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Show A2 Wednesday, March 9, 2005 Vernal Express. Arianne Sam will perform in Temple Square in Salt Lake City March 9. The young musician won first place in a state wide music competition, providing provid-ing her with the opportunity to perform in Assembly Hall. Arianne Sam to perform at Temple Square Arianne Sam, daughter of Penny and Danny Sam of Vernal, recently won first place in the state Utah Music Teachers Association (UMTA) Concerto Competition held Feb. 26 in Salt Lake City. Arianne competed against other junior high students performing per-forming Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1, Opus 15. This award presents her with the opportunity to perform with other instrumental first place winners in a concert at Assembly Hall March 9. Arianne,' 13, studies piano under the direction of Jacqueline M. King of Vernal. Her mother introduced her to the piano at the age of three and has been involved with music from that point on. Her other honors include nine consecutive National Federation of Music Club (NFMC) superior ratings. She has been the first place winner win-ner every year since the age of eight in the Uintah Basin UMTA piano competition. As a participant in the Weber State University piano festival, she Transportation task force enacted The Utah Legislature voted to pass Senate Bill (SB) 25 which will create a Highway Jurisdictional Transfer Task Force, among other things. The purpose of the task force is to study highway jurisdictional jurisdic-tional transfers. The bill gives the task force no decision making mak-ing power but does enable it to make recommendations to the Department of Transportation (UDOT) and the Transportation Interim Committee. The task force will prepare a list of highways that should be added to, or deleted from, the state highway system. In lm VERNAL Express (ISSN 0892-1091) Published every Wednesday for $24 per year in the shopping area and $36 per year out of the shopping area within the state and $39 per year out of state within the USA by the Vernal Express Publishing Company, 54 North Vernal Avenue, Vernal, Utah 84078. Periodicals postage paid at Vernal, Utah 84078. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to VERNAL EXPRESS, P.O. Box 1000, Vernal Utah 84078. Steven R. Wallis Editor and Publisher Carissa Magee Feature Writer Virginia Harrington Feature Writer Patty John Proofreader KittaDory Ad Layout Rock Ad Layout JacqueHobbs Advertising Lynne Murray Advertising Terri Black Circulation & Classified Ads Jody Hadden Obituaries & Legals Phone 435-789-3511 FAX: 435-789-8690 Website: www.vernal.com e-mail: editorvernal.com DEADLINES News Monday 12 noon Display Advertising Friday 5 p.m. ClassifiedAdvertising Monday 12 noon Public Notices Monday 12 noon has received first, second and third place awards. Last year, Arianne was a mini artist winner win-ner at the Utah State University piano competition and received an honorable mention in the previous festival. Arianne has had the privilege privi-lege of attending master lessons les-sons with Gary Mano. She has performed in master classes with Russian pianist Kirill Gladkovsky and with Swedish pianist and Gina Bachauer gold medal winner Cedric Pescia. Along with the piano, Arianne also practices singing, playing the guitar and the violin. vio-lin. These talents have brought her numerous awards including includ-ing first place in the Farm Bureau Talent Find at the Utah State Fair. Arianne has had leading roles in two local musicals. musi-cals. Arianne enjoys performing with her brothers and sisters and has provided countless hours of service in her community commu-nity with scholarship fund-raisers and entertainment for many clubs and organizations. addition, it will study whether to turn the construction and maintenance of state roads over to local government entities, meaning city and county governments gov-ernments throughout the state. This expansive bill modifies modi-fies the Utah Municipal Code; the Cities, Counties, and Local Taxing Units Code; the Counties Code; the Motor Vehicles Code; the Transportation Code and the Judicial Code to amend provisions relating to transportation. trans-portation. It expands the written writ-ten notice requirements for cities and counties that intend to prepare a capital facilities IPS denies appeal Uintah Basin resident Brent Hansen said his appeal to the Public Service Commission to stop the UBTA merger with UBET has been denied. In a press release regarding the merger, Hansen said, "It is with great regret that I inform UBTA's current members and UBET's customers that the Public Service Commission (PSC) would not change or reverse its decision to approve the severely flawed merger proposal. I still have a couple of options, but the possibility of success is doubtful since the merger was approved for political politi-cal reasons rather than on its merits." Hansen states that records were withheld from the PSC, although he did not clarify which records these were. "The Division of Public Utilities asked UBTA for most of the records it needed to make a determination as to whether the merger was in the public's best interest. However, the Division allowed UBTA to withhold some critical information. informa-tion. And, the Division chose to ignore some records that indicated indi-cated the merger was not in the public's best interest." "The Committee of Consumer Services chose to approve the merger rather than risk having its funding and power reduced by the Utah State Legislature. There was a bill in this 2005 session, but I do not know the outcome of that bill." Hansen said. "The PSC chose to ignore improprieties of its employees that ultimately prevented my efforts to get needed changes made to the merger. It is not known whether the improprieties impropri-eties were due to incompetence, poorly defined rules, or illegal influence. My guess is that it was a combination of all three," stated Hansen. In addition, Hansen is of the opinion that UBTA has acted outside of the law. "The PSC also chose to ignore the illegal actions of UBTA to deny public pub-lic access to its records. UBTA