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Show THE ZEPHYR/SPECIAL ELECTION ISSUE..FEBRUARY 1993 state far more than it is—well I shouldn’t say far more. It’s going to benefit the county, because we're going to get such a high percentage of money back. But it’s going to benefit the state a lot too. As soon as the state starts saying, yeah it’s a good thing for us and they start saying, "We're willing, because you have gone this far and you've invested this much, yes were going to go in and help you with the cost of it." I’m not going to be willing to spend any more. Zephyr: As I understand it, if they get the right of the way they have the right, and would probably get this $3 million from the CIB, you would not go for the $3 million loan? Holyoak: Not until the state determines what they’re going to do. Zephyr: What the state is saying now is that they have a commitment to the road; however it could be 15-20 years before they ever got around to it. Holyoak: See, they’re in the situation we are. We can’t afford to spend any of the county money on that. As an investment down the road, yes, I think we need to get that right of way in there so that it can be a money maker for us in the future. But until somebody shows some interest in it and is willing to put their dollars on the line and say this is what we have, you’ve done some initial work, and we're going to lay down... I don’t feel any obligation to put any more in this. Zephyr: So if they got the right of way, would you tell Jimmie Walker and the Road Board to not actively pursue getting funding for their part of the road any more until they get an absolute commitment from the state? Holyoak: I’m not going to say that. I would tell them to look at all the possibilities. I’m not going to limit myself because, hey, there may be a great deal out there for the county. But I am going to say we’re not moving on this anywhere until we're sure that those funds can be there. Zephyr: Paul, you don’t want the road built and you want it stopped. What would you do with the Board? Are you talking about disbanding the Board? Menard: No, not at all. The mineral lease money is distributed by the Department of transportation to the Board. It has to be a special service district. Zephyr: Would you leave that Board in place? Menard: Basically, okay, you're getting down to brass tacks here. The Board itself I would leave intact because there are other issues that they’re dealing with, for instance the federal land right of ways and so forth, in the county. The new council, if I’m on the new council, is going to have to make the decision as to exactly what, as far as the Road Board now, goes. | think it’s going to take some head banging in a meeting to decide what to do on that. From what I’ve seen, and the blame gets passed around—Jimmie likes to say that he’s directed by the wishes of the commission and so forth and so he pursues full bore ahead with what they ask him to do. It’s hard not to wonder what Jimmie’s personal interest is. He’s a good talker. He’s a personable individual. But he also is political and has kind of half-truths. He leaves details out. For instance, on this EIS thing, the $20,000. That supposedly is necessary to complete the EIS and to have the right of way. Now we've been told by Gene Nodine that that’s it. You’ve got the right of way there and twenty years down the line if you want, you can go ahead and construct it. no problem. Now there’s no way that can happen. Two years from now, if you had that right of way, the whole EIS process would have to be done again. There are just too many thin there, too many questions about that whole project. The vast majority of people that I’ve talked to, people that went to that initial EIS hearing and so forth, just want that stopped, simply stopped. Zephyr: The hospital is at a crossroads right now. Some people want it to be bigger with more facilities so that we can serve a greater variety of needs. Other people think that we just can’t afford it, that it should almost become like a first aid station to serve people before we send them to Saint Mary’s. Where do you stand on the hospital? If you want to make it smaller, can we grow as a community and still have a hospital? If you want to make it bigger, how are you going to pay for it? Menard: I spent a couple of hours with Kim Hardman the other day. It’s quite apparent to me in the community that people want a hospital. As far as how big a hospital, I think that what we have to do when we get a new council is, again, get an advisory board. Let's go and find out what the people want or what their ideas are and work on that. Mr. Hardman seems like he’d be willing to go in any direction that the community directs him to go, extended care facilities, for instance. Certainly there’s a need for even more extended care facilities, so Mr. Hardman says that it takes sixty beds in order to break even. Whether or not we need to break even I don’t know. These are questions that we're all going to have to look at. | think that it is a big issue, that there’s really pretty good work being done out. I don’t think that it should be pared back to clinic size at all under any circumstances. We need a real hospital. We need to find out how we can attract doctors in here, and one way to get doctors is have a decent hospital with good equipment. Holyoak: I feel pretty much the same way as far as a hospital. We need a hospital and we need to upgrade it as much as we can. But like you say, our funds are limited. It would be not necessarily a good thing to buy in all of this equipment when we use it maybe once twice, three times a year. I mean, we can’t afford to do that. But we need to upgrade it as best we can and one of the main things we talked about down there at that meeting was why people turned down the funding on the hospital. I really think that a lot of them just didn’t understand what it was that they were trying to do. It wasn’t a tax raise they were trying to get; they were just trying to get the funding that they'd already had, and I believe it’s every ten years it comes up for vote again. I really think that the people would support the hospital and the ones that I’ve talked to have all been in favor of having a good hospital and having the best that we can have with the money that we have. Zephyr: You didn’t tell me how you’re going to pay for it. Menard: There we go back to the mineral lease moneys. The legislation clearly says “either/or” and that’s one place that I’d definitely put money into. Holyoak: Can I say something right here? The mineral lease moneys, yes, we can do all these