03.20.25

ISSUE # 112

CIC Info Bytes 03/20/25

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• Fremont, California: Parametric insurance at a municipal level is something relatively new.

Fremont, a Bay Area city of 226,000, in September became the first municipality in the nation to buy its own citywide flood insurance policy. It’s what’s known as parametric insurance: If the agreed-upon threshold, or “parameter,” for flooding is met, that will trigger an immediate payout. Fremont could use the money for anything it needed, whether cleaning up debris or helping uninsured citizens to get back on their feet, or even just replenishing the general budget.

While there are plenty of smaller experiments in community-wide parametric insurance — there are homeowner associations in California, for example, that carry wildfire insurance — Fremont’s marks a major step forward since it involves public monies and coverage for an entire city.

It comes as pressure for communities to do more to protect themselves is growing intense. Private insurers are leaving more households exposed by dropping policies and exiting some markets altogether. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has fired hundreds of employees at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which responds to natural disasters, and has targeted more at an office of the Department of Housing and Urban Development that is key to funding disaster relief. President Donald Trump has said he’d like to close down FEMA altogether and have states handle their own disaster response and recovery…

A Bay Area City Pioneers Urban-Scale Insurance for Climate Disasters — Leslie Kaufman | Bloomberg | March 11, 2025

• The historic NAR settlement has not been the watershed commission slashing moment.

…One year after the National Association of Realtors agreed, as part of a legal settlement, to change a key rule on real estate commissions — a rule that had long upheld a tradition of commissions between 5 and 6 percent, little has changed.

What was hailed as a watershed has so far produced a mere drizzle.

Some economists predicted the rule change would upend the business model and bring competition to a long-stilted marketplace, breaking the standard 6 percent rate  — one of the highest rates in the world — and forcing down home prices as a result.

Though average commissions appear to be slipping, industry watchdogs say that Realtors and their brokerages have used workarounds and pressure on sellers like Mr. Chambers to subvert the settlement. So far, they’re finding success.

“The industry understood the threat to 5 or 6 percent rates right away, so looked for opportunities to discourage negotiation,” said Stephen Brobeck, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Consumer Policy Center, who has been vocal about the need for greater consumer awareness in the real estate industry…

Home Sellers and Buyers Accuse Realtors of Blocking Lower Fees (free 🔗) — Debra Kamin | New York Times | March 15, 2025

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Another take on the NAR settlement one year later: there are signs of change.

…In the lawsuits against the NAR, the sellers who sued the organization alleged that this whole system was an elaborate scheme to pull the wool over regular people's eyes and force them to pay unfairly high commissions. Given that the median home price in the US is about $419,000, a 6% commission, split between two agents, would mean shelling out more than $25,000. While the plaintiffs pushed for commissions to be "decoupled," with buyers and sellers paying their own agents separately, the $418 million settlement last year didn't go quite that far. But it did offer enough changes to throw the real estate world into flux…

…So how, exactly, could buyers and sellers start coming out ahead? A big step is simple consumer education. The real estate firm Clever surveyed 1,000 homeowners and prospective buyers and found that even after the new rules went into effect, 40% of respondents said they either didn't understand the implications or hadn't even heard of the lawsuits.

Old habits die hard, especially when there's so much confusion around these changes. And critics of the settlement say it's actually opened up new pitfalls for buyers. Before, the MLS at least showed you what almost every home was offering in commissions — now that kind of information has been scattered or isn't publicly available at all, which makes it harder to tell whether "steering" is happening. And some of the representation agreements floating around could end up locking buyers into exclusive relationships with incompetent agents.

"All these deceptive practices have been basically turned underground," Tanya Monestier, a law professor at the University at Buffalo, tells me…

Some People Are Saving Big Buying a House Under New Commission Rules — James Rodriguez | Business Insider | March 19, 2025

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Redfin + Rocket Mortgage = red rocket?

…Redfin Chief Executive Officer Glenn Kelman is anticipated to continue to lead the business, reporting to Rocket’s CEO Varun Krishna…

…The housing market in the US has become increasingly tough as high borrowing costs pushed sales of previously owned homes last year to the lowest level since 1995. So far this year, the average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage has hovered above 6.5%.

