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Show A10 Vernal Express Wednesday, August 25, 200 Opinion PUBLIC FORUM LETTERS TO THE EDITOR What is your opinion? The Express welcomes letters let-ters from its readers concerning any subject pertinent perti-nent to the Uintah Basin. There are no restrictions as to contents, if not libelous or vindictive and of reasonable length (two typewritten double spaced pages). Letters must be submitted exclusively to the Express and bear the writers full name, signature, signa-ture, phone number and address. Letters for the sole purpose of expressing thanks to individuals or groups will not be printed in the forum. Letters may be mailed, faxed at 789-8690 or through e-mail at editorvernal.com. The name or names of those submitting letters must appear on all published letters. let-ters. All letters are subject to condensation. Letters express the opinion of the writer and are not necessarily nec-essarily the opinion of the Express Editor. Airport Weeds Dear Editor, It has been called to my attention about the condi-, condi-, tion of the fields around the landing strips at the Vernal Airport. The weeds are in great need of being trimmed and removed to insure public safety. If a plane was to come in on an emergency landing and it had to dump the fuel that it was holding, and if that plane sparked at all, it would catch all the fields and weeds on fire, not only endangering the airport, but the houses and businesses as well. I have seen other airports that are the same size and they are all nicely trimmed and looking great. Now that Greyhound has left, if there were another airline to come in and look over the Vernal Airport and see if whether or not they wanted to do business here, I should almost bet that they would say no thanks. And to top it all off, since we are living in a drought, I would bet that if the field caught on fire in the airport area, the fire would be very hard to put out and might even exhaust all our resources trying to put out such a large fire. Please for the sake of all of us, please let us get this problem fixed. rod withee Vernal Committment Dear editor. You look for certain special qualities in the person per-son you'll be working with like Dixie Allen and those qualities are strength, experience, energy, honor, gcx)d humor, and a deep loyalty to her profession and to her commitment of learning. I observed these examples of her which define her loyalty and love for students. Dixie met all children at the bus night and morningj.Jcbld or hot to give children a hug before school and alter school. Children ran from the classroom doors just to get that lov ing hug. Boy, nowadays a lot of children need this hug of love. This loyal commitment to her students' education is of vital importance to society, and in most cases is a matter of importance which leads dow n a road to success; and in no circumstances should this commitment be neglected neglect-ed or it results in ruin. Others can brag about their programs pro-grams which have little results, content or change; but hers is real and effective for students. When knowing yourself and knowing your effectiveness in your profession, profes-sion, you need not fear the results of your actions w hen others find fault w ith them. Everyone who creates good results in life must remember where they came from because we all live in a dangerous neighborhood when it comes to education. The dangerous neighborhood is one where actions and inactions cause great damage. GLEN J. MEACHAM Dry Fork Canyon Road cleaning input Before the inclement weather hits this winter, the Uintah County Jail is taking input on roadsides in Uintah County that need to be cleaned up. If you see a road that could use cleaning, Sheriff Rick I lav kins w ill send an inmate crew to clean the area. The Uintah County Sheriff s Department can be contacted con-tacted at 789-25 1 1 . The County Jail can be contacted at 78 1 -1300. Passing zone arrest Last Uintah Corpora Laursen to the in Ft assist Thursday, County John was called Ute Plaza Duchesne to Bureau of J i Indian Affairs officers offi-cers with a traffic stop. The driver, later identified as Matthew Shirey, 21, from Arvada, Colo., had been stopped by BIA officers for passing in a no-passing no-passing zone. During the course of the investigation. Cpl. Laursen was advised of a drug paraphernalia pipe that had been located in Shirley's vehicle. When asked about it, Shirley admitted to consuming marijuana a few hours prior to the stop, reported the deputy. Sheriff's Department canine Ben and handler Cpl. Bevan Watkins were dispatched to the scene to conduct a search of the vehicle. The drug dog positively indicated indicat-ed there was more controlled substance in the vehicle. A detailed search turned up more marijuana. Shirey was arrested and incarcerated in the Uintah County Jail for DUI, possession of a controlled substance, sub-stance, possession of drug paraphernalia, no proof of insurance and passing in a no-passing zone. Matthew Shirley Uintah County Emergency Planning coordinator Dale Peterson has received praises from Gov. Olene Walker and from the Utah Department of Public Safety for his 20 years of service in emergency emer-gency planning in the tri-county area. Planner honored for emergency management For many older Americans, "civil defense" was the term they grew to understand for what is now being called "Homeland Security." Dale Peterson, 20-year veteran of emergency management man-agement in Uintah County, began his career in emergency emer-gency planning and preparation when civil defense involved bomb shelters in old coal mines with food storage (old biscuits) and old medical supplies to be used in the event of natural or national emergencies. When he first began attending state civil defense meetings in Salt Lake City, he recalls there were possibly 20 people in attendance. At home, he was working on grants for the repair of damage to bridges bridg-es and infrastructure during the floods of 1983. Last week, August 19 and 20, Peterson attended attend-ed the Utah Department of Public Safety Public Official Conference in Park City and the nearly 300 representatives from throughout Utah applauded his presentation