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Show rftursrfay, October 8, 2007 AMERICAN FORK CITIZEN Page 3 ii. 1 u i I t l.; Limn ii i ill --niiir" j mJ linn mi iJ J i i III i r" ' - NEWS AND NOTES TO KEEP YOU INFORMED AND INVOLVED lesidtents voice opinions on voochers How do you feel about the school voucher referendum on November's ballot that would provide $500 to $3,000 in public funding for parents to enroll their child in a private school? Will you vote for or against this measure? "I will vote for it because I think choice is good. Typically Typi-cally private schools are better than public schools and if parents want to have their tax dollars go toward a private school, and if they are not satisfied with public pub-lic school, they ought to have a choice." I David Ludlow, Am. Fork "I am leaning toward voting against it but I'd like to look at it more to get the facts on both sides. One, I'm happy with public education educa-tion and second, sec-ond, private school is ex pensive and I still think you would have to pay a lot." I Jamie Isaacson, Am. Fork loo)1 V "I think It's a good idea and I think it s a win-win situation and everyone can benefit from it. The kids who want to go to private school can have money and the kids who want to go to public school can have more money and fewer students." Merrily Cannon, Am. Fork li. i lumuiMaw "I would vote for it. My old est daughter is in a charter char-ter school this year and I want to go with a charter char-ter school for the little ones. I don't think the public schools work for everyone. A smaller class size makes a big difference for some kids, where with others it doesn't matter." I Nikole Casassa, Am. Fork Jit i III Iffc Nil iff "I would say that if I vote I don t know if I will vote for or against it. I would have to research more, but it would probably prob-ably be helpful help-ful to have government funds because be-cause private schools are so expensive and I would put my children in private school if I had that money, so maybe I would vote yes for it if I knew more about it." I Emily Abies, PI. Grove "As far as I'm concerned, I agree with it. I think I'm for both public school and private schools. Some kids need more one-on-one and private schools provide pro-vide that." Jessica Stewart, Lehi "I will vote yes because if I can pay for private school, I will take my kids there. For those parents I know who want to take their kids to private school I will vote yes. I already - pulled my kids out of the regular school because the teachers don't take care of them. The teachers say they do, but they don t. Freyka Arcentales, Am. Fork "I haven't studied it and I need to learn more about it to have much of an opin-ioa opin-ioa I have a grandchild in private school and I have a daughter who teaches in public school and I haven't made up my mind what's best. I don't want to hurt public schools if this bill wilL I've heard there are loopholes in it from the TV but I want to ask my kids." I Susan Diamond, Am. Fork "I'm against it. friends who are teachers and it hurts their funding for public school and it hurts their jobs." Shelly Craghead, Am. Fork I have a lot of i'.'M 0 I ' fi "I think the money should go to the public schools and i iiijim ii ic people who can already afford private pri-vate schools will get the money and I think it should be for everyone, so I m against it." I Gwen Young, PI. Grove Support Continued from Page I rage and shame. She believed her abuse was her fault, she said. When she was old enough to date, she made bad choices and was again abused, she said. She became manipulative, manipula-tive, deeply distrustful, and even suicidal. Abput a decade ago, she joined a sex abuse victim support group run by a local church, and the experience experi-ence changed her, she said. She decided to become a peer counselor and help others who had been through similar experiences. expe-riences. For the past six years she and other peer counselors have mentored dozens of women, and are now expanding their program because of an increase in-crease in women coming forward for-ward seeking help, she said. "Who is going to do it if we don't?" she said. "We understand under-stand it first-hand, so we can help get people's live in the right order." In 1992, Marjorie Conrad of Highland went to Arizona to visit family. She was outside with family when the stepfather who had sexually abused andjmpreg-nated andjmpreg-nated her 25 years earlier, at age 13 and, in another state, showed up unexpectedly; "He and I looked at each other oth-er and he fterally backed up his vehicle and left," Conrad said. "I literallywanted to kill him." " . t A drug addict and alcoholic alco-holic who had deep emotional scarring from her abusive experience, the experience of meeting her abuser "brought everything back and put me right back into the midst of my addiction," she said. Today, sober and clean for 11 years, Conrad is about to embark on her third stint in a Chamberlain's 27-week sexual abuse victim support program. The group, which helps women from across Utah Valley, is expanding, ex-panding, mostly because of Conrad Con-rad and others who have been so changed by the experience 1 that they are referring friends. : , Conrad said she contacted the