File photo.
LOGAN — On KVNU’s For the People program on Tuesday, Utah Governor Spencer Cox was asked what he’s thankful for this year.
“Well, thank you so much for asking the question, and for helping me to focus on what’s really important, (I) got so much on my plate, everyone does, everyone’s busy, and we need to really pause, and think about what we’re grateful for. For me, this year as I look back and reflect, I’m really grateful for community, if that makes sense.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about community, the people around us, our neighbors, our friends, the people that we go to church with, the people we get to know as we walk down the street,” he explained.
The governor said he’s also thankful for those who help when things go wrong.
“We just had a tragic fire, an extended stay hotel that caught fire where low-income families were staying, 70 people displaced, and to see community rally, this was down in Richfield. People come together to help those families, donations pouring in. That’s the stuff, we get so caught up in things that don’t matter, or maybe don’t matter as much as we think they do. But when the worst happens it’s community that comes together.”
He said that sense of community in Utah needs to be preserved.
With the next legislative session not too far away, Cox said they are able to get a lot of things accomplished working together rather than attacking each other.
“I’m getting ready to release a budget in a few weeks, and this doesn’t happen, it’s never happened before with Governors even in our state, where I’m asking legislators what they want me to put in my budget to help them,” he explained. “Usually, legislators say they don’t care at all about the governor’s budget. Now I have legislators actually bringing my budget to their committee hearings and sharing that with their committees because their stuff is in my budget because we worked together.”
The governor said that just makes more sense to him, when he has 104 allies in the legislature rather than him versus the legislature.
Cox acknowledges he doesn’t get everything he wants but he shouldn’t, because that’s not the way government works.