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Show PAGE 15 THE ZEPHYR/SPECIAL ELECTION ISSUE..FEBRUARY 1993 Zephyr: Do you need the Roads District to get the mineral lease money? Peter: No, not at all. It can go to any of at least 10 special service districts. That can be recreation, that can be health care. It’s meant basically for capital outlay. We're in a position now where we can shuffle some things out of our general budget and fund it through that. The equestrian center, to pay the payment, and things like that. That’s $86,000 we could take out of that. We could pay for the garbage dump. We could pay for the Keystone Pits. I’d hate to see that money squandered, since it’s supposed to be for development, and used on a plan for catch up, but we have some catch up to do. Zephyr: John, your view on the road and the district? John: I’m not for the road. I certainly understand that you can’t run a government without some vision, and I can certainly buy into an argument that that’s what the road board was trying to do, come up with some vision for a way to continue to fund the county. I disagree with their vision. As far as the road board itself, I think there is an issue that all the counties in the western part of the country have to worry about, and that’s what roads they can keep and what roads they can lose, and that might be an important issue for Grand County. So wouldn’t be in favor of dismantling the road board at this point. As far as the administrator goes, I asked Jimmie [Walker] if the new council gave another direction, to abandon the road project and do something else, whether he would stay or go, and he said he would like to stay. He’s planning on retiring in another year to 18 months. I have been an administrator before, and when you give an administrator like Jimmie Walker free rein, you get what you got. I think Jimmie could be a very good controlled administrator. And I would have no problem working with Jimmie Walker if he took direction from the council. Peter: That’s true. Jimmie has proven to be a very good administrator. Zephyr: Has he done a good job with the road board, has he been a credit to Grand County? Peter: I would say yes, I would just say it was off in the wrong direction. Two years ago they should have abandoned the project, when they realized the state wasn’t going to support them as initially they said they would. That’s where the county commission should have come back and said, we don’t need to pursue that. The commission has always told him to pursue it. David Knutson was in Price in October, saying, "by God, we're going to build this road." Until the election changed that, we would have had this road. Zephyr: John, has Jimmie’s work in the Road District been a credit to Grand County? John: I would say that it would be a wash. There would be a number of things that Jimmie Walker has done that the county could hang its hat on, and there’s probably a few things that Jimmie Walker’s done that would be considered less than a credit to the county. One of them would have been, even though it was tongue and cheek, making the remark that he went out and created his own government. That tended to give us a black eye. Peter: I just think its unfortunate that Jimmie’s knowledge and skills weren’t used for the last 2 or 3 years. He knows state and federal PILT fundings down pat, he knows the legal ramifications and stays up on it. He’s had a lot of resources and a lot of knowledge that went to waste these last couple of years, that with the proper direction really could have benefited the county. Zephyr: Voters turned down the power of the hospital board to impose a property tax, turning the financial responsibility back to the county. What should be done about health care in Grand County? John: My feeling on the hospital is similar to the equestrian center, and I disagree with Peter on these two questions. I think the hospital is something that we have. In talking with people who've lived here a lot longer than me, they like it and they would like to see it continue. Personally, I like the idea. I used it as an emergency room. I'd like to feel comfortable that if I needed some further treatment that I could do it in this town. One of the places we might look at spending some of the mineral lease money is in support of the hospital. Health care is an issue the federal government hasn’t been able to figure out, and I don’t think we're going to be able to do it at the county level. We need to provide what our constituents believe we need. They believe we need a hospital that can handle emergencies and also stabilize trauma, help stabilize heart attacks, help stabilize seizures, and perhaps perform some routine surgeries. I think it’s a shame you have to go to Grand Junction to have an appendix out. I know you have to draw the line on what tests you can do and what level of care you can provide, and possibly Call (801) 259-5101 WE’VE MOVED! TO 691 N. 500 W. and we’ve never been happier. F. owned & operated by 3-D River Visions, Inc. desert hardbodies aerobics & body shaping 259-7987 Mon * Tues * Thur * Fri _ 9:30 6:30 QUALIFIED INSTRUCTORS Instructors: Andrea Stoughton & Marilyn Peterson Mon & Thur: Regular aerobics Tue & Fri: Step aerobics... rural communities are going to have to settle for a different level of care and a different evaluation of the type of services that are provided. Peter: We can’t do appendicitis in town. We'don’t have a physician who can do them. I just ask what's the cost? If I was to say what John just said, people have been yelling at me that I want to close the hospital, that’s the big rumor going around town, because