That’s spurred more dealmaking in the industry. Last year, Compass Inc. agreed to buy Christie’s International Real Estate and other businesses in a transaction valued at $444 million. And last month, Redfin struck an agreement to make rival Zillow Group Inc. the exclusive provider of rental listings on its sites.

Rocket to Buy Real Estate Broker Redfin for $1.75 Billion — Crystal Tse | Bloomberg | March 10, 2025

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President Trump  is the homebuying wildcard.

It’s a tough time to be a homebuyer in the US. And reading the tea leaves on where the market might be headed is almost as challenging.

With prices still on the rise across much of the country, and mortgage rates hovering above 6.5%, affordability will be a concern for many house hunters this spring. But there’s a big wild card: the new president.

Donald Trump’s tariff wars with Mexico, Canada and China have the potential to drive interest rates higher by reheating inflation — or push them lower if the economy instead is tipped into recession.

How all that might influence buyer behavior in the prime season for home sales — when the weather warms and families look to land a deal before the new school year starts — is about to unfold. But early indications, from weakening consumer confidence and falling stock prices to sinking home-purchase contracts and a spike in deal cancellations, don’t look especially promising.

“The negative mood music seems to have resumed after a brief Trump bump,” said Thomas Ryan, North America economist for Capital Economics Ltd. “I don’t think house prices are going to fall, but I’m expecting a much cooler market.”

US Homebuyers Confront a New Wild Card This Year: Trump — Prashant Gopal | Bloomberg | March 12, 2025

Buy vs. rent has never been  more complicated.

The calculus on renting versus buying a home in the US has gotten much more complex since the 1960s…  For Americans approaching middle age, homeownership used to be the default assumption. “Stop throwing your money away,” personal finance gurus would tell renters. If you’re planning to stay somewhere for five years, went the rule of thumb, you should buy.

Some continue to spout this advice. But if you’ve spent any time recently looking at listings and doing the math, you know how outmoded it can be. For my situation, as a resident of an expensive coastal city, the online rent-versus-buy calculators are practically unanimous: With prices at record highs and mortgage rates bouncing near 7%, buying right now makes no sense.

Many others find themselves in the same situation. The median age of first-time homebuyers was a record 38 last year, according to the National Association of Realtors, five years older than in 2021. They also make up a shrinking share of the market: As recently as 2010, half of buyers in the US were purchasing their first home; last year just 24% were…

… I found some reassurance for my refusal to jump on this roller coaster ride in an October report from the Congressional Budget Office.  Looking at US families’ wealth from 1989 to 2022, the CBO found their home equity had more than tripled.  But their retirement wealth and other financial assets had more than quadrupled.  Housing is still an important component of wealth, particularly for poorer people who don’t have other assets. But overall, it makes up just 18% of Americans’ non-Social Security net worth.  A home may be an owner’s biggest single investment, in other words, but it’s not usually the main driver of wealth…

This Is Not Your Parents’ Housing Market (free 🔗) — Ben Steverman | Bloomberg | March 14, 2025

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Singapore: Big gains for condo flippers.

“If you want to be rich, you just buy property!” proclaimed Eric Chiew, a social media influencer who runs a small real estate investment consultancy. The audience, which included millennial couples with kids in tow and middle-aged locals wearing flip-flops, listened as Chiew mapped out how to make a windfall from buying and selling homes— sometimes without even having to move in.

Year after year of rising prices in Singapore’s private housing market has led to a significant pick up in “sub-sales,” where people offloaded homes they bought at new project launches before the units were fully completed. Last year, there were about 1,300 such transactions for condos and other private apartments, the highest annual number in more than a decade, according to public records. Property agents say many more buyers have caught on to the home-flipping trend and are hoping to do the same.

The activity has helped fuel a resurgence in the city-state’s property market since late 2024, pushing prices higher and leading several Wall Street analysts and developers to predict that the government will try to rein in the sector with more cooling measures. Crowds have thronged property showrooms in the past few months, and sales of new private units likely surpassed 3,200 in the first quarter, according to estimates from realtor Huttons Asia — the highest for the same period since 2021…

Singapore Condo Flippers Score 100% Gains Without Even Moving In — Bernadette Toh and Low De Wei | Bloomberg | March 13, 2025

• Saudi Arabia: Neom’s 100+ mile skyscrapers and other megastructures are suffering under the weight of their own enormity.

