years, maybe eight. In the state of utah it isnt unusual to go even beyond that. But lets talk about two terms. What should utah look like under your leadership with your administration in the year 2028, and what specifically do you hope at the end of the time period almost a decade away now that your administration will be remembered for doing in our great state . Thank you. This year has been one for the record books and all of the wrong ways but the future is incredibly bright and if i get the opportunity to serve as your governor i hope eight years from now as we look back over the course of the eight years, what we have been able to accomplish again together, it will look like today only better. But there are certain areas that we will be focusing on and its not for the pandemic but more specifically in the area of education. We lead the nation and upward mobility and with the lowest poverty rate. Those are things we should be proud of but unfortunately, not everyone has been able to take advantage of the best economy in the nation over the last ten years. My goal is looking back eight years from now, we will show that prosperity that so many have taken advantage of will also be enjoyed by people in rural utah and people in the multicultural communities and by everyone that equal opportunity to participate. Now the same question for Chris Peterson. In the administration for 18 years what will utah be like and what will you take pride in having done . My hope is after the administration, we will quickly get through this Coronavirus Crisis. To get the economy back on track and Start Building the economy of the future. In the Peterson Administration i want to focus on making sure we are no longer dead last for our Public School system. I want to make sure we have a government that is responsive to the public instead of overturning the ballot measures the public voted for and replacing them with watereddown versions, a government that actually listens to the people and is moderate and promotes fair and affordable taxes. I also think weve got to do a better job cleaning up our air. Its been a problem for too long and we need to make progress. Last, weve got to make sure more of the access to the healthcare they need in order to stay healthy, we are one of the lower third of states in terms of the number of people that have access. We need to do a better job and i hope to lead in that respect in the administration. Thank you. In different times, this would have happened at Utah Valley University. So, we have some of the students of utah valley asking questions tonight. Lets get the first question right now. My name is preston and im a student at Utah Valley University. My question for both of you is what should the government do about College Students because they clearly havent been taking it seriously and it is an ongoing problem. We go to Chris Peterson first and we will allow 90 seconds on this one. Mask wearing is one important part of trying to get the coronavirus situation back under control. First i would impose a statewide mask mandate with reasonable exceptions. Nobodys saying if you are a rancher that you should have a mask on but its one of the things we do to love our neighbors and protect one another. The best Scientific Evidence says that its likely to help limit the spread of the disease. And whats more, we need to have it across the state because one community can see infections in another community. We have got to Work Together as a team to get it under control but its not just about masks. We need to decrease the processing time for the tests. We still have tests at some locations taking two or three days or even a week to get processed and in the meantime people dont know if it is safe to go back to work or school. Weve got to make sure we are doubling or tripling the number of contact tracers so when we start to get the rate down we can identify where the pockets might be flaring up and try to get people humanely and safely quarantined and we have to do a better job getting the resources we need in places it makes sense for them to go. I believe we have squandered a lot of money on things like cell phone applications that didnt work. We still dont have masks widely available for the frontline workers. Weve got to have the best Available Technology and provide it in a costeffective and transparent way. Now to the Lieutenant Governor, same question from the student. I want to thank preston for the question because the fact you are asking the question makes me know that you know how important it is to wear a mask. We do have mask mandates at all of the colleges and universities and we still have too many young people that are not wearing their mask. Its being driven by young people and the New York Times did a piece that talked about how this is happening across the country in red states and blue states. We have two major colleges being put together and many of them are doing it the right way but many of them also arent so we have to educate people. One of the things i love about your generation you do care about people and each other and we know that the virus doesnt impact people your age as much as others. Most of you will recover just fine and there will not be any longterm repercussions. If we could keep it to you, that would be great but here is the problem, that doesnt work. We know that young people inevitably interact and the virus doesnt care what age you are. Its designed to help other people understand the importance of wearing a mask, social distancing and taking this seriously. My message is please, please take this seriously. You care about others it may not hurt you but it could kill someone else. I mentioned this at the beginning of the debate. We will start with