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Show 111 '-K'tfl .'I A ,-l Serving American Fork, Alpine and Highland Vol. 18, No. 3 Wednesday, January 17, 1996 50 cents a single copy To subscribe call 756-7669 1X1122 in. . District to legislature: Increase technology, reduce class size The Alpine School District board of education has published a prioritized list of educational issues for consideration by the State Legislature at its session which begins next week. The list was released at the January business meeting of the education board. Supt. Steven Baugh said issues needing need-ing consideration by the legislature are: educational technology, class size reduction, reduc-tion, voted and board leeway support, and capital outlay equalization. With respect to Educational Technology, board members said they feel money is needed for both new technology and replacement of some of the older computers com-puters and software, which are in need of repair. Many schools, Baugh said, are currently cur-rently using inferior hardware, hardware hard-ware which is wearing out, and out-dated software. Increased funding is needed to increase student and teacher access to computers, and also for training and staff development in technology. Class size reduction is also a pressing need, board members said. Research shows that students learn better in smaller small-er classes. Board members praised Governor Michael Leavitt's proposal to spend $50 million per year over the next 10 years to dramatically reduce class size in Utah. Board member Linda Campbell said she would like to have more flexibility in the use of the money with some of it going to secondary schools to either reduce class size for English and similar classes or for at risk and similar programs. Voted and board leeway support is important in Alpine School District in order to maintain current levels of funding fund-ing and to increase revenue through an increase in state guarantees, Baugh said. Presently, it is possible for revenues to actually decrease because of a reduction of the assessed valuation and the certified tax rate. Also the state only guarantees matching match-ing funds on the first several mills of a voted leeway. Alpine District board members mem-bers said they would like the law changed to guard against the loss of revenues in the first case, and an increase in the number num-ber of mills covered by matching funds in the second. Capital Outlay Equalization is an issue the district has been fighting for a long time, Baugh said. At present, because of the way the laws are, the Alpine District has to bond at significantly higher levels to produce the same results in funding as many other districts. This means that local taxpayers are taxed higher than others oth-ers in the state in order to build schools for their children. if;: V Tf. t i f ( 4 .hzn Photo by Marc Haddock American Fork Police Officer Andy Hale uses a new lastr device to clock a motorist at 44 mph in a 25 mph zone on 200 East. The laser will be one device in the city's efforts to encourage drivers to slow down on this particular street. Neighborhoods ask city to help slow drivers By BARBARA CHRISTIANSEN City Editor Two American Fork neighborhoods neighbor-hoods may have safer traffic situations, situ-ations, thanks to a request by residents res-idents in a northeast neighborhood neighbor-hood for the city to install stop signs. Instead of stop signs, however, the City Council opted to place signs warning motorists that their speed would be monitored by laser. The signs will go on 200 East and 100 West. Margaret Lundy, who lives on 200 East near the southeast corner cor-ner of the Tri City Golf Course, presented a petition to the City Council, asking them to place stop signs for northbound and southbound traffic on that road at 980 North. "I call 200 East Interstate 16," she said. "The speed limit is 25, but traffic often goes faster than that." She noted that conditions were somewhat safer than in the past, since the Post Office had permitted permit-ted the residents to move their mailboxes to the west side of the road following a fatal accident in which a youth was struck crossing cross-ing the street for mail. "Some of the worst offenders are school buses," she said. "Four or five buses come up that road doing at least 45 miles an hour. I am really concerned about those school buses. I think a stop sign north and southbound would help slow the traffic." That view was not shared by City Engineer Howard Denney. "Unfortunately it is the same problem we have seen in the past," he said. "People attempt to put up stop signs to control speed, when indications are that stop signs, especially mid-block, encourage and increase