…After spending more than $50 billion, the crown prince’s sci-fi-inspired dreams—an arid-mountain ski resort, a floating business district, and the Line, the 106-mile-long pair of Empire State Building-height skyscrapers that is Neom’s centerpiece—have collided with reality.

Costs have soared, delays are ubiquitous and a decision last year to reduce Neom’s first phase threatens to deprive the desert city of the critical mass of inhabitants needed to make it a modern business hub.

Behind Neom’s problems: a dance of mutual delusion in which the crown prince pushed for fantastical plans—and executives shielded him from the full scope of challenges and costs, according to former employees and a more than 100-page internal audit of the project presented to members of Neom’s board last spring and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. 

The audit report, labeled “final draft,” found that executives, at times aided by the project’s longtime consultants, McKinsey & Co., plugged unrealistically rosy assumptions into Neom’s business plan to justify rising cost estimates. The audit found “evidence of deliberate manipulation” of finances by “certain members of management.”...

What Went Wrong at Neom, Saudi Arabia’s Futuristic Metropolis in the Desert — Eliot Brown and Rory Jones | WSJ | March 09, 2025

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Are there giant white houses in your neighborhood?  Plenty of white houses in Issue# 65.

…Giant White Houses are white, with jet-black accents: the shutters, the gutters, the rooves. They are giant—Hulk houses—swollen to the very limits of the legally allowed property setback, and unnaturally tall. They feature a mishmash of architectural features, combining, say, the peaked roof of a farmhouse with squared-off sections reminiscent of city townhomes. They mix horizontal siding, vertical paneling, and painted brick willy-nilly.

Like the giant White House just down the road from us in Washington, D.C., the Giant White House may be occupied by a Republican or a Democrat, but whoever they are, they are rich. Once the house next door was finished, it went on the market for $2.5 million. The house has five bedrooms and six baths and is 5,600 square feet. According to the listing, it has top-end appliances and European Oak Select Grade hardwood and heated floors in the en suite bath and a wet bar in the basement…

How Giant White Houses Took Over America — Dan Kois | Slate | March 06, 2025

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Houston, Texas: A unique condominium project.

The Rama Cos. breaks ground on boutique one-unit-per-floor condo project — Khanan Grant | CoStar Research | March 07, 2025

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New York, New York: A blank slate co-op read for your improvements!

At first glance, the listing for the penthouse atop 860 Fifth shows a stunning modern greenhouse — glass walls and ceilings with sleek finishes and skyline views that include a direct sight line into Central Park, on which the building sits. That, at least, is the vision fashion designer Elie Tahari had for a combined penthouse spread in the Lenox Hill co-op, but it was never executed. At the moment, the unit is a gutted 5,000-square-foot space with air rights and city-approved renovation and expansion plans.

Tahari spent decades battling with the board of 860 Fifth, the postwar co-op where he first bought a 21st-floor penthouse in 1979, over his attempts to renovate and expand the apartment. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he moved out years ago, buying a combo unit he had been renting at 15 Central Park West for $25 million in 2014. Now, he’s finally selling his place at 860 Fifth, asking a steep $22 million for the space…

Elie Tahari’s Frankenpenthouse at 860 Fifth Is for Sale — Kim Velsey | Curbed | March 14, 2025

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New York, New York: A record-breaking condo sale in Manhattan.

…A West Village condo has sold for $60 million, making it the priciest apartment ever sold in downtown Manhattan. It closed Thursday in an off-market transaction…

…Built around 2013, 150 Charles is one of the newest condo buildings in the historic West Village. It has drawn well-known residents such as musician Jon Bon Jovi and actor Ben Stiller, and resales there have commanded record prices. In 2023, a penthouse tied to former Credit Suisse executive Robert Shafir sold for $52 million, far more than the $29.38 million it traded for in 2016…

A $60 Million Condo Sale Sets a Record for Downtown Manhattan — Katherine Clark | WSJ | March 13, 2025

• You can track federal spending in real time and compare spending year over year.  The Hamilton Project

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US President Donald Trump’s aggressive trade policies have abruptly set the world onto a path of slower growth and higher inflation that could worsen notably if tensions escalate, the OECD said.

