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Show Page 2 AMERICAN FORK CITIZEN Thursday, March 13, 2008 NEWS AND NOTES TO KEEP YOU Council: Move ahead Barbara Christiansen NORTH COUNTY STAFF They came asking for help to have the emergency medical services better staffed, particularly particu-larly during daytime hours. They left, anticipating not only that change, but working toward the goal of becoming a department with paramedics. Jay Christensen outlined some of the department's needs, saying in recent years there have been fewer volunteers volun-teers available to serve on the ambulance crew during hours when most people are working. work-ing. He made his presentation during a work session of the City Council on March 6. He recommended a combination combina-tion of full-time and part-time emergency medical technicians and fire fighters to staff the ambulances during the daytime day-time hours. Volunteers would be available to cover a third ambulance during the day. They would also to cover the 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. shifts, which is consistent with the current policy. "It would guarantee coverage cover-age during the city's peak call volume and drastically reduce the response times," he said. The response time would be lower because the personnel would be at the station. Christensen said the policy would provide a transition to the time when there would be full-time staff for all shifts. Pond Continued from Page 1 Fork Riding Club for stabling, exercising and riding their horses. The city has asked the club to move to a different location and made an offer to purchase portable stalls the club members may rent, with the option to apply that rent toward purchase. Schiess told the council members a property which has been designated as recreational recre-ational does not need to maintain main-tain the same use through the years, although it must remain in a recreational designation. One other option would be to mitigate the property and replace re-place it with other which would be used for recreation. "The owner of a 6F property can change a recreational use to another recreational use at any time," Schiess wrote in NorthCounty NEWSPAPERS ' 399 E. State St. Pleasant Grove Marc Haddock 443 3268 North County Editor mhaddock heraldextra .com Cathy Allred 443-3262 Lehi, Saratoga Springs, PI. Grove callredheraldextra.com Barbara Christiansen 443-3264 American Fork, Alpine, Cedar Hills bchristiansenheraldextra.com Mike Rigert 443 3265 Orem, Vineyard mrigertheraldextra.com Beky Beaton 443-3267 Sports bbeaton heraldextra .com Josh Walker 443-3260 Advertising Account Executive jwalkerheraldextra.com Volume 135 American Fork Gteen Daily Herald Edition USPS 018-580 a weekly newspaper published at 399 E Stale St.. Pleasant Grove Utah 84063 Penodeals Postage Paid at Pleasant Grove. Utah 8406? and additional mailing offices PcMtmastar: Send address changes to the American Fork Citizen, PO. Box 7. American Forte, UT 84003 0007 t Published Thursdays by Lee Publications, vvhch is a division of Lee Enterprises Inc. Mwnbar Audit Bureau of Circulations i (i It S- - BARBARA CHRISTIANSENNorth County Chief Jay Christensen, Capt. Tyson Frazicr and Capt. Doug Bateman in the upper room of the American Fork fire station, which will be divided into sleeping rooms when the department has full-time staff 24 hours a day. Discussion of the budgetary concerns, however, brought about the shift in focus. Since the city would be able to charge more for paramedic para-medic services, several council members expressed the view that the ambulance department depart-ment should continue to move toward that goal, along with increasing its staffing during daytime hours. They addressed how much the city would subsidize sub-sidize the department under each scenario. "We lose $400,000 one way and $100,000 the other and we would get better service," said councilwoman Heidi Rode-back. Rode-back. "It's a no-brainer." Christensen said the city had completed most all the require a memo to the council. "Construction "Con-struction of a pressurized irrigation reservoir would be compatible with 6F designation if the facility were also used for a recreational use. One proposed option would be to open the facility for fishing on a limited basis to be stocked by the state's urban fisheries program." The city's recreation department depart-ment could offer kayaking or canoeing lessons on the site, said city engineer Andy Spencer. Spen-cer. It would be open only with lifeguard supervision, he said. "Whatever we do, we want it to be safe," he said. Another type of recreation which has been suggested would be to create a network of trails around the reservoir which would connect to existing exist-ing and future trails to enhance its recreational use. Councilwoman Sherry Kramer said she liked the idea Phone: 756-76C9 Fax: 756-5274 DAILY HERALD PUBLISHING CO. Jennette Esplin 756 7669 Office Manager Julia Fullmer 344-2570 Project Coordinator, DesignerCopy Editor Meaan Carleton 344-?R7n 3 DesignerCopy Editor Ashley Franscell 344 2585 Photographer Issue 11 INFORMED AND with emergency medical service ments to move to the paramedic para-medic level. "The only thing we have left to do is get the paramedic vehicle inspected by the state," he said. "We had even ordered all the drugs. We went through the hiring process." To house a full-time staff, the dorm rooms on the second floor of the fire station would need to be completed. Funds to finish about half of them had been put into the current year's budget. The next year's budget, which begins in July, has not yet been finalized. COMMUNITY NOTES Transportation Committee recommends study Ameri of expanding the city's trail plans. She made a presentation at the Planning and Zoning Commission on March 5, suggesting sug-gesting the open space and trails element of the city's general gen-eral plan to updated to include trails near the