I have enough experience in health care, about 15 years now, and I worked in a wide gamut of health care, I have a fairly wide knowledge of what health care can happen in a small community. If I was to say we can provide emergency care, we can provide some medical care, pneumonia and GI bleeds, but if we start transporting our heart attacks and strokes, people are saying I want to close the hospital. A lot of that may stem from my letter in 1988 [to the Times Independent] continued on next page.. Dan Holyoak’s comments On fiscal responsibility: When I was on the commission before, we did a lot of things that helped the community. We built 400 East over to Highway 191, putting in two bridges and another over by Hecla. As for my own personal finances, I started with nothing and pretty well set myself up with sufficient income to live the rest of my life if I needed to. I think people could recognize that I am capable of handling finances that I am taking care of my own financial obligations. On cutting the budget deficit: I really don’t know that because I haven't been that closely associated with what they are doing. I see things that they have done that they thought were going to pay for themselves, like the equestrian center. I don’t oppose the equestrian center, but if | were going to do it, 1 would want to let them know that it could cost extra taxes to take care of it. I wouldn’t want to sell anything on the basis that it’s going to pay for itself...On the courthouse, when I was commissioner, we had problems with the jail house size and had to expand the courthouse before.That expansion with the roof leaking is one that we did, and I suppose if it had some care along the way it would still be operating and except for the jail, large enough to accommodate the needs of the courthouse. But the government keeps placing requirements on the counties and cities, like more room for the prisoners. Whether they needed to go that elaborate or whether it would have been better to build a new one, instead of tearing that one down and starting over, building a new jailhouse, and then keeping the courthouse. On the Book Cliffs Road: I do not oppose a road over the Book Cliffs; I never have and I never will. However, I don’t believe that right now is the time for the county to spend that kind of money when the other expenses are so high and the needs are so great as they are...As for the road board, after being at their meeting on Saturday, I can see where they have done some good things that the county needs, such as maps showing where the roads are. We were forever fighting with the BLM when I was in there over what roads were going to be allowed to be capped and what weren’t. Keeping rights of way where roads are is an important thing, because sometimes you need a right of way where there isn’t any. So I would support obtaining the right of way on the Book Cliffs Road but I wouldn’t want to borrow the money to start building the road. On the hospital: Personally, I think we made a mistake when we voted down the special taxing district for the hospital. I think the hospital is going to cost us money, whether it comes out of the general fund or a taxing district. | think we should have as good a hospital as we can possibly have, and | think we in Moab need to have facilities for taking care of nearly everything. I think major surgery might be something that would be ridiculous for us to try to maintain. On tourism: Continuing to promote tourism is an important thing because it’s the only thing we've got. Sometimes we hate it, sometimes I hate it; when Moab is crowded, it’s hard just to get out on the highway. You think back on when Moab was just a quiet little town and you think that would be a nice way to be, but you can’t live that way. We’re impacted terribly by tourism in the summertime. I don’t know there’s a lot the council can do except provide the facilities for their enjoyment while here, so they’ll keep coming back. That’s the only livelihood we've got...Planning and zoning is an important thing, but I don’t think we want to get so restrictive that people can’t live. 1 oppose planning to the point hat you restrict a person’s right to reasonably use his property somewhat like he wants to. On the housing shortage in Grand County: There are some programs that the government has for low income housing; we could put up some of that kind of housing and make it available to them and probably we should. More like the Huntridge Apartments might be what's necessary. I know right now there’s a problem with all the trailers in town at the trailer courts. Apparently they’re not in compliance with the city ordinances and the city is looking to shut them down if they don’t come into compliance. I think people are more important than rules and regulations. We need to take care of the people. Til we can provide them the kind of housing they need, we have to allow them to live in the kind of housing that’s available. On education: There’s a school board that runs the school system and the county council can’t step in and take any authority away from them. I think we can help the school board by doing all we can to improve the amounts of funds that are available to help with classroom sizes and providing good teachers for them. But the school board has to run it. The Number 1 priority: I think it would be to find something that would fill in for the whole year in industry..something that would be clean and acceptable to the people. That’s the difficult part of it. I think we need some kind of industry here that fills in during the winter when the tourists are not here and income is shut down. |