group after discovering her sister had also been abused by their step-father. : . "She started calling me and telling me it was my fault because I had not stopped it and I did not know about it," Conrad said. "Her calling me brought back a lot of memories memo-ries to the point where I could not function on a daily basis. I didn't think anyone loved me. I thought I wasn't worth anything." any-thing." For years, Conrad said she had felt the abuse was behind her and no longer part of her life, but could not understand why her life constantly spi-raled spi-raled out of control. "I thought it was his problem and he needed to die," she said. "I did not want to deal with it. Today I am able to have a good relationship with a creator more powerful than myself because I believe you have to work on everything about yourself." Her mother made a special trip to Utah to thank Chamberlain Chamber-lain for the support group that had saved her daughter's life, Conrad said. Conrad is taking tak-ing the support group course for a third time because "Sue tries to get to the core of it but you can't get to the core of it in one or two times," she said. "It has changed my life. I have no more depression, and I have forgiven my abuser, and I know I don't have to be ashamed. I think everyone every-one woman should take this class whether they have been abused or not because it makes you find out who you are inside in-side yourself." NorthCounty NEWSPAPERS ' 399 E. State St. Pleasant Grove Phone: 756-766p Fax:756-5274 - - - i Marc Haddock 443-3268 ; I North CountyEditor ' mhaddockeraldextra.com Cathy Alfred 443-3262 : Lent Saratoga Springs, PI. Grove callredheraWextra.com Barbara Christiansen 443-3264 American Fork, Alpine, Cedar Hills bchristiansenheraldextra.com Mike Rigert 443-3265 Orem, Vineyard mrigertheraldextra.cpm Beky Beaton 443-3267 Sports :v. . bbeatonheraldextra.com DAILY HERALD . PUBLISHING CO. LMXi Josh Walker 443-3260 Advertising Account Executive jwalkerheraldextra.com Jennette Esplin 756-7669 Office Manager Julia Fullmer 344-2570 ; Project Coordinator, DesignerCopy Editor Megan Carleton 344 -2570 31 DesignerCopy Editor Ashley Franscell 344 2585 Photographer Volume 134 Issue 92 American Fa Dfeen Daily Herald Edton USPS 018-880 a weekly newspaper published at 399 E State St., PleesantGrewe, Utah 84063 rwdF3stage Paid at Pleasant Grwe, Utah 84062 and additional maiing offices. PoMmaatar Send address changes to the American Fork Otran. P.O Box 7. American Fork. UT 84003-0007. rttshed ThursrJays by Lee Publcatore : Audit Bureau dl Oreulations YOUR ONLINE SOURCE FOR LOCAL NEWS Harry Potter contraband When my wife, Sharontand I went to buy a new supply pf Blast-Ended Blast-Ended Skrewt larvae a few days ago, we had no idea we were shopping shop-ping for contraband. The initial Skrewt purchase came after my son, Dana, asked Sharon and me to participate in our grandson grand-son Hayden's birthday party, which had a Harry Potter theme. For the party, Sharon would play the part of Professor SybiU Trelawney, who teaches divination at Hogwarts Academy. I was to be Rubeus Hagrid, the half-giant, half-wizard half-wizard who cares for the magical creatures. I'm not 8-feet 6-inches tall, like Hagrid, but I meet the other dimensions pretty well. All I needed was a wig, a fake beard and a wide belt really wide. Sharon prepped for her stint as a psychic by boning up on palm reading. I started collecting col-lecting magical creatures, and we found these small, rubbery worms that came a dozen in a pack for 88 cents. The toy creatures were -very stretchy, and quite colorful. They looked like caterpillars, but since most of the kids at the party were 7 or under, I figured I could pass them off as Skrewts. For the uninitiated, Blast-Ended Skrewts were introduced in the novel, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." Hagrid created the creatures by crossing manticores and fire crabs, neither of which really exist. In the book, the Skrewts were pretty much a failure, as hybrid magical creatures go. Newly hatched, they looked like lobsters, but without a shell or a head. They were also pale and slimy and had legs sticking out at odd angles. They smelled bad, and every so often sparks flew out of their ends, propelling them forward a few inches. The more they grew, the nastier they got. Hagrid put a particularly nasty six-foot -long one into the maze at the Tri-Wizard Tournament, Tourna-ment, The Skrewts didn't make it from the book into the film, so if you just saw the movie, mov-ie, you don't know what I'm talking about. Since almost none of my audience of 7-year olds had read the 636-page novel, I figured I could pass about anvthinz off as a Skrpwt In fact, they were a hit. Everybody wanted Marc Haddock THE EDITOR COLUMN one, and by the end of the party, my supply of know it was the truth. Skrewts was exhausted. When Sharon decided that she would stick with the Harry Potter theme for her annual Grandma's Carnival, I knew I needed more Skrewts. But when we went back to Wal-Mart, where the first ones had been purchased, they were gone. We were passing by the Spring-ville Spring-ville Wal-Mart Saturday, so we stopped to see if we could find any of the rubbery, stretchy toy worms, and we struck paydirt, or so we