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Show jayor responds to water questions L Atr as Mayor of Vernal, I'Si FoPr that I should hJi of Vernal City and The happenings concerning Htm tbclear some of the H'tts made by Lyle 11 'TJ n article Published in Hjss dated Sept. 25, 1980. y i Question, Lyle said it is a I nder the State Consitution a Tiax their people to spend r Joole outside the city. This dJ wever, the fact that he is SJs the bond of 1961 The xLl vernal City bonded them- Ci!Videbetterwa,ter service- ntX he did not exPIain are as Maeser Water Company, at hfe i think it was Maeser Town, Pits I'tfdfor $51,000.00 Vernal City lejil wd for $650,000.00 This did l( rebuild a better headworks T a chlorinator, desander, I jillion gallon storage tank, oi I lines to serve the areas of I sad Vernal. However, along if there was $400,000.00 lhy the Bureau of I'-ffl 'They had planned to ( vl) stock water lines servicing ,30iX- and southeast part of the Jle would have had to build l-is main line to provide stock ji was taken because of the 1 :nal that was built out through ftlQH The $400,000.00 the Bureau filiation contributed was WMf id with Vernal City's funds NG T id build the lines outside of Com I tv There was not a line built Til City at that time. The ebv J a and the lines to the area did d 3 -ater service to Vernal City, e re J j provided service to the rd nis-1,131 was PurP056 of urtrtaXiad those lines were built. The untyrjii lines were built by Vernal 10 .litis erroneous for Lyle to 950 Jslement that Vernal City's ,1 :d not build those lines. They y H e been extended and people fjal lines do pay for the lines ,"4itline, when it is approved, """"li Vernal City, and that does ,esr lie property of Vernal City. .Lot build the first main trunk Ism the people of that area. I I make that clear. rtachnie also refers to the Id that was turned to Vernal ( I :S6l, from the Glines-Davis jiDS rapany, the Ashley Water L , and the Naples Water I Vernal City placed this stock I:o be served to those areas. HAK p was made available to rty by exchange and those Li still provided that amount n thfif isa matter of fact, and this is 30 of record now, the Glines-:a Glines-:a and Naples area are using 1 er than they are entitled to by pent. The Ashley area is not I all of the water that they plhere is still a surplus to the IT(,"'p(but the Glines-Davis and pare receiving more water r are entitled to. Last year nN Da ' use(i w'thin the system, 0N' "Ity and Maeser, 12.9 hundred r more than they were entitled a5t J jas made up by water from I'ater Conservancy District, ns l!r exchange, and we were not lstUlfi i that water. We were ad-rcrt ad-rcrt tore is a bit of a trade-off as em 0 stock water connections are or r--The stock water for the last I1 Sears has been turned on a lyand turned off a month late i ,,1 conditions and because 1 66 '11 in certain areas of the I 'this has been somewhat of a J 'edo not have surplus water iTEH-jsiticuia,. time and we are ff'nl 51 the system, more water f-Mfl entitled to. South , l-ment that was put together 1 10 ffty m various water P in i96i was a good soun(j in the Vel":; 11 still in effect, and we jDJiiP to that agreement in spite !' McKeachnie says. This H until 1973, when people F interest decided that they I tetesome say in the water J sme control of the system. been demands from the : Water and Sewer i Lyle McKeachnie and Jnd a few people such as 1,1 PrPerty they want I L want t0 get water to 1 at the expense of the that time there has ltrouble on the system. 1 ( obligation, by State panagethat water system. l:;Wnership of Vernal City, 'IMaeser Water District. ' H,! use of the 1961 Landing. We have that i r-tv nT assuming that rVh are going to keep i rrJu and carrv il out to yZ J t0 Peop'e that are ! I J with their individual J ant to develop their ' IC. "trying to do this L of 'he taxpayer, this IjWyer in the Ashley Valley District. J i'WSben in existence l :.nT'ls when the Ashley 7, wer Improvement tWe being- They have fiitT 11131 area for five I C5eof4mills. Now this rsiorStheirmiUlevyto HJ redemption, but tw few people in the '1 Jt0r, part f the valley. 