spencer cox first. We have had people participate, the students on the website seemed elsewhere. This is the number one thing people are asking about and i will kick it off with this question. Will you enforce a statewide mandate to help curve covid19. Maybe i could add to that if you have the authority today, would you or would you not ask a straight up question expecting a straight up answer. Would you if you had the authority today declare a mask mandate or perhaps this is a question we get asked all the time. The last three times i was asked, i support where we are today and what the governor has chosen to do. Leaving mask mandates to individual communities to make that decision. Let me tell you a couple of things that i think are important about this. We have been pushing for masks. Ive been pushing for months. If you care about your neighbors, you should wear a mask. If you have to have the law to mandate you to wear a mask you are probably not going to do it anyway. And it doesnt make that much of a difference. Let me share the data. We go out every week and survey hundreds of surveyors that go out and measure mask wearing across the state. Im excited to let people know we had the highest numbers ever about 1500 observations and mask wearing was at 86 . Thats the highest number we have seen so far and that is great news. Right now, and majority is under a mask mandate of course salt lake as is utah county. And i thought i have smiths will, but it looks like my time is up. It was one minute. I apologize. I would have wrapped that up sooner. We will go ahead. No problem. We will give you a little extra time on this, chris. Thank you, doug. I come from a statewide mandate back in july. I would do it today because we have had a skyrocketing infection rates and we are now the fourth worst state in the country in terms of per capita outbreaks and infections, and that is according to the cdc numbers, the best available science. Weve got to do more to get the virus under control because it is critical for saving lives. I hate wearing masks. I dont like it it gets foggy. I dont enjoy it either but there are a lot of things we do in a Civilized Society to take care of one another. We have mandates up stopping at traffic lights. If you show up to work you probably have to wear your pants. There are things we need to do as a society to take care of one another. This will not last forever but right now, we need to wear masks and that is why i would require it as a matter of law. This has been such an interesting question asked by so many. We go once again to our students from uv you. My question for the candidates schools are opening fulltime despite the outbreaks. Mr. Peterson, lets go to you and perhaps we can focus on the churches and schools. First, i already talked about a number of different strategies i think we need to put in place to get the virus under control including increased testing, contract pricing, protective equipment, and of course we talked about the mask mandate. With respect to the schools and churches, i recognize we need to have some schools open because kids need to get that education. Parents need to get them to go back to school to have child care. If i had been in church i would have worked with the department, the education authorities to try to increase a little more gradually to focus on the youngest kids first because they are the ones that have the hardest time with Distance Learning and the best immune response to the disease. With respect to churches, again, my similar response is if we can try to do things outside its best if we try to go slow and maintain social distancing. Its critical that we do that especially in this difficult time when so many lives are at stake. Lets talk about schools, and i think this is important. Look, there are other things at play damaging besides the coronavirus. Its important and we are taking it very seriously, but the repercussions of not having kids in school can be just as significant and worse in some cases. In fact many of the students are being left behind especially those in low income areas, students with disabilities. The Salt Lake City School District is the only in the state that hasnt gone back to in Person Learning and that is a huge mistake. Its damaging our kids and that needs to change. We are working very closely with School Districts and ther theres amazing innovation happening. When we start to see outbreaks, we can pay for it and go to a hybrid model. Once we pivoted to the hybrid model where kids are only there half the time, they are able to get that under control. This is a dance we are going to have to do over the next few months to allow kids back in school but also keep them safe. We are pleased this evening to have our friend and colleague with us. Gentlemen, good to be with you this evening. You recently called on governor herbert to remove the governor for his role with the task force, citing in part that you felt it was outside of his area of expertise. Talk about why you believe its inappropriate for him to be serving that position and in your response, why do you believe that it does fit within your expertise and why do you think that it was appropriate for the governor . We will go with spencer cox first and then Chris Peterson will have the response. Its hard to respond to his arguments against me i will go first. It isnt personal. I generally like the Lieutenant Governor. Hes a good guy and i think we are already kind of becoming that at least i hope for that to be the case but heres the problem. Its about saving peoples lives. Jobs are on the line and Small Businesses or collapsing. The Coronavirus Response was offtrack. We are now the fourth worst in the country for Coronavirus Infections and that