Short Creek-area mayor trying to rebrand former FLDS community. A measles outbreak isn't helping

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.

Fronteras Desk

Short Creek: Beyond FLDS

Sarah Ventre

A 2017 special report from KJZZ.

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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.

Jackie Hai/KJZZ

Full conversation

DONIA JESSOP: Hildale, Colorado City communities have really had a complete change of the culture. It used to be like 95% FLDS. ... Over the last 15 years, even 10 years, it has changed. And it looks like it's about maybe 5% of the population …

GILGER: Wow.

JESSOP: … are still FLDS or look like they're FLDS. You know, that's so hard. Just because they're wearing that dress doesn't mean they're actually FLDS, but that we feel like might follow Warren Jeffs is about 5%.

GILGER: So you, you grew up in the FLDS church, I understand, but you left in 2012. You left Short Creek for a while, came back, and now you're mayor. You're in your second term, running for your third. I wonder from your experience in that community and even as it's changed a lot, are those two things linked? The lack of vaccination, vaccine skepticism and the FLDS church.

JESSOP: Yes, it is absolutely linked. So there's a couple of things, though, that I really wish people would understand, and maybe we could add this to the story. Because it's my thinking. It's me trying to put the puzzle pieces together. Why are we where we're at right now? So, as a member of the FLDS church, I chose to immunize my kids.

I was immunized as a child. My family comes from a medical background. I read about immunizations. My sister is the Mohave County nurse there in the community. And so I have always trusted her. She's helped me get my children immunized. And many, many, many of the FLDS immunize their children. So my thinking in going through this is when Warren Jeffs started to tear families apart, everyone was living in trauma brain. ... And then children were taken and given to other families. I mean, everyone knows the story of that.

... They weren't thinking about, "Oh, it's immunization time, or it's been three months, we need to get" — we were all living in such trauma that that was not one of the things we were thinking about. If you weren't sick right then, we weren't thinking about immunizations. And I think what we're seeing is the aftermath, some of the unintended consequences of the Warren regime.

GILGER: That's fascinating. So you're saying there is a connection between not having your children vaccinated and being a member of the FLDS church, but maybe not the one that we might assume. This might just be a consequence of the kind of trauma that the community was put through.

JESSOP: Right. Because I'm like, there's gotta be more to this puzzle, because Warren hasn't been teaching anything like this for over 20 years. And these are young kids right now. So their parents would be people that were the children when Warren was in full control. And so this is the next generation. But now they're having to decide what they're going to do. So, we have seen a sharp uptake of immunizations during all of this.

GILGER: So that's fascinating. So it sounds like this outbreak of measles in the community at this moment has sparked a conversation. And lots of families who maybe didn't have their children vaccinated for various reasons are thinking about doing it now or are doing it now. You're seeing rates go up.

JESSOP: For sure. The rates are going up. And, you know, the conversations are being talked about both ways: reasons to immunize, reasons not to immunize. So it's the same conversations that other people have in their communities. But the health department, the schools, the city have pushed out a lot of information so people can make an educated decision.

And what I've done as mayor is just say, "I'm here to support you. This is your choice." I can't just get out and say, "Hey, go immunize your children." Everyone has their belief systems. There are some that have a religious belief to not have your children immunized. I would never infringe on that.

GILGER: Right.

JESSOP: And so I have just been very careful to not tell anybody what to do. I mean, gosh, we had that with Warren Jeffs. That's not who I am. That's not my job.

GILGER: So what is being done, from your point of view in the county, to try to stem the tide of these measles cases, which can be deadly?

JESSOP: Oh, they're doing everything in their power to stem the tide. They are. They're educating, they're making themselves available to make sure that they are there to immunize pretty much on their time frame. Whatever they can do to help, they have gone above and beyond.

GILGER: I also want to talk about the moment that this is happening in Short Creek, because this is a time when the community you are trying to really rehab the public image of this place. Make it welcoming, tourist friendly. You're right by Zion. Phoenix magazine just did a big feature on you and efforts there in Short Creek to become sort of a tourist destination in that region. Does this measles outbreak put a damper on that conversation?

JESSOP: I don't know. It feels like ... we work so hard, and it's just one thing after the other. And I have a hard time sometimes just feeling like, when is Warren Jeffs going to stop having a sway in what happens. You know, because some of the choices that were made 20 years ago are cropping up now. And it's like we have to continue going forward, pushing the wall back. Just keep going. Just keep going. And it can sometimes become very discouraging.

And it's not — I'm not discouraged with the choices people are making or anything like that. It's the perception. It's that we're in the news one more time. You know, we're in the news in a negative way. And I don't want people to feel like they're pressured or being bullied by the media or anyone else because of this.

Does that make sense? Because all the years it just feels like just negative, negative, negative. And we've worked so hard, but we're still going to have things. And some of the things that Warren did are going to crop up for generations. So we just have to keep standing for the right, speaking up for the good. I don't know. It gets rough sometimes.

GILGER: We asked the Utah Health Department about the most recent vaccination rates in Hilldale. And if they've documented that uptick Mayor Jessup mentioned there. They told us that their data shows about 14% more MMR vaccines given out in that region in the last several months than the same time the year before.

