As co-chairs of the Kanab (Utah) Beautification
Committee, California retirees Ken and Pat Nute discovered it takes
more than good intentions and a little elbow grease to clean up a
town. Tact would have helped, say city council members, who voted
to disband the committee in March after Ken Nute flashed photos of
houses he called eyesores on a local television show. “People were
sitting at home and all of a sudden they see their house on TV with
somebody saying it’s a mess,” council member Rosealie Coleman told
the Salt Lake Tribune. TV show host Richard Negas recalls cringing
when Nute brought out the photos. “At the time, I thought maybe
this wasn’t such a good way of motivating the community.” The
committee had planned a daylong cleanup of Kanab Creek, but the
event is now on hold, and as for the Nutes – they’re headed back to
California. “All we wanted was to do was something good for our
little community,” Pat Nute says, “And then they hit us with a
two-by-four.” In a parting shot, Ken Nute told the town of Kanab it
should change its slogan from “The Greatest Earth on Show” to
“Welcome to the Kanab City Dump.” “If these pigs want to live in
their squalor, that’s fine with me. We’ve had enough of their crap.
We’re moving.”
*Elizabeth
Manning
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Californians talk too much trash.
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