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Show 11 nan 2 Vernal Express Wednesday, August 26, 1992 by Jack R. Wallis Private land purchases In early June, the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of the Interior released the results of an investigation into the manner in which the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management uses "nonprofit" organizations or-ganizations to acquire private lands, take them off the tax rolls and bring them into federal ownership. According to the Mountain States Legal Foundation report, the three named federal agencies during fiscal year 1991 spent more than $219 million to buy private land. Over the last six fiscal years, 1986 to 1991, the agencies spent $992 million dollars to increase federal land ownership. According to the Inspector General report, many of the federal agencies paid more than the approved fair market value for the land acquisitions. Most of the transactions were in states with much less federally owned land than in Utah. The Inspector General reported that the three agencies agen-cies gave nonprofits a $1.9 million windfall on seven transactions, even though the nonprofits had extremely extreme-ly limited financial involvement and almost no risk. With Utah's privately owned land amounting to less than one-fourth of the state it should be of great concern con-cern letting any more land fall into state or federal ownership. Even when a trade is made, which doesn't seem often, of-ten, the public lands are not decreasing very signify cantly in size. Many attempts have been made to block up state lands by trading for federal lands owed the state when land was taken for national parks and other federal acquisitions. ac-quisitions. When wilderness designation is given to federal lands it is further removed from private use. Granted, the federal land management plan is aimed at providing the best use and preservation of critical areas of natural resource and scenic value, but there is a limit. The multiple use concept of federal land management manage-ment has proven very successful. But this type of management seems to be getting more complicated and the line between environmental preservation and resource use seems to be getting more politically motivated. mo-tivated. Hopefully, the land use and ownership problems can be worked out to the best good of private landowners, taxpayers, land users and the environment. PUBLIC FORUM LETTERS TO THE EDITOR What is your opinion? The Express welcomes letters from its readers concerning any subject pertinent to the Uintah Basin. There are no restrictions re-strictions as to contents, if not libelous or vindictive vin-dictive and of reasonable length. Letters must be submitted exclusively to the Express and bear the writer's full name, signature, phone number and address. The name or name of those submitting letters must appear on all published letters. All letters are subject to condensation. con-densation. Letters express the opinion of the writer and are not necessarily the opinion of the Express Editor. Home health Messkit owner located Dear Editor: Who says that using a newspaper does not work? Not I, for I wrote to you on Aug. 14 about my efforts to locate a former Vernal man, Marvin J. Carroll. This morning I had a telephone call from his cousin, Lela Nichell Christian of Alamo, Nev., giving me Marvin's address in Salt Lake City. I am surprised he was so close, but you never know. Then, when today's mail came, it contained a letter from Marvin. Enid Hatch had called him regarding regard-ing the letter I had sent to your newspaper. I called him and just finished a good chat, for we were in the same outfit in the Battle of the Bulge, but did not know each other. He was wounded on the first day of the Bulge and did not return during the war. I am writing to my friend in Belgium, so Marvin can expect to receive his messkit soon, after leaving leav-ing it over there almost 50 years ago. I am sure he has not missed it, for there is a more enjoyable way to have a meal. So, thank you for your kindness in printing my letter and the good response re-sponse received. I should not have been surprised, for I am from a small town (Grace, Idaho) and know the concern and cooperation those good people show in helping someone. REX WHITEHEAD Logan Vernal Express (ISSN 0892-1091) Published every Wednesday for $17.50 per year in shopping area and $28 per year out of shopping area within state and $31 per year out of state within USA by the Vernal Express Publishing Company, 54 North Vernal Avenue, Vernal, Utah 84078. Second class postage paid at Vernal, Utah 84078. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to VERNAL EXPRESS, P.O. Box 1000, Vernal Utah 84078. Jack R. Wallis Publisher Steven R. Wallis Editor Melanie Morrison Staff Writer Eric F. Pye Sports Writer Janet D. Wallis Advertising Marcia Henry Advertising Judy McCarley Circulation & Classified Ads Maria Olson Legal Notices Phone 789-3511 FAX 789-8690 Member of Utah Press Association and National Newspaper Association Area correspondents Tridell Lorna McKee, 247-2350 Lapoint Marlene McClure, 247-2552 Whiterocks Virginia Ferguson, 353-4584 Manila Clara Robinrsn, 784-3436 Deadlines News Monday 5 p.m. Display Advertising Tuesday 11 a.m. Classified Advertising Tuesday 11 a.m. Dear Editor: It is such a delight to read features in the Express that inform readers about the wonderful service we have available. I especially enjoyed the recent Expressions feature by Melanie Morrison about home health care. It brought back fond memories of the loving service provided pro-vided to my parents, and also served to remind me that with the hectic days that follow the death of loved ones, I had failed to properly thank them for their kindness. It was the desire of both my parents par-ents to be able to stay in their own home. Without home health services, ser-vices, this would not have been possible. pos-sible. My father's illness was relatively rela-tively brief, but my mother was already al-ready experiencing symptoms of advanced ad-vanced bone cancer when she had a debilitating stroke, leaving her paralyzed para-lyzed and unable to communicate. She was cared for by the capable staff at the Uintah Care Center for a few months