is having a consequence not just for peoples health, but also for businesses and jobs. People face longterm scarring and care kidney damage and even brain damage associated in this dangerous disease. Thats why weve got to do more and we need to be listening to the Public Health experts at the department of health to get this in the best way possible. I think we are becoming friends and by the way, whatever happens in the next hour is going to be completely bonkers compared to what is happening right now. The task force and what has followed it is bringing together the very experts that hes talking about. If you get the chance to be governor, part of being governor or Lieutenant Governor means you have to make incredibly difficult decisions. We are threading a needle. This is a pandemic unlike anything we have seen and we have brought together and are still working over 250 individuals every day the best and brightest in the state. Medical professionals, Emergency Response teams coming together making recommendations to the governor that then makes the decisions. That is what is best about utah and it shows in our success the best economy during a pandemic with unemployment 4. 1 and one of the lowest mortality rates in the country at. 6 . Now again it hasnt been perfect and we have a long way to go but we are working together to find the solutions. I agree we have had success and we have a department of health that is involved but we have also had challenges weve spent over 100 million and still havent gotten to the situation the virus is under control and second, we are closing low Income Health clinics that could be used to fight disease. Weve wasted money on medicine science shows doesnt work. Thats not appropriate. We need better leadership on the virus. Do we have a request for rebuttal . I will go ahead and request a rebuttal. This response is about all coming together. Im very proud of the people that have stepped up in this response. There have been mistakes and ive been clear about that in the past. I talked to my colleagues across the country and they will tell you that utah is doing it the right way. We are working together and we will continue to lower the spread and save lives. One of my concerns as the moderator was certainly we need to address covid19 but theres so much more long after its in the Rearview Mirror there were still the huge issues and opportunities read id like to talk about them right now and one is quality of life. Gentlemen, as we look at the population of utah now, and its doubling by 2050, we look at the growth and the traffic and the infrastructure. You look at all of the people that would end the lifestyle in utah and population growth, home grown ihomegrown in the state o. I would like to talk about how we maintain the quality of life that we have here in our state and lets start with spencer first one minute. Thank you. There is a reason that utah is the Fastest Growing state in the nation wit for the last ten yea. We have a lot of kids and that is one of the main reasons but we are top ten in migration. People have discovered its a beautiful place and we have the best economy over the last ten years. That is bringing people from all over the world to come here to raise their kids and get a job and enjoy the quality of life that we have. We cant maintain that if we are not careful. There is a very simple formula that i use all the time. Youve heard me use it before and that is when infrastructure proceeds growth the quality stays high. When it proceeds infrastructure, the quality of life declines. We are investing in infrastructure and have an incredible airport that just opened. The interchanges are improving. We have to work and som in somer areas. Mass transit has to get reliable and we can build that density to make sure the quality of life stays high. Mr. Peterson, your response. Its an important component to continue to have a great place to live, but we also need to focus on making sure our kids have Great Schools to go to. We are dead last in perpupil funding and weve got to get the air pollution challenges under control. Demographers are predicting we will have millions of additional people moving in and growing up here and that will put more air pollution in the air if we dont get ahead of that. I also think we need to focus on making sure we are spreading out the Economic Development not just along the fund, but across the state to the more rural areas and broadband to try to facilitate the teleworking and developing jobs out in other communities across the state to spread out and use our wonderful lands to our best advantage. All things we can do to make the country and state the best possible place to live. I think we have a bright and optimistic future and you can count on me to be a moderate focused on Practical Solutions guiding us gently in that direction. From channel five here with us. Id like to stay on that topic of the quality of life. Those born and raised in utah worry the state is simply becoming unaffordable because of the skyrocketing cost of housing. Candidates, tell me your plan to address the shortage of housing and how to make it more affordable. Im glad you asked the question. We need to make sure we are not just developing jobs, but careers. People need to make enough money to have a living wage to buy a house and rent an apartment. That is step number one. Step two, i think we should be increasing taxes to make sure that we are building Affordable Housing in creating the Housing Stock thats available to keep the prices low. Third, we should work in partnership with governments to try to make lively neighborhoods that are close to where people work and bring people close to where they work and live. You can also do so cheaply. It