things with it, and I would agree with you that some of that money should go to the hospital. The thing to be looking at every year as we're looking at mineral lease moneys going down, I agree we need to use that money, but we need to insure that money keeps coming in. Menard: Building that road’s not going to insure anything. It’s a gamble. Holyoak: It’s an investment. Zephyr: The industry that affects us more than anything is tourism. It seems to be here to stay barring some calamity like the price of gas going to $10 per gallon or something. We definitely seem to have been discovered here; we're getting national news coverage. How much more does Moab need to be promoted as a tourist industry and what are the impacts on the area from tourism that a county council can actually deal with and have an effect upon? Holyoak: Tourism is a good thing. It brings a lot of people to the community. In fact, I think Paul, after seeing the area, decided to come and live here. Menard: Basically, yes. Holyoak: Basically, I’m here because I love it here. Tourism is a good thing. One bad thing about tourism is the fact that in the summer it creates quite large numbers and the county has to deal with those numbers, for instance with the search and rescues. We need to have something beneficial to us as a county, for tourism. We have a lot of bikers that come in and we need to sit down as a county council and try to figure out a way to get some revenue back, whether it’s a bike tax or license or some means to get reimbursed for the additional expense it takes. PAGE 9 Se Menard: I agree 100% on that. I feel we have to come up with some innovative ways for the people who are coming in to pay for the services they expect. The property owners cannot pay that increased burden. I’ve seen people in other communities who couldn’t afford to live in the communities they were raised in because property taxes got out of hand. Zephyr: As Moab grows, we are seeing more people working in service-related jobs that are low paying; at the same time, there is a growing shortage of affordable housing. What can you, as county councilmen, do to alleviate the shortage of housing? Menard: Obviously, another big issue. We're going to have to work with the city on that. We’re going to have to find a way to stimulate investment in low cost housing from the outside. I think in the long-run that is the answer. I don’t think that we can get in the housing business. We’ve got enough things to do right now. I’m sort of surprised that it hasn’t already been done. There’s money around, but it hasn’t gone for low-cost housing and it seems like a big opportunity. Holyoak: One of the main things that I see here, you talked about bringing money in, I would like to look more into ways that we can get the money here and keep it here. Telluride and all these other big places, that’s what happened to them. That money came in, local people went out because they didn’t get any of that money. We need to stimulate growth right here in the community, and keep that money here. It’s nice to have people come in with money, but that doesn’t benefit the local people to that great an extent. Zephyr: All candidates for public office are for better education, but what can you do as councilmen to actually improve education in Grand County? Holyoak: We need to invest in our community. I hate to keep coming back to that, but the more tax base we have, the more we are able to give to the schools, the more money...and I’m not saying that money is the only thing that we can do. But let’s face it, money is something it takes for more education. I would love to see a light industry come in to the community to increase the tax base. The problem with that is that the raw materials have to be shipped in and the finished product shipped out. We need to look at companies that are seeking out this area. Right now, the only companies seeking us out are oil and gas. I'll put in a punch here. There’s been some wells drilled on Dead Horse Mesa that people should take a look at. It’s done very well and is not a distraction to the scenery. Menard: The question was about the schools. I agree with Mike; I have no objections to the wells that are in place and the prospect for more in the future. Because of the scrutiny of the environmental groups, they will not get away with anything ugly. As far as the schools go, from people I’ve talked to, Grand County’s schools are improving. Going to the 5-day school week has improved scores for example. We have new administrations in there and I think we're progressing. I think a major concern here is the drug problem; that’s the reports I get from the sheriff. He says it’s serious. That’s almost incomprehensible to me. There is grant money available for drug enforcement which all collapsed on us with that Four Corners Drug Enforcement unit. Nonetheless, we have to get back into that. Whatever it takes to get rid of the dealers and get that straightened out, our education system will benefit from it. Zephyr: Any final comments? Holyoak: One of my big concerns for the community and the reason I decided to get involved in the county council was because the tax base is the most important issue as far as I could see. We need to do something that stimulates that, keeps money coming into the community, keeps people being able to live here, and being able to make a living here. Not just a $5 per hour job. Those are the kinds of things that I think the council needs to be the most working towards. You look at other communities like ours and you don’t see locals living there because they can’t afford to live there. That’s what I’m striving for. Menard: Growth is inevitable. We have to control and direct that growth. We can control growth through zoning, and that is going to be a hot issue down the line. Rhode Island and Delaware would fit inside Grand County, but Rhode Island has over 8 million people alone. It has lots of industry and lots of jobs. It also has lots of problems. I for one wouldn’t want to trade places with anybody living there for the sake of a better job. We have to protect our quality of life and go forward and increase our tax base so we can support our infrastructure and schools, our hospitals. But carefully. Think it out and get the input of the people. zeke and maralee francis’ Four Corners Design 39 East 100 North * 259-7050 (across from the Post Office) oldest T-shirt shop in Moab established in 1980 "Pessimism is the name that men of weak nerves aeiy a CTRUTEN Wat (( (ili a) HT give to wisdom." Ii sd ay q aU oe/ Bernard De Voto op ao AAS y PR! . REMEMBER TO VOTE ON FEBRUARY 9 |