would have been charged with contempt of court in a properly prop-erly conducted court of law for obstruction of justice," Hansen said. Hansen has the option of going to the Utah Supreme Court with his appeal but has chosen not to because of the expenditure of time and money this would involve and his plan. These local government entities will be required to notify UDOT, the Associations of Governments (AOG) and the public transit district, if they lie within the boundaries of such a district, of proposed zoning designation changes, plat considerations, general plan changes, and annexations that impact state and regional transportation systems. This covers any project connected even indirectly with state highways high-ways and with roads that have an average daily traffic pattern of 500 vehicles per hour. SB 25 allows for the development devel-opment of tollways on new state highways or on lanes created to handle increasing traffic on existing highways. It also requires the executive director of the Department of Transportation to develop strategic stra-tegic initiatives and a written prioritization process for the selection of new transportation capacity projects. Public hearings hear-ings on these priorities are also required. House Bill 18, which would have created a transportation fund to pay for state highway construction, was defeated. The bill would have set aside $70 million annually for the Centennial Highway. LAST WEEK'S WEATHER Date High Low Precipitation Temperature Temperature Tuesday, March 1 50 25 0 Wednesday, March 2 49 24 T Thursday, March 3 47 24 0 Friday, March 4 51 29 0 Saturday, March 5 53 31 0 Sunday, March 6 56 29 0 Monday, March 7 56" 31 0 f t . belief that the system would guarantee failure. "The Utah Supreme Court (USC) was the only place that could make a non-political decision on the merger. The problem with this venue is that only the evidence actually submitted to the PSC by UBTA, the Division, and the Committee could be used in an appeal to the USC. Therefore, several records that could prove that the merger was a bad thing would not be part of the evidentiary record in an appeal," Hansen said. Hansen said that even a successful suc-cessful appeal would not have altered the terms of the merger. "The other problem with an appeal to the Utah Supreme Court was that it could not make any changes to the terms of the merger. The only decision deci-sion the USC could make was to affirm (approve) or reverse (deny) the merger approved by the PSC. "The merger plans would have been fully implemented by the time the USC could rule on the merger. The most likely decision of the USC would be that the merger was not in the public's best interest and it should not have been approved. However, UBTA would argue that the consequences of reversing revers-ing the merger six months from now would do more harm than good. So the USC would have reluctantly affirmed the merger," merg-er," continued Hansen. Hansen is concerned that members and customers alike will suffer financial loss due to the merger. "On the surface, it would appear that the UBET customers were the biggest losers los-ers in the merger because they are treated like second class members with limited control. However, the current UBTA members are the biggest losers. UBTA members were lied to or misled by their board members and officers," he said. Hansen is also concerned that the merger will bring disharmony dis-harmony to the Basin. "One of the stated benefits of this merger merg-er is to promote unity within the Uintah Basin. The terms of this merger will have the exact opposite effect. The UBET customers cus-tomers will resent the second class status they have been given. The current UBTA members mem-bers will become increasingly unhappy over the next fifteen years as they slowly find out what they truly gave up in this merger," Hansen said. Hansen compared UBTA with other telecommunications telecommunica-tions companies. "Telephone companies are well known for their terrible customer ser Tourism funding passes Senate Bill (SB) 7, one of the target projects of the Governor's Rural Partnership Board, passed both the House and the Senate and needs only the signature of Gov. Jon Huntsman to become law. The bill originally appropriated appropri-ated $10 million in a restricted restrict-ed fund to promote tourism throughout the state. That amount was amended by the Utah House of Representatives to be an appropriation of $18 million for Fiscal Year 20052006 with $10 million to be spent the first year and $8 million mil-lion the second year. Nan Groves Anderson, executive director of Utah Tourism Industry Coalition, said getting SB 7 passed was a cohesive team effort. "This will finally permit Utah to compete in regards to getting the word out as to Utah being a tourism destination," Anderson said. She said it will be a help to the economy of the state. "Investing in tourism is high velocity economic eco-nomic development primarily because of its return on investments." to prevent merger vice. UBTA is no exception. The way UBTA has treated its UBET customers during the Extended Service Area (ESA) and the merger approval processes pro-cesses would be considered suicidal sui-cidal for a company that did not have a monopolistic position. Competitors that truly offered customer service could severely severe-ly hurt UBTA's businesses." Hansen cautioned customers who are considering becoming members. "UBET customers who choose to become members will be entering into a contract with UBTA-UBET. People need to thoroughly read and understand under-stand that contract before they make the decision to become a member. Membership could be very costly to some people," he said. Hansen suggests that UBTA could have structured a better bet-ter merger plan if officials had been willing to work with the public more openly. He stated, "If UBTA would have been willing to release critical information infor-mation to its members and UBET customers, it could have received important suggestions on how the merger should have been structured. Then UBTA could have developed a merger plan that would have been in the public's best