decreases the infrastructure cost where we are not driving all around the town all the time. And i want to go back to that broadband and the teleworking because it is a great way to try to decrease housing costs. The dollars can go a little bit further if you are over the mountains an in price and Carbon County because now they are different in those areas via. I want to reply by saying that i agree with what he said on this issue. It is important and somebody that ran the business, 98 of utah have access to broadband right now and we are working hard on the last percentages. Ive been a big proponent. This is an opportunity for people to live anywhere they want to and continue. This is one of the Silver Linings coming out of this crisis is that people are realizing they can work from home and be incredibly successful but we also need innovation. The past year we have been reaching out and working with our home builder associations across the state in three areas, innovation and the way we build homes to build them cheaper, innovation and the way we finance and innovation in regulatory schemes around homebuilding. Much of the price of housing is artificially driven by the way we regulate. Now its not up to the states to tell people how to zone in their cities. Thats up to the local municipalities but we can have different zoning around the transit to make an impact. We are very pleased to have heidi with channel two news and your question. I think its safe to say utah has done better than any state in the nation when it comes to job losses but that number is little consolation to the thousands that are still without work. Many of them in the Service Industry. The number one or right now what can we do to get these four to 5 without work back to work and make sure the Service Industry businesses keep their doors open so when people come back to dissenters they are there and open and ready for business. We have a two minute response and we will start with spencer. There are far too many people struggling to make ends meet that have lost their jobs. Its important to know weve lost fewer jobs than any other state and that is incredible and something we should celebrate. To those that are struggling right now, weve placed over the past few months 15 million in our trade and technical institutions and institutions of Higher Education specifically for this purpose, to help those that have lost their jobs to get new skills. Believe it or not, thousands of jobs, high paying Jobs Available today, but we just dont have the people to fill the job. So theres a unique opportunity to get more skills. To those that are in those industries, to the Business Owners and others struggling, we worked closely with the federal government. Utah was number one getting them out to businesses, taking advantage of that so they could keep their doors open and keep employees on the payroll and make sure that as the tourism starts to come back they would be able to have their jobs and provide for their family but theres even more we are doing. We brought in the dean of the Business School at the university of utah and he is leading our economic response. Weve used state dollars to reach out to the businesses and we have a team going out and meeting with businesses taking pledges so businesses can be safe for people to come back so we can increase the willingness of those worried about the virus that feel safe in the business establishments. You talk about it as an opportunity to recover in ways that are better than other states and by the way as an aside we are going to see a renaissance in manufacturing. Supply chains have been broken overseas and utah is going to take advantage of that and its going to bless the lives of thousands of workers across the states. One of the things i love about the home state is we are hard workers and we hustle in this town and care a lot about entrepreneurialism and free markets. I care about those things. I support that. But the challenge we are facing right now has more to do than anything with the coronavirus and to have a healthy economy, we have to have healthy people. The reason people are not going out and shopping, going to theaters and restaurants and the number they were before is because they are afraid of getting sick and they should be. 200,000 americans have perished. Thats more than died in the First World War or every combat operation following the Second World War including korea, vietnam and middle eastern wars combined. The fastest path to get people back to work in this state is to get the virus under control. Its going to continue on after the election. Thats one of the reasons you should vote for me in this election big because i will get to work and get it under control but we have to have a longerterm vision after the virus. We need to keep taxes low, heavy light touch on regulation. Thats one of the things that made us successful in the past and i will continue to do that. We need to help spur jobs and get the economy fired back up. I think we need to leverage the universities, colleges, Community Colleges to try to create pipelines for jobs at the future. I will bring together the technical sector, the banking sector, the Technology Industry and get a hold of what jobs we need to try to lead the future and build that economy in the future. We can do everything they can do and we can do it better right here in utah. We are near the midpoint of the debate this evening. And i welcome you that are now joining us once again to the office of utah governor. As a reminder on social media use the hashtag utdebates and now lets get back to the exchange. In any quote on quote normal year we would have been up to our eyeballs discussing funding for education by now that is so