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Show I Slum blight district in our own backyard By Steven Wallis EiprMS News Editor I know my backyard is a little cluttered, clut-tered, and my dog scattered the ! neighbor's garbage all over my front lawn, and we won't even talk about the weeds; but still my garden isn't any reason to be put in a slumblight district. But that's what the Vernal City Ci-ty Council did. Wednesday this week they passed a resolution, necessary to receive a federal grant, designating the area of 500 West to 1500 West between Main Street and 500 North as a "slumblight prevention district." I Now before we head down to City Hall with our hoes and pitchforks, lets take a look at this slumblight prevention preven-tion district. I Dividing the blight prevention area ' down the middle is one of the nicest streets in all of Vernal Eighth West. The street was recently resurfaced with hot-mix pavement, and it is so I smooth you could play a fair game of ' marbles on it, but I wouldn't advise it. Traffic is picking up along the street. Now you should have seen the street before the City Council declared the area a slumblight protection district. You could give accurate direction by saying "I live on the fifteenth pot hole and to the left. We live at the end of the street. Of course there are problems with the new road, but how easy it is to forget how it used to be. 1 Another street in the slumprevention district is 200 North which has also been repaved, but with a hot native asphalt. This street was used as an experiment ex-periment to compare the hot-mix asphalt to the hot native asphalt, and is almost as smooth and nice as Eighth West. The Vernal Council is leaning toward the most expensive hot-mix asphalt, and I'd have to agree it is a little better. The nice thing about the new streets is no one will be allowed to make cuts in the street for utilities for the next five years. Someone down at City Hall was thinking when they came up with that idea. Actually the new streets don't have anything to do with the formation of . the slumblight district, but are part of an extensive street improvement program that began this summer and ' will continue through the rest of the summer. Also in the slumblight prevention district is one of the largest playground facilities in the state. The whimpers of two playground experts (my two-year-old and his friend) stop and play each ' time we drive past the new facility is evidence enough. Also a pavilion and barbacue pits will be dedicated Friday next to the playground. Vernal City doesn't take credit for these facilities. The equipment, sand and pavilion were donated by Woodey B. Searle and family. Then there is a ball complex, the tennis ten-nis courts and the list goes on. So why has the area been put on the slumblight prevention list? The reason for the designation was to qualify for a $90,000 Community Block Grant for a sewer line along 500 North. So there's nothing serious to worry about, just another federal loop-hole. But then maybe the city should designate the entire city as slumblight prevention so people would be more sensitive to the slow process of deterioration that sometimes creeps in. But then again, maybe I'd just better bet-ter clean up my yard. |