5 hthi upwith a master fV3 outside of Vernal ' r'rtaii'a jey nave somewhat ,aid are trying to keep Ins in existence regardless of whether hey sell those bonds or not. However they have not had a comprehensive plan to serve the people of that area with water. They are trying to tax them for their own selfish interests The money that has come in in the way of taxes has been used for wages, legal fees, and for expenses to the District They have not provided one service within that time to any one individual excluding Lyle McKeachnie. It further brought out that Lyle McKeachnie, last fall, tried to sell his water system at Air Village Hills to the Ashley Valley Water and Sewer District. This was opposed by the people at the meeting and the agreement was tabled at that time and postponed. I understand that on Aug. 6, 1980, this transaction was made and Mr. McKeachnie stated this was transferred to the District at no cost. You know and I know that Lyle McKeachnie is not going to give anything away of value. There is a fee involved in this and Lyle will be paid at a later date. He first demanded when he proposed the transfer of that water system to the District 100 more water connections in the Air Village Hills area. I have a copy of this agreement and this has been changed to 70 connections con-nections as of now, with other compensation. com-pensation. Also, he has substandard, narrow width roads. Those water lines are laid in that particular area, and this is through private property. How can the taxpayers of the Ashley Valley Water and Sewer District maintain those lines on private roads without the proper easements and without proper road dedications? Vernal City maintains main-tains that they cannot put a line down on private property without proper right-of-way. Otherwise, they have to be laid in a public road where the public rights-of-way are available and then the water lines are extended by the people from that particular point are done to serve that particular piece of property. That way there is no expense to the City beyond the property line. In Mr. McKeachnie's situation there are bound to be problems because of water lines being in the road, through private property. This brings up a question Lyle should answer: How are the people going to enlarge on that system, accept the maintenance and operation of that system, without those rights-of-way? I would also iike Mr. McKeachnie to give a full disclosure of where that tax money has gone since 1974, other than for legal fees, wages, etc. Lyle further talks about the Red Fleet Dam and what a terrible project it is. There were 1,200 voters that voted for that project and 189 against it. Ask Lyle McKeachnie how many" votes' were cast when they had the elections for the Ashley Valley Water and Sewer District? Ask how many votes he received to put him in that position. Lyle also talks about the excessive cost of the dam. We know that those costs are excessive. We do know that we are going to receive some reim-bursables reim-bursables on the costs of that project. Safety measures were added because of the Safe Dam Act following the Teton Dam disaster. Those safety measures were added in after this contract was let. The United States Government is assuming that cost and we don't know how much those reimbursables are going to be at this time. When we do know the costs of reimbursables and actual money paid on that project, that will be published at the earliest possible meeting. We feel it is a good sound project. We have the water, the dam has been built, and I don't know whether we could move ahead, as Lyle mentioned, with those other projects. We have no objection to the people of Ashley Valley Water and Sewer District voting to let Lyle, or some other persons, spearhead those dams to serve those areas. We want to protect, serve, and make available water for the valley in the future. This we have done, and will continue to do. Mr. McKeachnie also talks about the Council voting to sue the Ashley Valley Water and Sewer District. This was done on the recommendation of our legal council because of a letter that Lyle and the District had circulated to the people in the Ashley Valley Water and Sewer District area, requesting that they pay their Vernal City water bills to the Ashley Valley Water and Sewer District. We all know this is . illegal It is the same as asking people being served by the power company to pay their power bills to the phone company. Lyle further states that we have blocked their bonding efforts and they are unable to sell their bonds. This may be a true story, however, we may have done them a favor in blocking this bonding issue. We may have kept them out of jail. They misrepresented their bonds when they said there were no legal implications regarding those bonds, As you know, they brought the Gaylon Cook lawsuit to bear on Vernal City They joined with Gaylon Cook to bring that lawsuit and to sue Vernal C J Council. At that particular time we filed a counterclaim, challenging their 35 to operate as a water district and overtop our city service area. This was brought about because of a State 2 that says one water d.s r.c annot overlap another water distn to Drovide the same service. It has not teen tried in court where one water Sic overlaps a municipal service area to provide the same