speed." Motorists tend to speed up between the signs, often going faster than they would have without with-out them, he explained. Another problem is the logisti cal one of placing the signs on 200 East. The law requires that lesser roads stop for major ones. In this case 980 North would logically be considered the lesser road since it dead ends into 200 East. "200 East is acting at least like a collector road," said Denney. "We would be asking a collector road to stop and allow or give up the right of way for a local road. "What would happen is that people would start ignoring the stop signs since there is not enough traffic." Council member John McKinney agreed, citing an instance when he was driving in Pleasant Grove. "A tree was covering the stop sign and I couldn't see it until I was almost at the coi ner," he said. "Still, because of the road pattern, pat-tern, you knew you should stop. "If we made 200 East a stop, the thing I worry about is that people wouldn't think to stop. They are on a road that has no intersecting streets. Kids would know there is a stop sign and see most of the cars stop. It would become a more dangerous situation situa-tion than kids being aware that cars will not stop." Denney explained one of the reasons for the tendency for higher high-er speeds along 200 East. "The right of way is perceived to be wide, in fact 82 feet," he said. "In some places the fences have widened that perception even more, up to 100 feet wide. People do not feel uncomfortable going down the hill." McKinney agreed. "We should look into putting a sidewalk on at least one side of the road," he said. Denney made other suggestions sugges-tions to slow traffic down. "There are probably several solutions to the problem," he said. "Greater enforcement and train-ir.g train-ir.g the public are two of the most important ones." See SPEEDERS on Page 3 Alpine, Highland join in Alpine Fire District By KATHERINE SCHROEPPEL On Jan. 1, the Alpine Fire Department ceased to exist and the Alpine Highland Fire District went into effect. The District consists of a Board of Commissioners. On this Board are Mayor Ed Scott and Councilman Richard Sudweeks of Highland and Alpine's Mayor Joel Hall along with Councilmen Rob Bateman and Kent Hanson. Bateman's new assignment this year puts him over public safety and Hanson was retained, because of his involvement with the creation cre-ation of the fire district last year. The Board met last week and re-ap pointed John Pool as Fire Chief for the district. Pool has a force of 29 volunteers under him which is approximately five more than he had as Fire Chief of Alpine's department. All the equipment previously owned by Alpine City now becomes property of the Fire District and is equally owned by both cities. Highland is buying a much-needed new firetruck along with all the equipment tc go on it for their contribution con-tribution to the District. Pool said that hopefully the truck will be arriving in April. Pool said he is now in the process of putting together a budget bud-get for Jan.l through the end of June. The Board will review it and then an assessment will be given to each of the cities. Pool is also preparing a proposal propos-al on the placement of the new fire station that the citizens of Alpine bonded $500,000 for last year. He said he will be giving the Board the pros and cons of having one centrally cen-trally located building or whether they should maintain two facilities. facili-ties. A building in Highland has been housing a pumper and a brush truck since last fall. Alpine was granted a federal grant of $100,000 last year to help build the new station on the condition condi-tion that it was finished by October of this year. Pool was uncertain if Alpine still qualified for the grant now that the city has combined with Highland. He said that is something the Board would have to find out. The Board will be meeting on Jan. 24 at 4 p.m. at the Highland city building. Flu claims life of Highland youth By KATHERINE SCHROEPPEL Bouquets of balloons and flowers flow-ers decorated the LDS Chapel on 6000 West in Highland as services were held to celebrate the life of Ryan William Bailey. Ryan, the son of Kelvin and Michele Bailey of Highland, was born June 22, 1988 and died Wednesday, Jan. 10, last week at the age of seven after a bout with influenza. Monday night of last week, the Bailey family attended the BYU Basketball game (Ryan's favorite team). He was quieter than usual and later that night, he started throwing up. His mother's first thought was that he had eaten too much candy at the game. Tuesday he continued to be sick, but did not display any unusual symptoms that would indicate that he had anything other than a normal nor-mal flu virus. Michele said that he didn't say a lot that day, but gave her hugs whenever he came out of his room. Wednesday morning, Michele thought he would sleep and be okay for the snowmobiling trip that was planned for the next Friday. "! I . 