reservoir and connections to other trails. Kramer presented a plan which showed a connection between an equestrian trail near the irrigation pond, going south to the south end of the Fox Hollow Golf Course. FromT there it would go both east smd west, connecting to the Art Dye trail, the River Trail farther far-ther to the south. On the west side, the trail would follow the ridge between 100 and 200 East, eventually going south to connect with the Center Street Trail. "I feel we are in need of connectivity con-nectivity in our trails system," she told the planners. Some have suggested the Life lesson: Houses don't just clean themselves t's only been a week, and already al-ready I've learned a lot. That's how long I've been holding down a regular job and taking care of all the household chores. Sharon, my wife, has been off her feet ever since one of them was operated on last week. It's not serious, seri-ous, as operations go. On the other hand, anytime they open up your foot and take out some bone, it's serious. It will take six weeks for her to recover, and for the first two, she's supposed to spend no more than 10 minutes out of every hour on her feet. The rest of the time, she has to lay around. Given the opportunity, I'm pretty sure she would say that reflects my own behavior be-havior when I'm home 10 minutes on my feet and 50 in the recliner. But now that the shoe is on the other foot, so to speak, I'm responsible for all that stuff that she usually does cooking, cleaning, washing dishes, doing the laundry, vacuuming vacuum-ing the list just seems to go on and on. Who would have thought it could be so much work? Every working woman who is also a home-maker, home-maker, apparently. At least, I don't get a lot of sympathy from the women in our office. Still, I wanted to share some lessons from the last week. Preparing dinner every night is hard work, especially when you throw in lunch and breakfast. That's 21 meals in the last week alone, and we're just getting started. In my defense, I make breakfast almost every morning. But I only make djnner once a week. The rest of the time Sharon has to figure fig-ure out what to make, make sure all the ingredients ingre-dients are on hand, and then make dinner. She prepared many meals in advance, to make it easier for me. Still, it is difficult to decide what we will eat. It is particularly hard to get it all ready at the same time. I never appreciated ap-preciated this delicate balancing act before. Now I find the main course getting cold wruie tne vegetables are warming up, and I m constantly getting up to fetch something and down stairs INVOLVED can Fork's Transportation Committee on March 6 came to the City Council and recommended recom-mended the city seek proposals to do a study of transportation transporta-tion needs as they apply to the downtown area. City officials of-ficials suggested the study be broadened to include adjoining areas to make the transportation transporta-tion plan "seamless and mesh together." The City Council would have to take official action ac-tion to send out requests for proposals to conduct the study. Brian Thompson, the head of the Transportation Committee, Commit-tee, said the group wanted the study to include a wide scope. I le suggested long-term transportation trans-portation alternatives, land-use land-use mix and impact, parking adequacy, pedestrian safety, historical relevance, aesthetics, vision and commercial alignment. align-ment. Councilman Dale Gunther said it was good to protect the area. "I would like to protect the Main Street environment," he said. "Can it be done by widening widen-ing (the driving lanes) and creating cre-ating off-street parking? My preference would be to leave Main Street as it is." Gunther said it would be a good idea for the city to have a solid plan in mind. "UDOT came to us and wanted want-ed seven lanes to 100 East," he said. "They also wanted a SPUI (single point urban interchange) on the west end. area be beautified with grass, trees and shrubs. Spencer said the city may be able to plant grass, but would not be permitted per-mitted to plant anything with deeper roots. "It could jeopardize the safety of the structure, which is basically considered like a dam," he said. There were several options for trails near the irrigation pond. Schiess said a gravel trail would not increase the cost, but an asphalt trail would aiAdto it. r "Creating a network of trails around the reservoir that would connect to existing and future trail systems would enhance its public recreational use," he wrote. "There would be a slightly higher cost to provide pro-vide trails around the facility depending on the size and type. Schiess told the council that a change of recreational use could be approved relatively Marc Haddock THE EDITOR . COLUMN s iui iuncn.' uearly, I need to pay more attention. lLaun,?ry is harder tha" it looks. Actually, I was banned from the laundry room years ago after carelessly shrinking one too many blouses. And Sharon tried to get nof'S ", dry so I wouldn't have go dS ? ' d'?yu l3Undry acclates like affit thaT e'S n0t much you can do mJSiill! Very Uttle condence in my ability to sort even the simplest fabrics For me, lt's aU black and white, or dmfSd light, if you prefer. She sees a lot of grey. tmf " We got past that Pblem Every une I need to do a load of laundry, I carry rlZT!? 