of a state citation for his 20 years of service in emergency management. "I don't remember any of them I saw were there when I started," he says, as he reminisces over the changes that have occurred in the program he has helped develop and grown to understand and appreciate appre-ciate in its relevance to the safety of the Tri-County area of Utah. He says prior to the September 1 1 terrorist attacks on the east coast, getting people involved in emergency emer-gency planning was hard. The big wars were over and the nation and Utah suffered a lack of interest. Nuclear planning of fallout shelters and radioactive precautions seemed to be a thing of the past. Because of a massive hazardous materials accident in India, the federal government had developed the Right to Know Act, enabling municipalities to know exactly where chemicals were being manufactured and stored. As a result Uintah County developed the Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC) which would prepare response plans and teams in case of an "incident." Uintah County has subsequently gone to an "All Hazards Scenario" of preparation to cope with terrorists, ter-rorists, both foreign and domestic, and natural disasters. disas-ters. But progress with LEPC was slow. According to Peterson, serious planning by the many agencies agen-cies which make up the committee was "fumbling." Peterson volunteered to supervise and go forward with LEPC locally. "LEPC takes a lot of time to make it happen. You're working with an all-volunteer staff and the 'players' are always changing with staff turnovers and relocations." Over the years the organization of "first respond-ers" respond-ers" has grown, but he admits it is still in spurts. Prior to the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington D.C., there was no budget for LEPC work. The state legislature was considering not to fund at all in the absence of any major incidents. Uintah County met with Daggett and Duchesne counties to develop a Tri-County LEPC which would combine resources. "That worked," says Peterson. "With 91 1, the Utah State Division of Homeland Security and federal government started opening up grant monies. The state liked our Tri County plan and divided the state into eight such regions," Peterson has been satisfied with the local preparations prepara-tions which showed the way for the rest of the state. But this was just a beginning. Peterson points out that the state regional preparations prepa-rations provided a network for the entire state to be able to respond to local emergencies. "The federal fed-eral government can't be everywhere. The lowest denominator needs to be able to do all it can for themselves before going for further government help." He says the federal government was available to assist the states. To enable the Utah regions to be prepared and be able to function to help within their region and within with-in other parts of the state, many sizable grants have been awarded to the Tri-County LEPC. Starting in 2000-01 a total of $62,500 in grant funds purchased air pack equipment for firemen to be able to go into burning buildings. In 2002 little went into Utah's regions, as the grants were directed towards Salt Lake City Olympics security. People from every jurisdiction in Utah came to assist in the Salt Lake City emergency emer-gency command center. Shortly thereafter, in 2003, an initial $177,584 in grants to Tri-County arrived for equipment for emergency responders-such as mobile radio equipment, equip-ment, generators, protective Hazmat suiting, portable porta-ble repeaters, trauma kits, de-fib and respirator units and range finders. Some of this grant was directed to II 1 fvK CORN Gins Gem Pove rty exa mined By Virginia Harrington Vernal Express Writer Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary defines poverty as the "state of one with insufficient resources." Based on that definition, do we have poverty in the U.S. and right here in the Uintah Basin? Some people peo-ple seem to think we don't. A couple of months ago, I heard an individual who is very active in the political and social life of Vernal make the following statement: state-ment: "Poverty! I'm so sick of hearing hear-ing about poverty. A family with six kids and an income of $40,000 isn't in poverty." I ?- Last week I was involved in a conversation con-versation with another individual who proudly said, "Even the poorest people in our country have nice cars and TVs." I marvel at the selective vision of these individuals. How can they possibly pos-sibly miss seeing the many families with several children that struggle by on $10,000 per year or less? These people don't have nice cars. They usually have no car at all, at least not one that actually runs. They don't have televisions. Sometimes they don't even have a home. Recent statistics from the federal government tell us that 16 of U.S. children are living in poverty. The picture in Utah is better than that with only 12 of the state's children below the poverty line. However, the picture for Uintah Basin children is worse. A minimum of 18 of all children in the Basin live below the federally established poverty line. I realize that some people think that arbitrary line is drawn at too high an income. I disagree with them, but that's irrelevant to my position. The point is, many families in our area are far below this line with incomes as low as $8,000 per year. Some families have no income whatsoever. Where are these people? Why don't we see them sleeping in the parks and storefronts as they do in larger cities? Nearly three years ago I wrote an article in this newspaper about the homeless in the area. At that time, we counted a minimum of 75 homeless home-less families. The situation has not gotten better in the intervening years. These people are living in a neighbor's basement, a cousin's living liv-ing room or in a camp trailer in a horse pasture. They are totally reliant reli-ant on the goodwill of others. I can hear the arguments already. "Why don't they get a job?" Most of them have jobs. Some have two or even three jobs. A person can work extremely hard at minimum wage or slightly above and still be very poor. A full time minimum wage job allows the