7 , Ryan Bailey Ryan had been on her bed alone for 15 minutes when she went in to check on him. She said something about him didn't look right. He was limp and Michele was unable to awaken him. After calling the doctor, doc-tor, she was advised to take him to the emergency room. They were unable to revive him at the hospital. His heart had stopped beating. An autopsy See RYAN on Page 3 mmmmmmainmmmmmmmmmimmmmmmmmmmmmiimmKtJmm mill -uuijimij uiuiiju .hiimjmii . I Cosgrave heads into final season as BYU gymnast Cristen Cosgrave demonstrates form that has made her a leader on the BYU gymnastics team for the past three years. It isn't surprising that Cristen . Cosgrave has gone from community communi-ty education gymnastic classes to an Academic All-American gymnast gym-nast at Brigham Young University after all when she was young she spent more time doing cartwheels cart-wheels and handstands than she did walking. Now a senior at BYU, she will complete her college eligibility this gymnastic season. She has not only excelled in gymnastics but also in the classroom. class-room. After graduating magna cum laude from American Fork High School, she was BYU's first Academic All-American in gymnastics gym-nastics when she was a freshman, an achievement she has repeated each year since. She was the first freshman to receive votes for team captain, and has been a team captain her sophomore, sopho-more, junior and senior years. In addition, she was appointed by BYU to represent all BYU athletes at the Western Athletic Conference Student Athlete Advisory Committee meeting in Colorado Springs last spring. The daugher of Dr. and Mrs Michael Cosgrave of Highland, she began her achievements in gymnastics gym-nastics at age seven when her mother enrolled her in a community communi-ty education gymnastics class. Citizens After a few months her teacher, Melanie Jensen, began teaching at Michelle Welch's gym American Fork Gymnastics. Cristen's first competition was less than stellar, however. Because she had joined the class gym late and did not know the routines, her coach had to whisper the moves to her when she was on the beam. This soon changed and she soon became one of the top gymnasts at her level. As a level four gymnast, she won the State Championship and helped her team take 1st place as well. The next two years she computed at level three where she finished third in the state. As American Fork Gymnastics didn't offer classes in the higher levels, Cristen moved to All-American All-American Gymnastics in Orem where she continued to train. As a level two gymnast she placed high in countless invitational meets at both state and regional competitions. competi-tions. In 19SIJ, she won the Advanced Option. ils Ail-Around title at the USGF Regionals, and in 1991 she competed in the United States Association of Independent Gymnastic Clubs (USIGC) National Championships in Greensboro, North Carolina, where she qualified as a finalist and placed fourth in the nation on balance bal-ance beam. She went on to win the level ten all-around and floor exercise exer-cise titles at the Northwest Open Invitational in 1992. Although hampered by growth and injuries, she continued to work hard to keep improving. Being 57" poses difficult challenges for a gymnast, but Cristen never gave up and was recruited and signed with BYU her senior year at American Fork High School. Although she struggled with a foot injury all season her freshman year at BYU, she helped the team with solid scores on beam, floor and vault. As a sophomore, she broke her finger just before the start of the season so was unable to compete com-pete bars for most of the season. The highlight of her year was the BYU-Utah meet where she won the all-around title after competing com-peting in all events. Last year, as a junior, Cristen and the team were under extreme pressure. Because of injuries and other problems, BYU had to compete com-pete all season with only seven gymnasts. I y To Cristen Cosgrave In spite of the odds, the team qualified for nationals at the NCAA Regional Championships. Cristen was sixth in all-around in that meet which included teams from the University of Utah, Utah State, the University of Nebraska, Southern Utah University, University of Arizona and Arizona State. As a senior, she will begin her final year of competition w hen she and the BYU Women's Gymnastics team meet SUU in the BYU Smith Fieldhouse on Jan. 20 to begin the 1996 season. |