service. It is area iu yi b exlsltng, our contention that tney, uj are overlapping, or trying to overlap. encumbered from this system to pay off hose bonds. We feel that is illegal and that is one of the reasons we brought that counterclaim. The other suit we Drought against the members individually in-dividually and collectively oi the Ashley Valley Water and Sewer District was because they are in-terferring in-terferring with the operation of the Vernal City water system and the area this entity serves. The paragraph that Lyle McKeachnie refers to is, and I quote Mr. McKeachnie: "the next paragraph makes me real mad. It is a darned, dirty rotten filthy lie." The water transmission lines that come in to Vernal City are owned by Vernal City and the lines that were engineered and designed by the Uintah Engineers for the Ashley Valley Water and Sewer District were done to interfer with that system. Yes, Lyle is correct, those taxpayers in that area paid $9,000.00 for that privilege but did not supply any water or waterline capacity to that area. They engineered it to interconnect inter-connect with Vernal City's system. Any time this is done it becomes the property of Vernal City. This is a State statute, it has to be done that way. It is rather odd that Lyle refers to these lines that were engineered through the Air Village Hills subdivision first to serve the McKeachnie's property, and then on to serve the Bob Turner property before it ever ties into the Davis Tank to serve the people in that area. It cannot, by law, interconnect with Vernal City's system and be owned by another entity. In paragraph number 2 Lyle asked for representation on the management of the water system, which is in the 1979 agreement. We gave them representation, represen-tation, but they not only wanted representation, they wanted control of the water system. This we cannot do by state statute again. We cannot turn over control of the present water system to the District, nor do we intend to do so. In paragraph number 3 Mr. McKeachnie says we must have a right to build a water system to fulfill the needs of our people. That is why Ashley Valley Water and Sewer Improvement District was created. We have never opposed them building a water system. However, we have opposed them trying to take over the present water system. We will contine to oppose that takeover. As I mentioned before, Vernal City has a responsibility to the people of the valley, and also to Vernal City, to protect that water system, and to protect the rights of the water delivery within those areas. We, as a Council, intend ta.arry that out to the .fullest. .. We hope that we can get on with the sewer project. We do plan to build the sewer project with the Vernal City limits. It is strictly up to Lyle McKeachnie and the District and Maeser people if they want to extend that to those areas. We have not opposed op-posed this in any way, nor will we oppose op-pose it, with the exception that they do pay their way and their portion of the expenses to this point, and to the conclusion of the lagoon site and treatment site which is designed to serve all areas of the valley. I would hope that Gayle McKeachnie as legal advisor to the Ashley Valley Water and Sewer District, also a State Representative who is supposed to serve all of the people of the valley equally and fairly, would advise the people of the District properly . As some of you may not know, Gayle McKeachnie received, in the year of 1979 and first part of 1980, $15,000.00 in legal fees paid by taxpayers money of the Ashley Valley Water and Sewer District. Being a State Representative does not place Gayle McKeachnie above the State statutes. He too has to live by the laws of the State of Utah. His legal advice has not brought the people of the District any closer to any sound conclusions, nor has it saved the District any money, as you can see by the cost of $15,000.00 legal fees for Gayle McKeachnie alone. What it has done is delay the sewer and water projects that we have had planned and cost Vernal City taxpayers, who he is supposed to represent also, thousands and thousands of dollars. I would hope the people of Vernal would keep this in mind when they go to the polls on Nov. 4. In closing let me say the people of this valley should have a say about how tneir property is taxed and why their property -is taxed, what the tax money is used for, and how they benefit or do not benefit. I admire the people of Ashley who have done this and are petitioning to break away from the Ashley Valley Water and Sewer Improvement Im-provement District to manage their own affairs. If anyone would care to discuss these matters further, contact me at 789-1586. SAM SNYDER Mayor of Vernal City |