important for the state. And i think especially in light of some of the challenges that we are dealing with with covid. But lets talk about the future and recouping some of the ground we have lost revenue. There are our kids losing ground while we try to figure all of this out. But lets try to get your vision for the state of utah when it comes to education and especially anticipating some of the budgeting challenges coming up, what are your views on education. My greatgreatgrandfather led 1500 pioneers to this town and state in 1847. He became the first public intendant, speaker of the house of representatives, the chair man and third president in his church. But i came from humble origins. I am entirely a product of utahs Public Schools. I worked my way through high school and went on to college and graduated from the university. What do we need to do, weve got to increase the resources available. We have the lowest funding in america and thats got to change. We had decades to get it fixed and its not getting done. We need to make sure we are addressing the highest rate. To do that it is going to take resources. Weve cut to the bone in the past and its our children that are suffering. To point out why we are the lowest one, we have more kids per capita than any in the country. That is a good problem to have but the second is its a lot more difficult. Its because about 70 of our state is owned by the federal government and the federal government doesnt pay taxes on that and in most states the way you Fund Education is through property tax. There is a component here in utah and when we talk about the lowest funded state for people thats also not true there are several School Districts where it is well above the National Average and maybe it is a surprise to many of you but the truth is there are many School Districts like the one i grew up and where my kids are being educated right now that are far below the National Average. We have an equity problem in utah and we have to address that and make sure the kids get the same opportunity and seem education asameeducation as thek city. I would like to stay with this topic. Education is so important, and i still think anticipating and talking with our legislators and many of our Business People what the tax revenue might be and what some of the shortfalls might be. Some of the challenges in the upcoming session. And one of you will be presiding over whats happening on capitol hill at that time and getting your state of the state address. We also have an amendment she on the ballot and for those not familiar it is in the pamphlet but shall the utah constitution be amended to expand the uses of the money the state receives from income taxes and intangible property taxes to include supporting children and supporting people with a disability. This is kind of a lot to talk about, so we will allow two minutes on this one for each of you. And again, the budgeting issues, the amendment fully supported it but now lets start with you in ten minutes. To deal with the budget shortfall because unlike the federal government, weve had a constitutional obligation above and beyond that to balance the budget and here is what happens. We balanced the budget we had a 2 increase in funding in the middle of this pandemic and recession. No other state in the nation can say that it shows the priority that we have together with legislation for funding. There are promises that were made to the teachers and educators, parents during the negotiations on amendment we have had the largest increase in education spending in our States History over the past five years. That is something we should all be proud of but theres more to do. One area ive just become focused on is the way we build buildings. If you look at the new schools that are being built, we have provers incentives this money can only be used for these new schools and cant be used for things that matter like paying the teachers and making sure they have the supplies they need. That has to change. Theres better ways to do this and better ways to manage the building of schools. We are seeking new high schools in the state where districts are spending over 150 million for a high school. Absolutely no sense. Theres no reason to do it. We can build better more efficient schools and use that money to provide for the needs of our students and most importantly to pay the teachers more. Professor, you are next. About the equity and funding of the school system, i agree there are some equity challeng challenges. I want people to listen very carefully to take funding from the local School Districts and transfer it to other places around the state, i dont believe what we should be doing is having our kids fighting over scraps across the board the state has the lowest perpupil funding in america. We need to get everybody equal and add additional money to win the future. Lets get out there and compete with connecticut and new york and massachusetts and some of the other states that have the Top Performing students in the country. That is the future we want for our kids. I know its hard and we have a problem with public revenue from the publicly owned land because the federal government owns a lot of it. I have three kids and i would welcome another one. Thats part of the culture but we also have a vibrant diversified economy, and we have the resources in the state to actually Fund Education for the kids. Its not the Democratic Party that failed to do that. Its the Majority Party and its time for a little more balance and forward thinking to get the job done. This is another example of a strategy to try to pit one group against another. What it does is allowed funding for disabled kids to tap the revenue from the income taxes, which since