Short Creek-area mayor trying to rebrand former FLDS community. A measles outbreak isn’t helping
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Arizona is in the midst of the worst measles outbreak it has seen in decades.
Cases are mounting. As of this week, they’re up to 123 in the area around the northern Arizona town of Colorado City and it’s Utah sister city, which sits just on the other side of the state border, Hildale. The area collectively is known as Short Creek.
When you hear Short Creek, it’s likely you’ll think of the fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the polygamist offshoot of the LDS church known as the FLDS.
Short Creek has been an FLDS enclave for decades: the site of federal raids, the arrest of polygamist leader Warren Jeffs and countless news stories featuring footage of women in long prairie dresses with puffed sleeves.
You might assume that this is a community where no one vaccinates their kids for religious reasons, and that’s why it’s the site of this historic measles outbreak — and you’d be right.
Arizona Department of Health Services records show very low vaccination rates in Colorado City. One school in the area reported a kindergarten MMR vaccination rate of just 7%, the lowest in the state.
In neighboring Hildale, the Utah Health Department said 17% of kindergarteners at the school in that town are fully vaccinated.
Donia Jessop is the mayor of Hildale, and she said the reason behind those low vaccination rates is not what you might think.
She grew up in the local FLDS community, but left the church in 2012. Jessop and her family fled Short Creek at the time, but she came back, and became the first woman to ever run the town — and the first not endorsed by the FLDS church.
On Jessop’s first day in office, she was locked out of City Hall. Now, she is the force behind a movement to bring Short Creek out of the shadow of Warren Jeffs.
The area is trying to rebrand itself as a tourist mecca; it’s just miles from Zion National Park and sits amid the red rocks of this high-desert region.
Jessop joined The Show to discuss how the measles outbreak is hampering the rebrand efforts.
Read more https://www.kjzz.org/the-show/2025-10-23/short-creek-area-mayor-trying-to-rebrand-former-flds-community-a-measles-outbreak-isnt-helping
Content retrieved from: https://www.kjzz.org/the-show/2025-10-23/short-creek-area-mayor-trying-to-rebrand-former-flds-community-a-measles-outbreak-isnt-helping.