until we were able to make the necessary arrangements to bring her home and care for her until un-til her death three years later. It should be recognized that not all families are able to care for their loved ones at home. This is an individual indi-vidual decision requiring careful consideration. I shall always be grateful that for our situation, we were able to honor the wishes of our loved ones and provide them supportive, sup-portive, intimate care at home. Time has now erased the stress and sleepless sleep-less nights. And the memories of giving back a small measure of loving lov-ing care to beloved parents remain. At some of the most difficult times in our lives we make new friends to guide us through. May my friends at Ashley Valley Medical Center continue to lighten the load for others, as you so willingly will-ingly did for me. G AYLE DROLLINGER School board issues discussed Dear Editor: There are always at least two sides to every issue. Although I commend Brent Hansen for his dedication ded-ication and his watch dog efforts, I would like to clarify some points brought up in his letter last week. The school board has been working work-ing very hard to solve some tough dilemmas in our district these past several weeks and months. Our biggest challenge has been financing financ-ing our programs. As you know with the state's equalization and other problems, our district has lost a great deal of funding and we must make drastic adjustments to merely maintain the status quo. We may not have always made choices popular with everyone, but we have sincerely sincere-ly tried to reach what we felt were the best for the most people. There have been no secret or illegal ille-gal meetings and most of us have made a real effort to limit Executive Sessions as a courtesy to the publicafter pub-licafter all, they are your meetings. meet-ings. I personally don't believe that automatically au-tomatically raising taxes is the only solution. We have been discussing many other options. We have found areas that can be evaluated and changed without -jeopardizing the education of our students. These changes will, however, save precious pre-cious tax dollars that can be used elsewhere. We have stood by some of these decisions and have changed our minds on others when a problem was discovered, or a better plan was put forth by the board, parents, teachers or administrators. The major issues before us now are: class size, transportation, school starting time, salaries and taxes. We need and welcome public input. We realize every decision affects af-fects real people and we want the i TLiiKii ucr'c GETTIN' NERVOUS, "majority" to help this community pull together during these tough times. We want to get the very best for our kids while being fair to our taxpaying families. Although there are still a few in our district who feel they should receive re-ceive more pay and benefits for less work and less responsibility, they truly are in the minority. We are proud of the majority of our district personnel who are quality workers and who feel a great responsibility towards our children and our community. com-munity. I urge that the public get very involved in-volved in the business of education educa-tion especially during these next few months. Visit our meetings. Help assure that the best decisions are made for your students and your teachers. There is a primary election Sept. 8. There is a special election Sept. 29 when you will decide on a tax increase proposal. And then your decision in November will affect the school board for years to come. GENE E. ANFINSON Thorny issue Dear Editor: On Aug. 2, 1992, our family and friends spent the weekend at Steinaker State Park. We boated and swam from the public beach area. Then as has happened before, the kids started complaining about stepping step-ping on thorns from the dozens of wind blown weeds littering the beach and water's edge. Now as often happens at times like these, we wondered why park personnel couldn't periodically rake the beach. There seemed to be no shortage of Park Rangers or seasonal season-al grounds keepers, after all we had just observed one riding a lawn mower in circles in the gravel driveway. drive-way. We commented on how we thought the park entrance fee was to (DmveM Ussaaes Fmanm Issue: Should there be stricter laws concerning sexual harassment in the work place? Yes No Sexual harassment in some jobs is to the point that it prevents one from reaching her or his potential. po-tential. The present laws do little to stop the problem because it usually ends up being one person's word against another's. Businesses need to be required by law to train their supervisors super-visors so they are aware of sexual abuse and ; know what to do about it. Penalties need to be : more severe for violators. Once violators get the message that such action will not be tolerated, the abuse will start to diminish. . Stricter laws will do little to stop the problem.:; The laws already on the books carry stiff penal-: ties for violators. Education and training are the only ways sexual abuse on the job will diminish. dimin-ish. Victims need to know that they do not have to put up with such behavior and need training in how to deal with such abuses. Supervisors need training in the correct way to deal with an abuse complaint, When the employee is given a s choice between stopping such behavior or losing los-ing his or her job, you will start to see a decline in sexual abuse on the job. If you would like to voice your opinion about this question, you can do so by calling the Vernal Express Current Issues line: 1-900-88ISSUE or 1-900-884-7783. Cost of each call is 50 cents. You can also send in your opinion by checking your response re-sponse to the question below and sending it to the Vernal Express, Box 1000 Vernal, Utah 84078. Results of the telephone call-ins and mailed in responses will be published in next week's Vernal Express. Current Issues is co-sponsored by ATP Inc. Vernal, Utah, 789-5705. Results of last week's call-in question of whether you would support a tax increase in-crease for raising teachers' salaries, 74 percent said yes and 26 percent said no. ps m This week's question: Should there be stricter laws concerning sexual " iJiarassment in the work place? 