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Show ' r PAGE 18 THE ZEPHYR MARCH 1993 A Prescription for Our New County Government by Ken Davey Back during the 1960s, writer William F. Buckley ran on the Conservative Party ticket for mayor of New York City, a campaign he saw as an educational effort to explain the tenets of his political philosophy. Just before election day, Buckley was asked by a reporter what would be the first thing he would do if elected, and he answered, "demand a recount." But for the newly elected members of the Grand County council, it's too late for that; the election results have been certified, they are it, whether they like it or not. So what do you do? - s . . u . STOP THE BLEEDING There is probably no single more symbolic testament to the legacy of the old county commission than the ongoing construction work at the renovated courthouse site, combining arrogance, cronyism, confusion, and disorganization. When will foe new jail and courthouse be finished? Nobody is really positive on that, but be assured that it is on schedule. How much will it cost? No one can say, though commissioners have held from the beginning that it will stay within budget. Who has been in charge for the past six months? Well, maybe the project manager, or maybe the construction project manager, or maybe the county commission, though they never acted like they knew what was going on, or maybe Commissioner Manuel Torres, when he wasn't laying brick at the site, or maybe the building inspector, maybe. Some of the new county coundl members have begun looking into what is actually going on down there, and they are being swamped by the unanswered questions. Contracts are missing, or maybe never existed. Records on the project are not in the possession of the county; they may be with the construction manager, they may be in the project manager's Salt Lake office, they may be cm someone's desk or lying in the bunk of someone's car. Or they may have been thrown away. The courthouse project is a potential runaway train, capable of financially crippling foe county for years to come. Getting an objective, professional probe going is the first and most pressing need, because everything else will be affected by how much and for how long county taxpayers will be paying for the mistakes. visitors as residents. And a travel council has been established. If we could start from scratch, would the county council's vision of what such a council should do look like what we have now? If not, then change it. Right now, under the leadership of its new chairman Lucky Morse, the travel council is going through just such a discussion, and the county council, not just one "liaison" member but the entire coundl, should be involved in that discussion. Should promotion be significantly increased? Should we advertize only foe shoulder seasons and winter? Should the county continue to print lodging and tour brochures, or is that really the job of those private businesses to promote themselves? Should transient room tax be spent on providing services for both visitors and residents alike, such as clean-u- p projects along the River Road, Sand Flats, and Mill Creek, or should the money go to providing facilities in town to lure conventions? This won't hurt at all. ...OK, will medical professionals. The "free money" going to the Recreation District could go towards the construction of needed new schools, or toward the purchase of rescue equipment for the county. GET A SECOND OPINION All to often in foe past, newly elected officials have asked "why are we doing this?" and they receive an answer along the lines of, "well, that's the way we did it last year," and the questioner will nod and the discussion moves on. But "that's the way we always do it" is probably the worst reason for doing anything, because it really means, "I don't know, but I'm not going to admit it." So let us, just for a moment, pretend there is no history, there is no past practice. Moab is, like it or not, a tourist town, with on any given seasonal weekend twice as many . -- Yi .EQUIPMENT iAL lljren 989 N. Main Call anytime 259-697- 6 Moab Pager 259-283- 8 industrial commercial residential lawn & garden rmuiiTni hurt a little. MEDICATE For all their talk about hating big government, county leaders in recent years have put Congress and the White House to shame with their profligate spending ways. While local property owners have seen their tax bills mushroom, the county agrees to hand over a cool hundred grand to Emery County to build a golf course, Why? Because that's transient room tax, not REAL money. State and federal payment in lieu of tax assessments? That doesn't really count, you see, because that's FREE money. Mineral lease monies? Matching grants? They don't really count, because, hey, its a gift, you don't have to be as careful in spending gift money. But the new council understands that's nonsense. Every dollar, regardless of where it comes from, is precious because it can help provide services for the people of Grand County. And the council should make that fact known as soon as they can. The "free money" spent on the Bookdiffs Road could go to improving medical equipment at the hospital, toward hiring more it The one topic everyone has an opinion on is economic development, though it has proven impossible, and always will be impossible, to come up with consensus on what it means. Again, forget for a moment that we have an economic and community development department and begin from scratch. What should the county be doing? Under the direction of past county commissioners, that department has spent time and money angrily denouncing environmentalism and praising the value of the oil and gas industry, a useless pursuit because that industry goes where foe oil is, and all the vitriolic letters to the governor does not, according to petroleum engineers, create a single drop of retrievable crude within the Paradox Play. Oil wells can be of real value to the county, in terms of both tax revenues and employment opportunities (though modern horizontal drilling uses more machinery and less human labor than traditional vertically drilling techniques, and relies more on a highly trained workforce that brought in to town on a transient basis.) But while the new county council is supportive of oil and gas development, they are also aware that they can't allow uncontrolled development at all costs, they can't allow parts of the county to end up looking like the Aneth oil field down south. Notice that when some push other economic development proposals such as the recent effort to establish parimutuel betting on horseracing, the county's economic development people never denounced the LDS church hierarchy as out of town, urban "obstructionists" imposing their Half-Marat- hon runners... are you running slower than you'd like? We have a variety of Bottom Halves for rent. STOP BY FOR A FREE ESTIMATE! 'if. f 4 it 4 |