The Paris-based club of 38 rich countries cut its outlook for most members and predicted the pace of global expansion to slow to 3.1% this year and 3% in 2026 as barriers restrain commerce and surging uncertainty holds back business investment and consumer spending…

Trump’s Trade Wars Tip World to Slower Growth, OECD Warns — William Horobin | Bloomberg | March 17, 2025

Inflation and Monetary Policy

• The FOMC holds rates steady, but cuts are coming…probably.

  1. Fed holds rates steady; growth and inflation revisions raise prospect of stagflation

  2. Policymakers showed wider divergence on how many rate cuts are coming

  3. Most participants see risks to GDP weighted to the downside; unemployment and inflation to the upside.

  4. Powell says base case is still that impact of Trump’s tariffs will be ‘transitory’

  5. The Fed left interest rates unchanged in a range of 4.25% - 4.50%

Powell’s Fed at Point Where ‘We Can Cut or We Can Hold’ —  Bloomberg | March 19, 2025

Concealed Rain Damage

• Seattle, Washington: The Florentine condominium association is located in Downtown Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood.  Law firm Sudweeks & Stein began specializing years ago in the practice of representing association with wind-driven rain and concealed damage claims, but some homeowners have expressed doubts about the veracity of their representation as to the source of damage in their condominiums.  While this particular case may be on the up-and-up, torts waged for the sake of money – especially against the insurance industry – have far-reaching consequences.

…According to the complaint filed on March 6, 2025, in Washington federal court, the condominium owners allege that AFM is deliberately stalling, presumably to run out the contractual limitations period set within their insurance policies.

The association discovered significant concealed rain damage in October 2023, promptly notifying AFM as per the required protocols. Yet, in what the association describes as a blatant violation of their insurance contract, AFM has yet to provide any formal claim determination—a delay spanning 18 months, despite a clear contractual requirement of just 30 days, a delay that the HOA says constitutes bad-faith claims practices…

…This claim isn’t just about delayed insurance paperwork; it underscores a potential strategy by insurers to sidestep accountability by running down the clock, a practice that has riled many property owners nationwide.

In their strongly worded complaint, the condo association asserts, “AFM refused to enter into a tolling agreement with the association in an attempt to expire the contractual suit limitations provision in the AFM policies, and its investigation of the association’s claim is completely illusory and predetermined.”

Condo Owners Accuse Insurer of Bad-Faith in Denying $2M Hidden Water Damage Claim — Samuel Lopez | USA Herald | March 13, 2025

2-25-CV-00406 - The Florentine v. Affiliated FM Insurance Company | March 06, 2025

Saving Wally the Beaver

•  Fairfax County, Virginia: Proof that this works: Advocate.  Participate.  Escalate.

Signs that a beaver is in residence are evident all around the local pond. There are its teeth marks in the stumps of small trees it cuts down, the slapping sounds of its flat tail striking the water and its dam made of hundreds of pieces of wood near the southwest corner of the Fairfax County, Virginia, pond.

The semiaquatic rodent is called Wally — a name its neighbors bestowed in a nod to a character from the post-World War II-era sitcom “Leave It to Beaver.” The creature has attracted visitors since it first appeared in September.

But some in the community weren’t pleased with Wally’s propensity to gnaw limbs off trees and his dam’s inconvenient location near stormwater drains in the man-made pond. Last week, the homeowners association said it would use “lethal removal” on Wally after a wildlife expert placed four “kill-style” traps in the pond.

“It’s like somebody saying, ‘We’re going to kill your dog,’” Pete MacDowell, 82, who lives in the Kingstowne community, told The Washington Post.

MacDowell and more than 2,000 people signed a petition to save Wally, arguing that the beaver is a crucial and natural part of the pond. On Thursday, the HOA changed its decision, saying it removed the traps and would explore nonlethal strategies to solve its issues…

An HOA set lethal traps for Wally the beaver. Neighbors fought back. — Kyle Melnick | Washington Post | March 11, 2025

Stormwater Management Dispute Continues

• Fayetteville, North Carolina: Homeowners want municipalities to take responsibility for expensive infrastructure, including stormwater management.

A legal drama spanning nearly seven years between the City of Fayetteville and four homeowners associations with private dams that breached during Hurricane Matthew shows no sign of stopping, as the city rejected a settlement offer from the plaintiffs last Monday. 

