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Show MAY 30, 2008 PAGE A5 Summit County News Coalville City - Prepared for Future Growth CHERYL OVARD SCN Editor Part 1 When Coalville City’s Mayor Duane Schmidt stepped into office nobody could give him an accurate answer to questions about how much room was down at the sewer plant. It was always a debatable answer - nor could they tell him any more about the culinary water system. It was determined by the Mayor and the Coalville City council that it was time to know exactly where Coalville stood in regards to sewer and water, as the development coming to Coalville was upon them, and they needed exact answers to these questions. It was then decided that a study for each of these items would be necessary and advantageous to the welfare of Coalville that would outline the needs for the next twenty to thirty years for both the sewer and water. Now when Coalville reaches a certain volume of waste coming down to the sewer plants, they know when to take the next steps for planning for handling this problem. The plans were put together by the J.U.B. Engineers, Inc. of Kaysville which shows the layout of what the sewer plant will look like in the future and takes into consideration of a regional sewer plant for North Summit Area. It only makes sense to consider a regional system, as everything from Wanship down to Coalville should flow down into a regional plant located in Coalville. The Culinary Water, exMayor Schmidt, plained “…should be up on the Weber River below the Rockport Reservoir and should feed water from Wanship to Coalville.” The price of a system of this nature comes into the plan, as well, but the Coalville City Council feels that they should look into the future and not just “…in front of our noses”. Park City, for example, was not expected to become such an affluent city. It was not anticipated that people would want to drive to work from Park City to Salt Lake City and live in the colder climate, deal with the snow and bad road conditions, and purchase land so “far away” from the main part of Salt Lake City. Coalville, on the other hand, is also looking at the prospective growth pattern which is very near beginning construction with some of the proposed subdivisions. It is a possibility that the study, funded by payments from other property to Coalville City, should cover a span of about thirty years. Schmidt and the council were not satisfied with the fifteen year old plans, and so another study was done to predict what should be happening over the next 20-30 years, even taking into consideration the possibility of annexing other land and the build-out of the community which is in the future plans. Coalville City now knows exactly where they stand, where they are in relation to the sewer and water, and the future plan is set, thanks to the efforts of the studies put together over the last couple of years. It is also a possibility that a water treatment facility along the Weber River is forthcoming, but does not make sense to just do it for the Coalville City itself, but should possibly include a regional plan to include Wanship and down through possibly as far as Echo. There would be no Annual Mountain Spirit Heritage Festival - Old Days - New Ways July 25-27 pumping issues along this route. It would not cost that much more to include the whole of North Summit in this configuration, according to J.U.B. Engineers. People who do not attend the city meetings do not realize the amount of planning and “human hours” which goes into making a study about the resources needed to take place. The people that work on the city staff, they are constantly busy, contrary to the belief of many citizens. The plans created by J.U.B. Engineers and the meeting decisions are tools for the City Council that explain what the plans are to carry out the programs and what they have to do to complete them. Both the culinary and sewer plans were completed at about the same time. “If the council does not have a plan and does not know where they are going, there could be a …great big mess,” stated Duane Schmidt. “That is the last thing I want for Coalville City, a big mess! I would venture to say that there are few cities that are able to present these future plans to the com- with the Pony express, railroad, and pioneer treks through that canyon.) The wagon train will spend the night in Coalville at the fairgrounds. Meanwhile, the festival will open on Friday at 10 AM through dusk. Activities include blue grass music, Contra and oldies dancing, cowboy poetry, artisans explaining and selling their creations; food vendors selling their food. There will also be antique tractors and farming equipment along with NEW tractors. On Saturday, the wagon train will travel to the festival, arriving around noon. It was awesome seeing them come in to the festival last year. We had 13 wagons and numerous riders on horseback along for the ride and acting as wranglers. The music and other activities will continue on Saturday (10:00 AM through dusk). In addition, we will have a telegraph deciphering display using a real telegraph. Also there will be old-fashioned farming demonstrations using horse-drawn equipment (mowers, swathers, etc.) and wagon and pulling demonstration for the horses/mules. On Sunday, (10 a.m. to 4 p.m.) we are having a gospel program in the church. If you would like to be a vendor, if you have farming equipment you would like to exhibit, if you have an activity that you would like to host, or if you want to be a participant, please contact me or visit our website: www.uintaheadwaters.org/her itage.shtml Go Classifieds! It Pays! 336-5501 plications for government grants and other grants for the city. The master plans are done, and ready to help the city be prepared for the future growth. Mayor Schmidt wants everyone to be aware that these future plans are available to read in the Coalville City Hall at any time during office hours. The meetings held with the Coalville City Council are also open to the public to attend and become more aware of what is going on with their tax dollars. The future of storm drains, transportation and curb and gutters, etc, will be discussed in the next issue of the Summit County News. Intellectual Property Critical For Fighting Third-World Diseases BY ANDREAS FREYTAG AND GERNOT PEHNELT We are celebrating our pioneer and western heritage. We are inviting vendors to attend and sell items that they make and have a western or pioneer history or heritage. Things we are looking for are spinners, weavers, quilt