'tems Upstairs' wher she cm go through and make sure I haven't made inar propnate choices. Then she give me txS instructions about wash and dry cteR? eluding water temperatures and times. So far so good, but she hasn't let me near anything delicate yet. Since she's not wearine anything very delicate during her recovery, we should weather this particular storm with no problem. There's more, of course. The point is I've learned a lot or respect for homemaking in the last few days, which Sharon hopes I will . put to use over the coming years. The main lesson Is. of PHI ire a Ann' someone until you've logged a few miles up anI HntitM r nixn L 1 t We are better off if we go to UDOT with a proposal." City may consider amending drainage plan On March 5, the Planning and Zoning Com mission heard a presentation from several developers who sought changes to the city's drainage plan. The current plan requires developers who build in the area south of the freeway to have two separate channels to carry water. They would separate storm water and irrigation water. The con cern has been that storm water in developed areas may pick up oils, gasoline or other con taminants which could damage crops if mingled with the irrigation irri-gation water. The developers asked for a change in the policy, saying, one water user could refuse to allow one of the channels to cross the land, effectively killing a project. The developers develop-ers had suggested a provision which would allow them to pretreat the water to separate the contaminants prior to the water going into the existing sloughs. Planner Rod Despain said those downstream water users had a role which could not be ignored. "We are going to have to contend with treatment some where in the future," he said. The Planning Commission will address the issue at its March 19 meeting. quickly. "The change of use could be approved in a week's time," he said. If the council were to consider con-sider not putting a recreational use on the land used for the pond, another option would be to mitigate the property. It would have to be replaced by other recreational property of equal or greater value. It would have to be property which is not currently developed devel-oped for recreational uses, although it could either be already owned by the city or purchased for that purpose. "The City must commit to develop the replacement property prop-erty into a recreational use within a certain time frame," Schiess wrote. "Recreational development need not be elaborate elabo-rate to qualify." Schiess estimated the mitigation miti-gation process could take a month to complete. I forgot. Keep in mind, I'm only cooking for two. But it's still hard. I Dishes don't do themselves, even if you have a dishwasher. At the start of this process, I figured fig-ured I'd be running the dishwasher every two or three days. That's two plates a meal, along with two glasses, spoons, knives, etc. But somehow at the end of every day, the dishwasher is filled and must be run. Every day it must be emptied. This process never stops. Dirty dishes multiply like bacterium. So how does Sharon do it when we entertain family on Sundays, often of-ten with 10 or more people dropping in her house slippers. Music Continued from Page I provides a dramatic transition transi-tion between moods. "We needed a better name than Junior Music Club," Meredith said. "We were studying all facets of music. Intermezzo is a musical term that can cover a lot of things." Members were interested in music of all kinds and came to learn from themselves them-selves and others. They were not necessarily accomplished musical performers themselves. them-selves. They shared much more than a love for music. "We have tried to make it be more like a family," Smith said. "We feel good around each other. It is such a good group of women. If ever there is a project, you could get help from any one of these women in a minute." min-ute." Membership in the club Though 50 is long, we are still going strong and creating creat-ing new memories. memo-ries. INTERMEZZO CLUB comes by invitation. They have worked together togeth-er in several areas. "A lot of us have worked together on different things," Smith said. "Like city recreation, rec-reation, church and civic activities. We can always call on each other because we know we can depend on each other." One thing they could de pend on was their refreshments. refresh-ments. They took turns hosting host-ing the first Thursday of the month meetings, and most were held in their homes. "You would always end up asking for somebody's recipe," Smith said. In 1958, the annual dues for each club member were 50 cents; today they are $10 a year. They also have a sunshine fund and send cards and flowers to those mem bers who have a particular need. Meredith expressed appre ciation for the club's scrap-book, scrap-book, which chronicled many of their early activities. In addition to studying music, they learned about poetry, other cultures, crafts including includ-ing holiday decorations, plant care "This is such a treasure, so dear," she said of the scrap- book. She recounted her years involved with music and said she was pleased the club had continued for so long after her move from American Fork. "Thank you for carrying this on," she said. The daughter of long-time American Fork musician Tabby" Grant, she had an early start in music. She remembers coming home at lunch time from Harrington School when she was in the third grade with the purpose of composing some music. When she was a young married women, she helped found the Intermezzo Club. "Our original goals were to earn about music and things that were interesting," she said. "We have covered interesting inter-esting subject matter." She presented some music, including new words to the song "Memories," which club members sang. Though 50 is long, we are still going strong and creat ing new memories, they sang. Early members of Intermezzo Margaret Hall, Wanda Peterson, Ruth Schmidt, Kenna Dean, Nadine Lay-cock, Lay-cock, Colleen Simkins, Diane Walton, Bonnie Houston, Mary Lou Nicholas, Nicho-las, Myrna Milne, Nadine Miller, Jeannine Kitchen, Clara Thomas, Jeannielle Chesnut, Betsy Wagner, . Beverly Brooks, Pat Webster, Web-ster, Joleen Stout, Arlene Okey, LouJean Smith, Nadine Laycock, Muriel All-ridge, All-ridge, Connie Smith, JaNae Nicholes, Nancy Reese, Shirley Pederson, Carrol Olsen, Cathie Miller, Cleo Miller, Gene Ingersoll, llene Peterson, LaRae Anderson, Kathleen Van Wagner. |