Deseret News
Share this story
Derek Miller, Salt Lake Chamber and Downtown Alliance CEO and president, speaks during a press conference in Pioneer Park in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, June 10, 2020, about the changes that will be made for the 29th season of the Downtown Farmers Market in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kristin Murphy, Deseret News
On a personal level, for Derek Miller the pandemic started off in style.
It was the second week of March 2020, when he and his wife boarded a Delta flight in Los Angeles bound for Orlando. The Miller family had just spent a few days vacationing at Disneyland and now Derek, the president and CEO of the Salt Lake Chamber, was on his way to Florida for work meetings with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Exclusive: Utah leaders went rogue in early coronavirus response, emails from health experts show
Documents reveal a power struggle between state budget managers and public health officials.
(Scott Sommerdorf | Tribune file photo) Kristen Cox, Executive Director of the Utah Office of Management and Budget, turns to answer a question about the Governor s budget during Utah Governor Gary Herbert s visit with The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017. Cox has since left state office but email correspondence shows her department was heavily in Utah’s early coronavirus response. | Updated: Jan. 4, 2021, 2:39 p.m.
The powerful state budget managers who controlled key parts of Utah’s initial coronavirus response were skeptical about the value of medical expertise in handling the crisis and made repeated attempts to resist or subvert health officials, according to records obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune.
| Updated: Jan. 4, 2021, 2:40 p.m.
Editorâs note: This story is available to Tribune subscribers only. Thank you for supporting important local journalism.
Leaders from the Governorâs Office of Management and Budget (GOMB) played an outsized role in the early days of the coronavirus and into the summer.
GOMB officials didnât have a public-facing role in the health crisis. But emails show they were engaged in drafting the Utah Leads Together framework (a comprehensive plan to manage the coronavirus) that was approved by Gov. Gary Herbertâs administration and were involved in decisions about which counties could move to a less restrictive color-coded restriction phase and when.