OCR Text |
Show Land Trade Closed to Obtain Castle Valley Area Near Moab By C. Sharp Slate Land Board members capitalized on future recreational potentials pot-entials Nov. 15, when they agreed to exchange 10.521 acres of state lands in Canyonlands and other new national parks in the area for 8,192 acres in Castle Valley, east of Moab. The Castle Valley lands possess value particularly par-ticularly if a ski and year-around recreation center in the LaSal mountains is developed. A Four Corners Regional Reg-ional Commission study will be released soon indicating that there is plenty of snow in the LaSals for a ski resort. The problem is to obtain ob-tain U. S. Forest Service Ser-vice leases, plus millions mil-lions of dollars capital and clearance on environmental en-vironmental impact. Negotiated Exchange Laws enlarging Canyonlands Can-yonlands National Park and creating national parks covering areas larger than the previous national monuments for Arches and Capitol Reef specified that the state lands taken would be exchanged ex-changed for other public lands. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the Land Board staff negotiated ne-gotiated the trades. Another important development de-velopment at the Land Board meeting was presentation pre-sentation of a proposal by Bullfrog Marina Inc. to buy or lease lor a long term, five-and-a-half square miles of land along U-276 north of Bullfrog Marina on Lake Powell. Zeke Dumke, secretary-treasurer, and Alan T. Howe, former director direct-or of the Four Corners Regional Commission and now attorney for the company, explained plans for commercial development of the lands. High Standard Units They want to build high standard motels, shopping shop-ping centers, a condominium condo-minium apartment area, dry storage area for boats and other facilities. facil-ities. Dumke said all available avail-able facilities leased from the National Park service at Bullfrog are used to the limit without meeting demands. Land Board members decided to negotiate further fur-ther on terms of possible pos-sible sale or lease before be-fore deciding to select the land as part of that due the state from the federal government. Paul Sjoblom, state forester, was directed to conduct a hearing to sell i j two million inui e uuai u feet of Ponderosa Pine east of Moab. Lumber Sale San Juan Lumber Co. of Moab now is taking out 1,296,000 board feet of Ponderosa at $20 per 1,000 board feet.' This is to be the minimum price for the new sale. Indications around the State Capitol are that Gov. Calvin L. Rampton may ask the 1973 Legislature Leg-islature to hold expenditures expend-itures for the next fiscal year to a cash basis because be-cause of a record-breaking surplus. Ifno new programs a re instituted, spending of the big reserve estimated estim-ated at well beyond $50 million for capital improvements im-provements such as development dev-elopment of state parks and recreation facilities and a new state office building would not contribute con-tribute to future deficits. Tax collections are continuing to outstrip past records andgeared- up estimates. $20 Million Windfall A windfall of $10 million mil-lion in federal revenue sharing funds is expected expect-ed within several months, while another $10 million for 1973 is anticipated. Up to $10 million is expected from Kennecott Copper Corp. as a result re-sult of a U. S. Supreme Court decision declining to review a ' Utah Supreme Sup-reme Court tax decision. Rampton is expected to seek further reduction reduct-ion of the state property tax levy for schools now at 4.6 mills ($4.60 per $1,000 valuation.) He also has promised to recommend distribution of additional State Liquor Control Commission profits to counties and cities. Legislators will also have requests for large additional sums for support sup-port of public schools, higher education, vocational vocat-ional education and for additional state buildings. build-ings. Tax Exemptions The Legislative Council's Coun-cil's taxation and transportation trans-portation committee Nov. 14, authorized drafting of bills for the 1973 Legislature for tax exemptions for the needy and the aged. These would double the present tax abatement from $50 to $100. Eligibility El-igibility required would be raised from the present pre-sent $2,500 income for single person or $3,000 for married couples to $4,500 single or $5,000 married with the market valuation of the property proper-ty raised from $12,500 to a new meximum of $20,000. Aged property owners in the same classification classific-ation would be allowed to defer payment of property prop-erty tax. The deferred taxes would become a lien against the property to be paid with interest when the property is sold. |