makers, saddle makers, artists that paint or create western-themed products, blacksmithing, as well as participants like musicians, scout groups, horse riders, wagon drivers; etc. The Festival will include a wagon train that starts Friday morning and comes down Echo Canyon. Wagon masters will stop the group at historical sites and the Summit County Historic society will inform everyone of the history. (It is an incredible history munity to declare exactly where they stand at this time.” The engineers have given Coalville City the “roadmap” and guidelines so that when needed, the plans can be put into action. The plans have cost a lot of money, but will be worth it in the long run. Grants to put these plans together were obtained through the CDGB funds as well as other funding which Coalville City will be able to apply for because they have the exact plans needed show they are ready to for the future building. The ability to handle the growth anticipated in the future needs of Coalville are laid out step by step and will make it easier to meet the needs of ap- Last week [May 19-24], the World Health Assembly held its 61st annual meeting in Geneva. As the governing body of the World Health Organization (WHO), the Assembly has enormous influence on public health policies and strategies around the world, and journalists and politicians ought to pay close attention to the discussions in the Assembly. To many national opinion makers, deliberations in an obscure international organization seem far removed from the realities of everyday life, but decisions made by the Assembly can have very real consequences in the WHO member states. In recent years, the issue of intellectual property rights has been high on the agenda in the WHO. Numerous non-governmental organizations and other interest groups have mounted a campaign to weaken the protection of patents on drugs, arguing that patents impede access to medicines for the world’s poor by keeping prices too high. In particular, the anti-patent movement is advocating an expanded use of so-called compulsory licensing which allows governments to break patents in order to secure access to medicines for their citizens. Compulsory licensing is a legal instrument under international law as long as certain criteria are fulfilled, but we are critical with this instrument despite its legality. In fact, we regard intellectual property rights as being essential for combating endemic diseases. Why are patents so relevant in the field of medicine? The pharmaceutical industry uses patents as a mechanism to secure returns on their investments in research and development of new medicines. On a global level, (minimum binding) standards for the protection of intellectual property are set through the international Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The agreement aims to stimulate the investment in research and development and the diffusion of technology by granting the patent applicants the exclusive right to restrain others from producing and selling the product for a given period of time (usually 20 years). In contrast to other industries which appropriate their return on investment over a mixture of mechanisms like secrecy, lead time, complementary services or patents, patents build the fundament of the business model for the pharmaceutical industry. The successful drug discovery process builds the basis of their business model. Pharmaceutical research is complex, time-consuming, risky, and influenced by safety and effectiveness requirements of national regulation authorities: Complex, multi-symptomatic and multi-factorial diseases require more and more basic research. Once a target disease is identified and a research program is set up, it takes an average of 1015 years before a new drug can be brought to market. And less than one percent of the initial treatment target compounds result in final drugs being submitted for approval by the authorities, which then end up declining the approval applications in many cases. Intellectual property rights are important to the pharmaceutical industry because of the enormous investments that are needed to beat the odds and bring a new, approved drug to market. In 2001, it cost an estimated 802 million US dollars to develop a new drug. By contrast, once a drug is developed, the costs of producing it are close to zero, and it is easy to manufacture generic copies of existing drugs. Hence, if pharmaceutical companies do not enjoy strong patent protection, they are unlikely to invest in the research and development of new drugs. PUBLIC NOTICE OF EARLY VOTING LOCATION PRIMARY ELECTION, 2008 Public Notice is hereby given that early voting will be available for registered voters of Summit County for the 2008 Primary Election at the following times and location beginning June 10 through June 13, and June 16 through June 20, 2008: Summit County Courthouse 1:00PM to 5:00PM 60 North Main • Coalville, Utah Published in the Summit County News: May 30, June 6, 2008 After all, why not just let other companies pay for the research and then make cheap copies of their products? Because patents are essential to the development of new drugs, it is necessary to find other ways than compulsory licensing to secure affordable drugs for poor countries. And, in fact, much has already been done without forcing the pharmaceutical industries to give up their patents. For instance, many companies give drugs away for free or at production costs in poor countries, and philanthropic foundations have done much in recent years to improve the situation in poor countries. For instance, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given close to 10 billion US dollars in grants to facilitate better access to medicines for the world’s poor. The bottom line is this: Breaking patents discourages pharmaceutical research and hurts the poor rather than helping them. If the World Health Assembly really wants to improve access to medicines, the diplomats and politicians should stop all talk about compulsory licensing as they meet in Geneva. The time has come to think of sustainable long-term solutions rather than shortsighted attacks on intellectual property rights. Andreas Freytag is Professor of Economics at the FriedrichSchiller University in Jena, Germany and a Senior Fellow at the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE) in Brussels, Belgium. Gernot Pehnelt is an independent consultant and Research Associate at ECIPE. We at the SCN would like your opinion of this article’s facts - “competition is good for any product!” |