worker to take home around $800 per month. Double that for two wage earners or for a single parent holding down two full-time jobs. I wouldn't want to try to hold a family together on that amount in today's economy. Housing alone can take half or more of a monthly income at those levels. Benefits? No, there usually are no benefits for minimum wage workers. work-ers. There's no health insurance and no retirement plan. There are no extra dollars to purchase these items or to provide life insurance in case the major wage earner dies. Illness or death plunges the family more deeply into poverty. The other argument I hear is that people are poor by their own choice. I don't doubt that some poverty is caused by lack of judgement and poor decisions, but some of it is totally unavoidable. Domestic violence vio-lence is the number one cause of poverty for women and children. Accusing them of causing their own poverty is a prime example of blaming blam-ing the victim. Illness is the second most common cause of poverty. Prolonged or chronic illness in the primary wage earner can devastate a family budget, even if the job provides pro-vides health insurance. If the wage earner is no longer able to hold a job, the health insurance stops and the medical bills mount up. What about COBRA, you may ask. When there is little or no income, the family certainly cannot afford the average $600 cost to keep their health insurance going. If it came to a choice of purchasing health insurance insur-ance or feeding the family's children, chil-dren, most parents wouldn't hesitate. There is nothing in this world more pitiful than a hungry child. One of the causes of poverty, as I see it, is the lack of social value held by certain types of work within our society. One of many examples is the lowest paid position in the kitchen of any cafe. We want the dishes we eat from in a restaurant to be clean but we don't want to pay enough for the meal to allow the dishwasher a livable wage. After all, that's an unskilled position so why should it pay more than minimum wage? Or is it really unskilled? I think it takes a special skill to scrape partially par-tially eaten food off plates for eight hours without getting sick. Looking at it from another point of view, think about it not in terms of the amount of training required to be able to do the job. Think of it, rather, rath-er, in terms of how important it is to the welfare of the community. Clean plates, healthy customers, the cafe stays open. Dirty plates, sick customers, cus-tomers, the restaurant closes. More people lose their jobs. More poverty results. Poverty exists right here. It isn't the depth and breadth of poverty seen in New York or Mexico City, but it is poverty none-the-less. It has many causes and few solutions. The number of possible solutions will never grow so long as there is selective selec-tive vision among those of us who have never been hungry. Business symposium coming next month Patrick Byrne will be the special spe-cial guest speaker at this year's 8th annual Uintah Basin Business Symposium, Sept. 14. Held yearly to assist area business growth, the Symposium theme this year is "Mainstreet to the World," and will include such topics as internet inter-net success, fraud protection, customer cus-tomer service, local marketing and other related topics of interest. Byrne is Chief Executive Officer of Overstock.com, where he leverages lever-ages more than 15 years of business, distribution and manufacturing experience. expe-rience. He is also the General Partner of High Plains Investments LLC, an investment company located in Park City. His business background includes being a former CEO and president of a worldwide supplier of high-quality plasma consumables where he worked to improve and create new products that would help those in the metal fabricating industry indus-try to run their operations more safely, safe-ly, efficiently and profitably. A multi-faceted individual, Byrne received his Bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College, a Master's degree from Cambridge University as a Marshall Scholar and Doctorate in Philosophy from Stanford University. A dedicated philanthropist and three-time cancer survivor, Byrne recently biked across the country to raise awareness for cancer research. Additionally, he is an accomplished linguist, a published author, a former professional boxer and holds a black belt in marshal arts. General session speaker will be Tim Border using the creative techniques tech-niques of stage magic to help audiences audi-ences understand how negative perceptions per-ceptions and thought distortions can slow us from taking critical action today. law enforcement and a mass casualty incident trailer. A second, $579,208 grant, came to the region for Daggett and Uintah County mobile command units, Uintah County snowmobile and trailer trail-er for Search and Rescue, listening devices and infrared search camera. An update on police and sheriff communications com-munications equipment came in the form of mobile data units. In this time frame an emergency Red Cross trailer became available in the region which can respond anywhere any-where in the state in time of emergency. A technician in each region is trained to stabilize incidents, but Peterson says it would take so long for response to arrive in this area that grant funds were used to obtain an early response tech trailer and equipment equip-ment locally. In 2004 a $978,999 grant was obtained with most of these funds being used for communications, i.e. lap tops in responder vehicles. With the use of this equipment officers can search without tying up voice frequencies and causing less traffic through Central Dispatch. Officers can run their own search when down in gullies or valleys with the upgrades that help eliminate "dead" areas. Peterson recognizes the value this equipment provides for law enforcement, enforce-ment, fire departments and emergency emergen-cy medical services in cutting down response time. If the best offense is a good defense, Dale Peterson and the growing grow-ing number of agencies joining the LEPC to develop homeland security in the tri-county region are helping to design a well-coordinated defense. h |