We'll hear more of this deep-dive conversation, including why the mayor came back to this embattled town after the break.

Let's return now to my deep-dive conversation with Hilldale, Utah, Mayor Donia Jessup. Her town, as well as neighboring Colorado City, Arizona, are dealing with a growing measles outbreak just as she and others there have tried to open up the former FLD and get out from under the shadow of convicted polygamous leader Warren Jeffs.

You've made a lot of progress there, right. Like, you're the first woman to become mayor of this town. You — that was very controversial. I know you zoned the town. You've brought in businesses. You're kind of opening it up to the outside world in this new way at this moment.

JESSOP: Right.

GILGER: Do you think the world is ready for it? Being in the news right now for a measles outbreak is not helping, obviously. But will this kind of legacy of child abuse and Warren Jeffs and federal raids always haunt this area?

JESSOP: I think that when you look in the history books, that's always going to be what leads out. You know, we see that in Germany still with the history that's there. And then when the history is tried to be erased, then it's — no, it happened.

... And so it will always be in the history book. That's what the community was based on, what it was founded on. I want my legacy to be the good changes that happened there and that I let out in that. I know that will be in the history books, too. I think it will take several generations before people stop talking about it first thing. It's going to take a few generations for some of the — how do I say — some of the hurt to not be transferred onto the next generation. So that that generation can live above it all, not in it. And so it's going to take some time. But it starts with us. It starts with this generation.

GILGER: Let me ask you about that, because one of the things I've read also about Short Creek right now is that lots of former FLDS folks like yourself are coming back. That's a big chunk of the population right now. And part of the reason it's growing there and changing. Why did you come back? Why do you want to take up that mantle? Why not go start a new life somewhere else?

JESSOP: Right. So I had moved away. I had moved away for three years, and my husband at that time came to me and said, "Hey, the mountains are calling me home." And I said, "Well, isn't that nice for you? I guess we're getting a divorce." And he said, make me a list of reasons why you would go back and why you wouldn't go back.

Yeah. And I said on the top of that list of wouldn't go back was because I said I never would, that's why. But there was a very long list of reasons to go back. And that all had to do with my love for the community and for the people and where I was raised. That red dirt flows through my veins. And the injustices that were committed upon the people just angered me. And it didn't anger me in a way to just sit back and — can you swear on your radio show?

GILGER: Yes. [LAUGHS]

JESSOP: Oh, OK.

GILGER: We can bleep it.

JESSOP: Right. If you just want to sit back and b-tch about what happened to you, you can do that or you can step up and make the changes. And there are so few people that are willing to step up and do what's right because it's the right thing to do. Step up and be a voice for people who might not know how to use their voice or not be able to use their voice.

So I had become a crime victim advocate over the time that I was away. And so when I moved back, I came back with a crime victim advocate's heart and an advocate's voice and an advocate's mind. And so when I went home, I didn't go home to be mayor. I went home to just be a part of the solution. Within the year, that next year I was mayor. And so it felt like almost a calling. It was just a very interesting thing.

I had no idea what that was, where we were headed with that, or what would happen. I went into this role not knowing how to be a mayor, not knowing about politics or government. People now, they're, they're like, "You make a good politician." And I'm like, "I'm not a politician." I'm a leader. And there's a big difference. And so I went back simply because I wanted to be a part of the solution. I wasn't willing to sit back and let Warren Jeffs' abusive people just continue and destroy our community any further.

GILGER: Do you feel like you've been successful in that?

JESSOP: One-hundred percent. Yes. The place has turned around so much. It is so beautiful. The town is open, fences are down. But, and I'll tell you this, people say, "How do we know that it'll never go back to another Warren Jeffs walking in and taking over the town?" And the simple answer is private land ownership.

The communities were owned by the church, and that is being dismantled. So it is not owned where one man can control everything. I moved four times by a knock on the door. And we're supposed to move you. Go over to your sister's house or go over to your mother's house. We'll let you know where you live in the morning.

GILGER: Wow.

JESSOP: So, nobody can ever do that to me again. Nobody can come in and just control and say, "If you don't be obedient, you're going to lose your family." ... So honestly, the short answer of how does this never happen again here? Private land ownership.

GILGER: That's really interesting. I mean, let me ask you lastly, just what you want folks to know. I mean, this is an important, it sounds like, a transition that you're trying to make for this town, but it keeps being set back as we're seeing right now, with measles.

JESSOP: Yeah. One step forward, three steps back.

GILGER: Yeah. What do you want folks to know?

JESSOP: We're not scary. We're open. I rebranded Hildale City to welcome home. And there was a reason for that. For all of those who stayed but live in a completely different community than it used to be, welcome home. For those who fled or were sent away and found their way back, welcome home. And for those who didn't even know what Hildale was and never lived there before, but have since visited and fell in love with the beauty and ended up moving home, welcome home.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Show reached out to the Arizona Department of Health Services and the Mohave County Department of Public Health for this story. Both declined requests for interview.