the 1930s has been dedicated exclusively to public education. My concern is that its going to create competition between disabled people and the Public School kids. Lets just fund both of them and i think at this point the wheel has been broken and im going to vote against amendment g. We might have a rebuttal. As much as i appreciate my opponent trying to answer the question, let me be clear im not talking about taking money away from existing School Districts and moving it to the districts that are struggling. Thats not what im talking about at all. Im talking about being circumspect in the way that we are listing everybody and my opponent said there is an equitable distribution across the districts. He hasnt looked at the numbers because we have districts now where perpupil spending is over 20,000, and others where its under 10,000. That isnt equitable at all and so i believe we have to be more careful about the way we use the Funds Available and make sure werweare lifting everyone up. Our funding from the state budgets is equally distributed, but its the local resources that are coming from property taxes that are not as equally distributed across the state. So how is it that you would equalize the funding when its the local sources of revenue that are creating the disparity between the two where you have to go in and transfer it to somebody else, or i dont think you have a practical solution to address the equity problem but i agree equity is a big challenge. I grew up on the west side in an underfunded school and i want to try to make that same challenge. About that, we can agree. With the conversation thats unfolded here, can i ask a somewhat obvious question what kind of a tax increase are we going to need in order to get to where we need to be in the state of utah, or do we not need a tax increase . First off, i like low taxes. I dont want to raise taxes but the biggest challenge in our state is we have a regressive tax system where if you add up the different sources whether its income tax, property tax, low to moderate income families paying a disproportionate share of their wealth in comparison to the very wealthy, thats backwards. My values as to whom much is given a little bit more needs to be expected. Its not because im a wild liberal but its because i read it in the bible and that is a core value most of the time we share. We made a big mistake when we went to a flat tax where the most wealthy people were making 2 million a year or paying the same income tax rate as a single mom fighting to get by. We have to make sure we do a better job of watching the tax loopholes and credits and incentives that account for roughly 30 of the revenue that we are not collecting. We need to make sure that the tax incentives dollar for dollar reflect our values in comparison to what we could have spent on Public Schools. Lieutenant governor, we will give you a few extra. Like my opponent said hes not going to raise taxes and neither am i. We have the revenue sources. We just need to prioritize them and take advantage we build schools and hundreds of millions of dollars every year is wasted, i believe, on construction that is unnecessary. Also, i mentioned the land that is owned by the federal government. We are a public land state and we will always be a public land state. It might surprise many of you to know there are thousands of acres owned by the government within the cities or within just a few miles of the citys. We are talking about land that is within a municipality. We are working very closely with our delegation and in fact we passed a resolution to help bring the dollars back to utah. Those will go straight into the Education Fund and make a difference in the lives of our children. This debate would have been held at utah valley but unfortunately we were not able to do that. The students participated and again we turn to a question and comment. Im from Utah Valley University. And my question for you is how do you plan on restoring peoples confidence in the police . Obviously the last few months have been very difficult for our Law Enforcement community. I used to say that all politics was local but now i believe its national. When things happen like the george floyd murder, it gets the attention of everyone and it should. It was devastating and changes have to be made. Its a combination of competency and ethics. That is the formula for trust. Competency and ethics. We are working closely with our Law Enforcement community and my hat goes off to the chief of police and the sheriff that stepped up during this difficult time and said we can do better and we are going to do better. We made a significant change to the post and that is the training for Law Enforcement officers to help them understand the racial bias and reach out to communities and understand how to police in different ways so they are not using force. First off, thank you. Its a great question and painful subject. I know that there are hard feelings among people of color in the communities and i want you to know that i care about you. I see you and i want to do everything we can to restore trust and make sure you are full participants in the society. I also want Law Enforcement to know i care about you and respect your services and everything you are doing to keep us safe and provide professional policing. I will try to balance the two. I dont support defunding the police. Instead we should provide resources and we need to continue to press forward on the implicit bias training and have conflict deescalation at local Police Officers and sheriffs departments and then we need to make sure we have Community Involvement to try to restore trust in the police forces. Lets go back to taxes for a second. I want to know what your