thought. Not only did they have the 88-cent packages, but they also had lizards, which I could pass off as baby dragons, and spiders, which I could pass off as, well, baby spiders. spi-ders. We carried our several bags of the critters to the self -serve check-out line and waited, and waited, and waited while slow people checked out their own groceries. (Whoever came up with this idea vastly overrated the intelligence of many shoppers.) Finally it was our turn. I passed the first package over the scanner and got a loud beep. The red light above the checkout stand went on and a siren sounded. The register spelled out in capital letters: "THIS ITEM IS RESTRICTED. RE-STRICTED. PLEASE SET ITEM ASIDE AND WAIT FOR ASSISTANCE." I felt like a 16-year old caught trying to buy a can of Rockstar 21 without ID when the cashier came over and told us, "I can't let you buy these. Please step away from the toys." Why? we asked. "They've been recalled. I can't sell them to you." But we want them. "I can't sell them to you." Then we want them even more. After all, we weren't buying Barbies, or Dora the Explorers Ex-plorers or Thomas the Tank Engine, just some cheap plastic insects that apparently contained lead. What kid would chew on those? When it was clear she wasn't going to budge, we left the store empty handed. Hagrid thought his Blast -Ended Skrewts were basically harmless. So had I. When I gave them away, I warned the kids they could be dangerous. At the time, I didn't Ordinance Continued from Page 1 sibility to make sure their home is safe." Before voting on the ordinance, or-dinance, Councilman Shirl LeBaron instructed city staff to add stronger language ensuring that the city will not be responsible to any homeowner who builds a basement in the area, calling for hold harmless and indemnification indem-nification clauses to be added regarding basements. "Anything that insulates the city from paying claims because a homeowner insisted in-sisted on building a basement and got an engineering firm to sign off," LeBaron said. "We all know you can get an expert to say anything at a certain price. That is why they call them experts." "This is a landmark ordi nance, said Mayor Heber Thompson. "No pun intended." Over the last several years, several landowners located south of 1-15 have submitted requests for annexation and development to the city, said city staff in a summary of the ordinance's history. "However, "Howev-er, the lands in the area have a different character than those to the north and much of the land has constraints to development from one for more physical conditions including high groundwater, flooding, poor soil and wet- ind designation." Calling soil in the area "frag ile," the city had said they would approve no more devel opment in the area until a new ordinance could be completed, work that has spanned the past several years. "The ordinance does not ensure en-sure that there will be no problems, prob-lems, but does provide a basis for coasistent review of development devel-opment projects in the area, and the authority to insist that the issues be resolved before granting any approval," said city staff in their summary. Rock Continued from Page I the academy's label. Another band founded at the school, Thunder Mistress, Mis-tress, has "established a pretty large following locally already," he said. "The idea is to give solo instrumentalists a place to go where they can be matched up with other band members who like the same music as they do. Then they are assigned to a producer who helps them get off the ground," Batchelor said. Batchelor boasts that the facility at the Music School is over 16,000 square feet and features 25 lesson studios, a complete recording studio, percussion, rock and jazz studios, a music lounge complete com-plete with big screen television televi-sion playing music videos and concerts. Of course the school also boasts a concert venue. Music performances of all types are held there, but for the Rock Academy, this is where the bands get live per- rormance experience about once each week. Thunder Mistress has been working together for the past seven months at the Music School. With help of mentor Doug Wylde, the producer assigned to the band, the group has been booked at several events ' and has recorded their first CD. Wylde, with his brother, Ryan Staples, started the Rock Academy. "We wanted to make it equivalent to a football practice prac-tice and give kids something to do after school that unlike football, they can carry with them and still do when they are 40," Wylde said. With Wylde 's help and the Music School's backing Thunder Mistress has been introduced to radio stations and local experts in the field in order to get their music heard and seea They recently performed with several sev-eral other bands which came by tour bus to perform at the school. Thunder Mistress got billing bill-ing as the warm-up band, getting real life experience in what it's like to perform as a part of a legitimate rock concert. "Haying to an audience audi-ence is surreal," said Rory Markham, lead singer. "It's more comfortable than I thought. I feel like I'm at home at the Music School. They give us a place to sit down and play our n.usic as loud as we want. Itetty cool." COPY |