The city confirmed its response to the letter but declined to provide specifics because of the ongoing litigation. Attorneys for the HOAs later provided CityView with the city’s response, which they received in a letter from City Attorney Lachelle Pulliam dated March 3. 

When Hurricane Matthew tore through Fayetteville in 2016, it damaged the private dams owned by the Devonwood-Loch Lomond Lake Association, the Arran Lake Homeowners Association, the Rayconda Homeowners Association and the Strickland Bridge Road Homeowners Association. The broken dams left pools of murky water and dry land where private lakes used to be. (Strickland Bridge still has a lake and dam, but the dam is damaged and the lake has sedimentation problems, according to its HOA president).

The property owners sued the city in August 2018, arguing the city should be responsible for fixing the dams because it was using them for stormwater management. The city has fought the litigation, which has intensified into a legal battle ping-ponging between federal, state and local courts. The failed settlement proposal comes after the N.C. Court of Appeals ruled in October in favor of the HOAs, which had challenged the Cumberland County Superior Court’s 2023 ruling dismissing their case.

The legal dispute is another example of the increasing frustration many residents have felt with the city’s stormwater management. It adds to the ongoing debate over who should fix Fayetteville’s infrastructure affected by flooding and watersheds that may pose a risk to public safety, but are located in private property… 

Legal battle between Fayetteville and HOAs over breached dams continues… — Evey Weisblat | CityView NC | March 10, 2025

Devonwood-Loch Lomond Lake Ass'n, Inc. v. City of Fayetteville | COA23-768 | NC Court of Appeal

HOA Sues County in Federal Court

• Menominee County, Wisconsin: The Board of this HOA believes it prudent to use common funds to sue its local government.

The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, claims that the tax policies of Menominee County have created an inequitable system that disproportionately impacts non-tribal landowners. The Legend Lake Property Owners Association, Inc. (LLPOA) argues that their members are subjected to some of the highest property tax rates in the country while tribal land continues to be placed into a trust, making it non-taxable…

…MISD contends that LLPOA, as a nonprofit corporation, does not itself pay taxes and, therefore, cannot claim direct harm. Additionally, the school district argues that any concerns regarding taxation could be addressed through Wisconsin’s existing tax appeal process, rather than through federal intervention.

Furthermore, MISD maintains that under established legal precedent, a federal court should not intervene in a state’s taxation system, as such matters fall under local government discretion. Citing DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno (2006) and other rulings, the district insists that the tax burden complained of by LLPOA members does not constitute an unconstitutional taking…

Legend Lake Property Owners Association Files Lawsuit Against Menominee County Over Alleged Tax Discrimination

— Kevin Mathewson | Kenosha County Eye | March 19, 2025

• FLORIDA: In addition to barring Florida’s insurer of last resort from providing policies to non-compliant condominiums, Rep. Vicki Lopez’s HB913 would also do several other things.  Note who is lobbying: none other than Association Reserves owned by Robert Nordlund.

  • Require condominiums to insure at full value or replacement cost.

  • Enable condominium terminations if the total estimated cost of repairs plus the combined estimated fair market value of all units before the repairs exceed the pre-repair fair market value of the units, but subject to rejection by 5% or more of the allocated interest.

  • Require 80% of allocated interest to approve termination if a bulk owner controls at least 50% of the units.

  • Make resolutions of disputes involving recalls or elections by arbitrators of the Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares and Mobile Homes binding.  Other types of disputes would only be binding if the parties agree in writing.

  • Require associations to pay all costs and attorneys’ fees if a unit owner prevails in a dispute resolved by DBPR or a court.

  • Require electronic voting if requested by at least 25% of voting interests.

  • Read the bill to view additional changes and nuances.

Sweeping bill aimed at condo reforms advances in state House (free 🔗) — Ron Hurtibise | Sun Sentinel | March 11, 2025

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Rep. Juan Carlos Porras introduced HB983 which cleans up some terminology and makes several other changes.  Where HB913 above focuses on condominiums in FS718, this bill makes some similar (and different) changes for HOAs in FS720.

Miami Lawmaker Introduces Bill To Rein In HOAs — Charles Boyer | Florida Media Now | March 11, 2025

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Like a sea monster that emerges every so often to stir up the populace, so too does the never-ending battle in Florida between the insurance industry and plaintiffs attorneys.