1 yes, 2 no. j The opinions and issues in the Current Issues Column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Vernal Express nor its staff. be used to maintain the park. Ultimately, we decided to take matters into our own hands and approach the Park Ranger (he advised ad-vised us that he was the same one described in a prior editorial as having hav-ing violated the safety buffer around a scuba diver's buoy) to request the use of some rakes to clean the beach ourselves. He praised us for our volunteer vol-unteer spirit and admonished us not to bum the weeds but to pile them up so that he could load them and haul them away. With the help of other volunteers on the beach it did not take long to rake the weeds into several piles leaving the beach a safe and pleasant pleas-ant place to spend the afternoon. As instructed, we left the tools alongside along-side the weed piles for the Ranger to pick up. On Aug. 15, 1992, a full 2 weeks later, we again visited the lake, and to our dismay found the weed piles exactly where we had left them. Vehicle tracks in the sand showed where someone had driven down to pick up the tools, but could not be bothered to pick up the weeds. Mr. Park Ranger you have betrayed be-trayed our trust! The care and respect that people show toward our public resources is often modeled after the example set by those entrusted to manage those resources for us. Please set a better example. JIM and JANEAN LEKAS Home health care Dear Editor: Our main objective in writing this letter to the editor is to express our sincere appreciation to the Home Health Care program in Vernal. . During the last five months we have become well acquainted with this program and we are impressed with the service they offer to this community. When our dad became ill, we were at a total loss as how to care for him and meet his needs. After being introduced in-troduced to this program the task became much easier. The nurses we worked with were superior and they were always only a short phone call away. They not only helped with medical problems, but also with equipment, medications medica-tions and the emotional side of the trauma. Hats off to a wonderful organization. or-ganization. They are in affiliation with the Ashley Valley Medical Center. During dad's stay at the hospital we remarked on the constant and devoted devot-ed care he was given. We're proud to be part of a community com-munity where we feel that health care is at its best. VICKI NELSON Primary Dear Editor: I would like to thank Richard Millett for his encouragement to vote in the upcoming primary. The only question I have is, What am I voting for? After living in the Basin for more than 15 years, I have yet to hear a candidate, except for our current attorney, at-torney, state why they want to be a political figure, except that "I'm a good of boy." The city and county governments, along with the school board, appear to be inept enough at their jobs without putting another person in office who doesn't know what they want, or how they plan to do anything. any-thing. I'll be glad when a candidate has enough moxie to stand up in public, and say what his plans are to the constituents without having to be asked. PHILIP WALTON THE VOICE OF BUSINESS I "SI RESURRECT THE IRAs by Dr. Richard L. Usher, President US. Chamber of Commerce WASHINGTON Our government's laws and policies continue to penalize pe-nalize saving a defect for which our economy Days dearly. The capital dooI of nersonal sav ings provides essential funding for a hostof productive investments. Though our work force is the most efficient and productive in the world, our competitive competi-tive advantage is compromised by policies poli-cies that discourage saving. The primary culprit is our inept tax policy, which has rendered saving a foolish thing to do. We can save only after we pay our taxes, and then the meager interest we earn on our savings is taxed again. The combined effect of taxes and inflation tend to offset the traditional advantages of saving. Nor is there any secret to reversing this unfortunate situation. To achieve a higher savings rate, we need only to alter our tax laws to render saving a wise thing to do. The quickest and most expedient alternative is to fully restore IRA eligibility for all citizens regardless of their income level. The impactof fully deductible IR As was clearly demonstrated during President Presi-dent Reagan's first term. From 1982 through 1987, when eligibility to IRAs was expanded, contributions to IRA saving sav-ing accounts rose 30 percent The resulting re-sulting expansion of available capital sparked the longest economic expansion expan-sion in our history. Now there are several proposals afoot to restore IRAs. In his 1992 bud get. President B ush proposed creation of Family Savings Accounts and penalty-free penalty-free IRA withdrawals of up to $10,000 for use as downpayment on a first home. The FS As would allow families to make annual non-deductible contributions of upto$5,000,or$200forsingle people. All earnings on FSAs could be with-' drawn tax-free after seven years. If funds are not withdrawn, earnings could continue to accumulate tax-free. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Tex.) and Sen. William Roth (R-Del.) have introduced intro-duced legislation to restore full eligibility eligibil-ity for IRAs to all Americans, regardless of their income, put some or all of their $2,000, with no deduction, into a backended IRA. These contributions made with after-tax dollars could be withdrawn lax-free after five years. Other members of Congress have offered different variations of the same theme to give personal savings a badly-needed boost Critics contend such incentives do not promote savings, but only encourage people to shift money from one place to another. But several studies rebut that. A full 80 percent of IRA contributions are new savings, and most of the money saved is diverted from consumption. The Bentsen-Roth bill would generate gen-erate $20 billion in new revenues, create 37,000 new jobs and hike nominal Gross National Product by $447.2 billion by the end of the decade. It would give our economy the stimulus it so clearly needs to restore public confidence and promote pro-mote productive investment |