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Show The most confusing thing in the world is to have too much Information, especially especial-ly if most of it is hearsay. That's exactly the problem with MX when you read what the proponents, opponents and the Air Force have to say, then add a little political po-litical sidestepping from the politicians, and a state MX coordinator who has a loose tongue, which more often than not jumps to conclusions that have no basis or foundation, foun-dation, and you have enough information and mis -information to support almost anything you want to believe. - 0 - That's the situation the Cedar City Job ServlceCen-ter ServlceCen-ter found itself In this week after quoting a July 9, Des-eret Des-eret News article quoting State MX Coordinator, Ken Olson, that the Beryl site was the Air Force preferred prefer-red site. Their intent was to inform the public in their newsletter, newslet-ter, that there would be future fu-ture jobs available constructing construc-ting the MX base. Their error er-ror was in quoting an erroneous er-roneous article, once again instigated, as have many, by Olson. When concerned citizens begin calling the office to find out the basis of this Information, Job Service then had to back off and admit ad-mit that they had no official word, and refer to the source of their information, acknowledging ac-knowledging that their news -letter was misleading, and that the base site had not yet been picked. - 0 - Job Service, like this newspaper or any other, should try to check out every story before helping to spread a rumor. In Job Service the erroneous article- was long enough ago, and had been refuted by the Air Force, and in the media often enough that they should have used later information. Of course, we don't know the advance needed to publish their newsletter. But we'll bet they are more careful in the future. - 0 - For other media, newspapers, news-papers, TV and radio, there often is not time to check out a story satisfactorily before be-fore released. For Instance' the COUNTY NEWS quoted Olson last May when he first said Beryl had been picked for the MX base. We later corrected that story, as we were able to determine that Olson had put 2 plus 2 togeth -er and come up with 3. Since that initial quote, we've discovered that Olson's Ol-son's tongue wags on both ends and isn't constrained in the middle, to the point that we wouldn't quote him without a vote of Congress to confirm what he says. You'd think that a man getting get-ting paid in excess of $80,-000 $80,-000 per year, with a liberal expense account would be ac -countable for his speech as well as his action. But Olson Ol-son continues to wreck havoc hav-oc every time he opens his mouth, without so much as a slap on the mouth by the Governor. .- 0 -It's difficult enough to keep the facts straight on MX even if you attend all the meetings as we try to do, and are on everybody's mailing mail-ing list. It's necessary to constantly check sources, and automatically culls all information received from Olson, or such doomsday peddlers as Ed Firm age. And even the media, particularly partic-ularly TV, is inclined to overlook the little details which change the whole picture. pic-ture. For Instance, when the Air Force came out with the plans for a self-contained base, they were quite plain to make it understood that it was the least desirable of all the plans and that they would much prefer to integrate the base, all civilian civil-ian personnel and a percentage per-centage of military personnel person-nel into local communities. But a totally self contained base had such shock value, that most media reported that without ever mentioning mention-ing that it was the worst possible scenario the Air Force could imagine. And one they would only employ if it is forced on them by local communities refusal to accept Air Force and civil-continued civil-continued on Page 4) HERE'S MORE ABOUT. Just Between ian personnel into their communities. com-munities. - 0 -Now here is the latest scuttlebut. A very reliable source tells us that the latest lat-est MX map places both proposed Utah base sites in Iron County. The Milford site would be just south of the Beaver County Line, extending ex-tending toward Lund.while the Beryl site would be between be-tween Beryl and Lund. This falls in line with what the Air Force told us long ago. They want the base near Milford, but close to Cedar so they will have easy access to the larger shopping center, larger schools for dependents and the college for their continuing con-tinuing education program. This means of course, that there will be less impact on Milford and Minersville if the Milford site, recommended recom-mended by the Four County Policy Board and the state is selected. It also means that Beaver County will get less economic eco-nomic impact, that Milford and Minersville schools will not overflow, and there will be far less population Increase. In-crease. - 0 -However, in our opinion it almost assures the selection selec-tion of the Milford site. As the location would be almost equal distance from Milford, Minersville and Cedar City, there will be some benefits to local economies, schools and population, though much smaller than originally anticipated. |