Three years after insurers persuaded legislators to end “one-way attorneys fees” that they claimed pushed the industry to the brink of bankruptcy, the 2025 Florida Legislative session began with four new proposals supported by plaintiffs attorneys.

Those proposals would reinstate those controversial fees. Only now they are renamed as “prevailing party” fees. And insurers are warning that they will undo price stabilization they say was made possible by declines in litigation that followed the ban on one-way fees.

This year’s return of insurers vs. attorneys comes with a new wrinkle: Some lawmakers say they were outraged when they found out in February that insurers break off their administrative functions into separate entities that can generate millions in profits even if the underwriting arms lose money. That outrage, and the report’s emergence just before the spring Legislative session, could provide momentum for passage of one of the prevailing party bills this year…

It’s time once again for insurers vs. attorneys in Florida’s Legislature — Ron Hurtibise | Sun Sentinel | March 19, 2025

• NEVADA: Several states have adopted laws over the past few years that to protect the right to operate child care centers within community associations.

Deetra Stewart provided home-based child care for more than two decades before her homeowners association decided they had a problem with it.

She recalled being “shocked and horrified” by what felt like an  arbitrary decision: “My family lost income and the families I serve lost their childcare provider. … (The HOA) had the power to shut down my fully licensed business, so they did.”

Stewart, whose home-based childcare business was insured and licensed by the state, worked with the HOA for several months to address their concerns about traffic, unknown visitors, and legal liability. She got them to reverse the decision and reopened. Now, she is urging state lawmakers to help ensure other home-based childcare providers don’t run into similar roadblocks.

Assembly Bill 185, sponsored by Democratic Assemblymember Natha Anderson, would bar most homeowners associations in Nevada from prohibiting licensed home-based childcare operations within their communities. HOAs for age-restricted communities would still be allowed to prohibit them, as would rental agreements signed by tenants…

HOAs are creating barriers for home-based childcare providers, lawmakers told — April Corbin Girnus | Nevada Current | March 11, 2025

• NORTH CAROLINA: Yet another North Carolina HOA foreclosed on an owner’s home for a relatively small sum.  What’s the correct threshold for foreclosure?  Why aren’t HOAs required to take reasonable measures to ensure that their owner members actually receive what they send?  Will North Carolina legislators make progress this year?

HB444 is the latest opportunity for North Carolina homeowners to rebalance the reasonable needs and expectations of homeowners with the power of their condos and HOAs.  Beware that Jim Slaughter of Law Firm Carolinas has already been hard at work representing the interests of CAI and its North Carolina LAC.

The HOA sent her multiple letters, but she told Action 9 investigator Jason Stoogenke she never received them.  Then things snowballed. In February 2021, the board got a lien on her property. Then in April, it sent her a letter, saying she owed about $1,200 and that it was going to start foreclosure proceedings.

“I thought it was a joke,” she said.  It wasn’t. According to county records, her 3,300-square-foot home sold for $49,000…Records show the person who bought the house turned around and sold it five months later for $850,000…

…North Carolina legislators are considering a bill to give homeowners more recourse. For example, if a homeowner owes money, the board could still get a lien on the property and start foreclosure proceedings, but it would have to meet certain criteria first. But there hasn’t been any movement on the bill since last May….

Union County woman says fight with HOA over $400 cost her family their home — Jason Stoogenke | WSOCTV | March 13, 2025

• UTAH: Developers across the country are asking state legislatures to adopt language that shifts liability for construction defects to homeowners.

Although the first condominium in America was built here, this more affordable form of homeownership is becoming a less common option for Utahns looking to buy their first home.

Lawmakers hope a bill passed toward the end of the recently completed general session can change that by addressing liability and insurance cost issues.

SB201, sponsored by Sen. Wayne Harper, R-Taylorsville, focuses mostly on regulating homeowner associations. But he said the “biggest thing” in the measure — if signed by Gov. Spencer Cox — is a section that would require owners to give developers written notice describing a defective design or construction flaw and requesting the developers fix the problem before they could sue…

Condo construction keeps declining in Utah. How state lawmakers are trying to change that. — Megan Banta | The Salt Lake Tribune | March 11, 2025