Hello friends: This is our third email blast (you can comment or see previous posts on our blog) so read on and please share widely!

Status update: We submitted our final legal language on F May 17 (here it is on the Lt Governor’s website; see Our Policy for policy summaries and details) and we will receive an updated Fiscal Estimate by M June 17. At that point we will get a sample petition packet from the Lt Governor’s office (here’s an example from 2018) and we can run off copies and begin gathering signatures!

In the news: Check out Don Jarvis’s op-ed in the Provo Daily Herald and the recent stories mentioning the campaign on KSL.com and on Fox 13. (There was also a short segment on KUER, but I can’t find a link to it.) Earlier news stories about the campaign can be found on our website’s Media page, which also has related stories like this May 27 front-page story by Sean Means in the Tribune: “Salt Lake City makes the list of the nation’s worst cities for health effects tied to air pollution.”

Signature-gathering guide and events: Here’s the brand-new Gathering The Darn Signatures guide to signature-gathering, and here’s an initial list of events that might be good for signature-gathering. Please add comments, questions, and suggestions in the comments section of these posts!

Materials and budget: Here are updated printed materials and a tentative $7,500 budget to purchase those materials. Comments welcome, and FYI this is pretty much all the money we have on hand as of now. If we had additional funds, we could look at hiring student interns (even $500 for the summer would help!) and/or campaign staff. We’re hard at work on fundraising—you can help by donating or by hosting a fundraiser house party!—and we’re also working on a t-shirt and a quarter-sheet flyer/handout to add to our list of printed materials.

Chapters around the state: We now have leaders for two of the six chapters we’re setting up around the state! Details below, please reach out to them if you’re in their area, and please let us know if you want to lead or be part of the other chapters listed below (or start up another chapter elsewhere in the state). FYI these six chapters cover 28 of the 29 state Senate districts (here’s a PPT with all of them showing how they overlap with pollution problems); in order to qualify for the 2020 ballot we need to hit the listed signature targets in 26 of the 29 state Senate districts, plus gather about 5,000 more signatures anywhere in the state to hit the statewide target of 115,869 valid signatures.

  1. The SW Utah chapter (Julie Hancock, julie@CleanTheDarnAir.org) covers two Senate districts (#28 and #29; this  map covers both) and has a target totaling 8,343 valid signatures.
  2. The Cache County chapter (Charles Ashurst, charles@CleanTheDarnAir.org) covers two Senate districts (#17 and #25; this map covers both) and has a target totaling 8,009 valid signatures.
  3. The Moab / SE Utah chapter covers one Senate district (#27; see maps of the Moab area and the Price area, or the whole thing) and has a target of 3,950 valid signatures.
  4. The Ogden area chapter covers three Senate districts (#18,  #19, and #20; this map covers all three) and has a target totaling 10,828 valid signatures.
  5. The Utah County chapter covers five Senate districts (#7,  #13,  #14,  #15, and #16; see this map zoomed on Utah Lake that covers #13-15 and this map of all five, with #15 unlabeled in the middle) and has a target totaling 20,084 valid signatures.
  6. The Salt Lake area chapter covers fifteen Senate districts (#1,  #2,  #3,  #4,  #5,  #6,  #8,  #9,  #10,  #11,  #12,  #21,  #22, #23, and #26; see maps of the 3 districts north of SLC #21-23, the 11 central districts #1-6 and #8-12, and the Park City/Vernal district #26) and has a target totaling 60,897 valid signatures.
  7. Postscripts: Here’s a way to see all the Senate districts (make sure to click on “State Senate”) or look them up by zip code or address. And BTW the only district not covered by any of the chapters above is #24 (see map here), which stretches roughly from Nephi to Kanab.)

Six ways you can help: Tell your friends about the campaign and encourage them to join our email list; volunteer to lead or help with one of the chapters listed above; donate to support the campaign; write an op-ed or LTE [Letter to The Editor]; contact us to host a house party fundraiser and/or set up a comedy-and-carbon-tax talk like the one at the First Presbyterian Church in Logan on W June 26; or contribute other talents you have to the campaign. This is a grassroots effort so we need all the help we can get!

Sincerely, Yoram and the Clean The Darn Air team