interest. The current plan is a disaster which will become apparent over the next few years when looked at in hindsight. "A poorly conceived merger when combined with UBTA's arrogant attitude has created a company that people will love to hate. The remaining question ques-tion is: Will competitors take advantage of this situation or do they all lack the knowledge that customer service is the key to a successful business?" asked Hansen. Hansen received a response to his appeal from BLACKBURN & STOLL, LC, Attorneys at Law in Salt Lake City. The attorneys told Hansen he has no rights of discovery concerning any UBTA-UBET documents or I financial information. infor-mation. ' The letter received by Hansen states, "We are in receipt of your Data Requests No. 2 and 3. With the Commission's denial of your Request for Reconsideration, however, its Order determining that the merger is in the public pub-lic interest, and approving the same, is final. As such, there is no provision for additional discovery dis-covery under the Public Service Commission's Rules nor the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure. Further, UBTA-UBET does not believe that any such discov Anderson said that House Bill (HB) 318, which also passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate, will give greater visibility to tourism throughout the state. HB 318 is the Community and Economic Development Restructuring bill sponsored by Sen. Mansell. The bill basically restructures economic development devel-opment to fall in line with the goals of Gov. Jon Huntsman. HB 318 takes policy making authority away from the Travel Board and turns it over to the governor's office. Anderson Bill supports UCAT statewide House Bill (HB) 313 was passed by the Utah Legislature during the last days of the 2005 session. The bill provides appropriations for higher education, edu-cation, including the Utah College of Applied Technology system. The funding is for the creation cre-ation and maintenance of a Jobs Now Economic Development Initiative within the state system sys-tem of higher education. Jobs Now will promote workforce preparation programs that meet critical needs and shortages short-ages throughout the state. The initiative will include components that provide support sup-port for technical training expansion to train skilled potential employees within a period not to exceed 12 months for technical jobs in critical criti-cal needs occupations. It will also support degree programs that specifically support workforce work-force preparation in areas of ery is, or will be, relevant to any future proceedings in this matter. Should an appeal of the Commission's Order be filed with the Utah Supreme Court there is no provision for additional addi-tional discovery nor is such discovery permitted." It is this last statement that has Hansen convinced that an appeal would not be successful and therefore is not worth his time and financial finan-cial expenditure. The attorneys suggested that a continued appeal would be harmful to the telephone company and customers alike. "UBTA-UBET believes that any appeal of the Commission's Order would be wholly without with-out merit. Such an appeal may, however, delay implementation imple-mentation of the merger and, thus, deny 17,000 subscribers in the Vernal, Roosevelt and Duchesne exchanges the benefits ben-efits of membership in the cooperative. Further, unlike the governmental entities with whom you have previously previ-ously dealt, UBTA-UBET is a business owned by its members. mem-bers. As such, an appeal of the Commission's Order will also require UBTA-UBET to expend financial resources that would otherwise be available to benefit ben-efit the members and subscribers." subscrib-ers." Blackburn and Stoll offered no explanations as to why the company is unwilling to grant discovery rights to Hansen but they did offer an opinion on the fairness of the appeal, "UBTA-UBET believes that it is fundamentally unfair for one person to deny the opportunity to 17,000 subscribers to become members of the cooperative and to unnecessarily force it to expend financial resources which would otherwise benefit ben-efit the members and subscribers, subscrib-ers, particularly when the merger has been unanimously endorsed by UBTA-UBET Board of Directors and is so widely supported in the Uintah Basin. As a reminder, you are not required to become a member mem-ber of the cooperative. Whether you are a member or not will have no impact on the rates that you pay for, or the quality qual-ity of, the telecommunications services provided to you by UBTA-UBET. Should you have any questions regarding the quality of services provided by UBTA-UBET or your rates and charges associated therewith, please feel free to contact a customer cus-tomer service representative at UBTA-UBET." both houses said this will actually help tourism tour-ism by giving the issues more visibility with elected officials, the business community and the citizens of Utah. Anderson said the increase in visibility is worth going from policy making mak-ing to an advisory role as the entire state will benefit from the change. Nan Groves Anderson, Executive Director, Utah Tourism Industry Coalition. PO Box 750365, Torrey, UT 84775. Phone: 435-425-3997, fax: 435-425-3998. www.utahtourism.org, infoutahtourism.org identified need for business and industry. Funding will be through the Legislature with an annual appropriation in a line item to the State Board of Regents. The board will allocate at least two thirds of the appropriation appropria-tion to UCAT for distribution to college campuses within the college as recommended by the Utah College of Applied Technology Board of Trustees. Campuses receiving the funds will use money received for specific spe-cific technical training expansion. expan-sion. The board may allocate and distribute up to one third of the appropriation to institutions institu-tions within the state system of higher education. The Board of Regents is also responsible for making rules to implement imple-ment the Jobs Now Economic Development Initiative and to determine which institutions may apply for the funds. - . t I, |