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Show House Sending Measures To Senate for Action The House of Representatives Repre-sentatives settled into the third week of the 41st session of the Utah Legislature. Leg-islature. They considered consider-ed 26 pieces of legislation legisla-tion with topics ranging from farmland to habitual criminals. One of the bills which passed the House provided pro-vided for a public information infor-mation officer for the Utah Legislature. Speaker Ronald L. Rencher (D-Ogden) explained, ex-plained, '"W e feel that individual in-dividual citizens should have access to information informa-tion about specific bills which concern them in addition to the bills which are reported in the mass media because of their general interest. A legislative leg-islative information officer of-ficer can provide this service to the public." "This session we have a public information officer of-ficer and he is working hard to keep up on bills, committee meetings, and voting. This service has been greatly aided by a telephone which allows 1 anyone in Utah to call him without charge for ; information," said Speaker Spea-ker Rencher. The num- ber is (800) 662-5350. I Another bill which is on j its way to the Senate for i consideration involves farmland assessment. "The bill's basic intent i is to promote the use of land for agriculture in Utah. We are concerned I about tax exemptions for j those who purchase land for speculation, but wish I to protect the farmers of our state," said Speak- . i er Rencher. Habitual criminals were the subject of a bill sponsored spon-sored by T. Quentin Cannon Can-non (R-Salt Lake). The bill would allow the court to determine if a person is a habitual criminal after two convictions, sentences, and terms in prison for serious crimes. The person may be imprisoned for five years to life if he is determined de-termined to be a habitual criminal. One of the bills which will be considered by the House in the fourth week involves a Utah Housing Agency. "It is an exciting concept which will help families build homes --especially --especially low and middle income families," said Speaker Rencher. "The basic idea is for the agency to sell low-interest low-interest bonds and use the revenues for housing loans. The incentive to buy the bonds is that the income would be exempt from taxation. This allows al-lows lower interest rates on the housing loans," explained Speaker Rencher. Ren-cher. "If this agency is approved ap-proved it could bring on a surge of new building in Utah. It would allow families to build homes who are, presently out of the market because of high interest rates. All of this would not drain state funds," he said. |