thoughts are on the food tax should it stay or go and before you answer and say that is a legislative function, if elected would you march upstairs and talk to the legislator about it . Not only would i have marched down there to negotiate a better deal i would have vetoed to pass it over my feet to live out right here and now i will never support a tax bill in the state of utah. Cox think the question. Mr. Peterson is right they did try to increase food taxes that was a huge mistake at the time and i said as much. One of the reasons i selected my running mate ms. Henderson was of the few that voted against that it is a regressive tax and it is the right thing to do and its difficult for income families and seniors on a fixed income to pay those extra taxes. I am very grateful and to know it would be on the ballot and ended up repealing that tax. And we really can come together to make a tremendous difference this is one area we saw citizens stand up this is a something they support and i supported as your governor. s. Time is so precious that president ial debate we need to be right on time from Utah Valley University students lets go to that right now. My question is what do on doing to protect here in utah . Cox think if the question. We have always been a public land state we will always be its one of the things that makes utah so incredible. Giving a shout out to those like my family who farm and ranch on public land making a tremendous difference we have to make sure public lands are available for everyone and supporting people in the state of utah we need to guarantee the multiple use those in the state of utah and by not allowing to use those in responsible ways. First we need to stop having wasteful lawsuits if you follow the public land debate then going down the rabbit were not getting anything done. Want to make sure getting adequate payment with the public land and protect our heritage but we need to be present so that it is useful for all of us. Spiritual longterm plan for water in utah . Women are what we are seeing california with the forest fires and when your plans for taking action on what we are currently having . Part of the reason the water levels are going down we are in a longterm drought is putting pressure on our forest what do i do i will transition to a Green Energy Economy with better Forest Management and try to make sure we are developing water resource infrastructure to make sure is available for agriculture and the growing population. This is an hour long answer water is the single greatest resource that we have. And this is critical going out through 2050 and then Forest Management is critical they have stop force management in ways that are compounding the impacts and those in the state of utah. So when it comes to air quality what is the number one thing he would do to air quality here in the state of utah . Cox over the past ten years our areas 30 percent cleaner. Half of the emissions come from tailpipes i has to be the biggest impact mass transi transit, electric Vehicle Infrastructure is a huge change in working to make sure all refineries which burn 80 percent cleaner than what most use now. First we have to give with Lower Software admissions air pollution and more quickly transition to the hybrid and electric vehicles and third to transition to Clean Green Energy with solar power the third highest untapped resources in america. Cox think it distinct responses on those questions and now to the final moments of the debate we will go to spencer cox first im sorry mr. Peterson. Peterson we have so much to be part of the estate i want to serve it as an honest servant but we have some challenges we are not addressing as governor to do the things we are doing well but also address areas of improvement we havent talked how politicians are repealed and watering down those ballot measures thats not okay we need to stop squandering resources to make sure were doing everything we can to protect the Coronavirus Crisis the lowest poor people spending and the highest gender wage gap member bright and optimistic future ahead of us but we need to continue to get better that is the template across party lines and i hope you give me a chance i ask for your vote. Cox ladies and gentlemen t20 is a year unlike any other i recognize it has been to felt talking to the governor a few weeks ago we had an earthquake and civil unrest the good news is i cant get any worse than we had a hurricane of sorts that created immense devastation and what did utahans do they came together Operation Fire word rescue with 10000 volunteers and millions of pounds of firewood to native americans who desperately needed it thats what utahans do best tonight what you see the idea to have civil discourse to disagree without being disagreeable is your governor we will continue to be the best to show the nation there are better ways to solve problems and leave it out of the crisis of any other way. Cox thank you to Chris Peterson and mr. Cox and thank you to those who asked questions Utah Valley University students on social media. Into the utah debate commissionit was sponsored by v Public Television and vermont public radio. Youll hear from candidates from Lieutenant Governor and u. S. House but today were joined by the Major Party Candidates for governor. Phil scott is vermonts incumbent governor serving two terms already. A republican, scott served for a decade in the state senate and was Lieutenant Governor when he was elected governor. Until he became governor, he worked in the Construction Industry and sold half of the Construction Firm he owned after being elected. David zuckerman is vermonts lieutenant government. Having served two terms in that role, hes hoping youll elevate him to the states top