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Show Page Six - The Springville Herald - January 23, 2002 State of City Continued from pace 1 planned west of 1-15 and along 400 South as planned corridor improvement projects arc completed. com-pleted. It is important to know how the property tax revenue to the City's general fund is impacted by this growth. For every $1. of property tax received by the city, we expend $1.24 for residential property. $.82 for agricultural property, and $.26 for commercial commer-cial property. Therefore, we must retain balanced growth to benefit everyone with equal or improved city services. And, we must also understand the principle of Planning Plan-ning if we are to retain Springvil-Ic's Springvil-Ic's best features and develop a new and brighter potential as a vibrant, hospitable community in which to enjoy life and conduct business. Because Springville has been and will continue to be impacted with new big-box or high volume business development in the southwestern part of town, we are continuing to encourage economic development in the 1-15 corridor. We are also developing plans to encourage the location of specialty retail businesses, destination desti-nation attractions, and general revitalization in the downtown area. Specialty businesses and destination attractions do not compete in the same market as high volume retail outlets and malls. The Incredible Journey Arts Foundation, a local private nonprofit non-profit foundation, has been formed to renovate the H.T. Reynolds building and provide a center for arts related activities and attractions in the downtown area. Springville City is coordinating coordi-nating with the foundation to assure that future changes to the City Hall and Public Safety facilities facili-ties along Main Street will be compatible and complimentary to other development. Springville City officials and citizens have worked closely with Envision Utah, Nebo Community Vision, and The Planning Center (MGB&A) while developing master planning for areas to be annexed in the west fields, "with an emphasis on walkable and mixed-use development, conservation conser-vation subdivisions and transit oriented developments." The principle of Engineering provides more specific and detailed de-tailed guidance for accomplishment accomplish-ment of planned project elements. For example, during 2000 and 2001 and in anticipation of growth, Springville City has been working closely with several consulting firms and now has completed master plans for culinary culi-nary water, sanitary sewer, streets, storm drainage and irrigation. irriga-tion. Other projects requiring engineering engi-neering support included participation partici-pation in the 1-15 Corridor Transportation Trans-portation Plan; installation of the Utah Department of Transportation Transporta-tion (UDOT) traffic signal at 1750 West 400 South; planned installation of another UDOT traffic signal on the 1-15 off-ramp for 400 South traffic; and planned construction of new streets and roads. Leadership: By applying the principle of leadership Springvil-le's Springvil-le's elected officials, senior administrative ad-ministrative staff and department heads provide a definition of the City's mission, maintenance of clear objectives, inspiration for teamwork, and ideally set an example of dedication, determination determina-tion and perseverance. The elections in the fall of 2001 resulted in a change in the City Council with educator Mark Balzotti, principal of the Grant Elementary School, replacing Keri Cordon as a Council Member. Mem-ber. Changes in the City's professional pro-fessional management level also occurred after careful reexamination reexamina-tion of the requisite qualifications for the positions. Layne Long was hired as the City's new Administrator and Fred Aegerter was hired as the City's new Community Development Develop-ment Director. Both are highly qualified and have extensive education and experience to bring to those vital positions. The principle of Organization is applied by the City's leadership leader-ship with the objective of ensuring ensur-ing economy of effort and unity of purpose. Sprir.gville City's current organization encompasses genera administration, legal and court functions, recording and finance functions; community development planning and engineering; engi-neering; public safety; public works with streets, water and wastewater utilities; and procurement, procure-ment, generation and distribution of electrical utilities to meet the necessary support requirements expected of a city. The City also has special departments including parks and recreation, a museum, library and golf course to improve our quality quali-ty of life. A discussion of those organizational entities not already mentioned follows: General Administration-Finance, Administration-Finance, LegalCourt: The financial condition of the City has steadily improved during 2001. There were no extraordinary or unforeseen circumstances that placed the City in financial jeopardy. jeop-ardy. Reserves have been budgeted budget-ed in both the General Fund and the Electric Enterprise Fund that will help to meet financial contingencies. contin-gencies. Funding for new construction, or renovation, of City facilities has been built into the budget reserve. The budgeting process, including documentation and establishment of a longer-range capital improvement budget, is more streamlined and provides more information. No new debt was issued during dur-ing the year. The only bond activity was to refund and combine com-bine two general obligation bonds into one with lower interest rates that will save the City $123,528. In the General Fund, the City budgeted $152,526 less in FY 2001 (period ending June 30, 2001) than in FY 2000 (period ending June 30, 2000) and actually actual-ly spent $493,343 less in FY 2001 than in FY 2000. Therefore, There-fore, the balance remaining in the General Fund was greater in FY 2001 ($683,688) than in FY 2000 ($343,421). Between July and December 2001, sales tax revenues, driven by the opening of Wal-Mart in April, increased from $930,000 in FY 2000 to $1,260,000 in FY 2001, an increase of 35. Building Build-ing permit fees and plan check fees have remained high as Springville Sprin-gville City has avoided the current cur-rent downward trend other Utah cities have experienced in their own development. Impact fees, particularly park impact fees, have also been ahead of budget. The anticipated annexation annex-ation of the west fields should provide continued development and will likely sustain related revenues. Springville City again received re-ceived an unqualified favorable opinion from the independent audit for FY 2001. Legal and Court issues include in-clude handling an average of more that 350 cases a month with a part-time judge and a part-time prosecutor and dealing with 29 liability claims filed against the City. Legal advice was provided to the City Council in passing 17 Resolutions and 22 Ordinances including a comprehensive update to thirty-five volunteers. Of the volunteers, twenty-three are advanced level II certified firefighters firefig-hters with additional certification in hazardous materials operations and six are certified as level I firefighters. Last year the Fire Department responded to 1 1 1 fire calls, including IS structure fires, which required over 1900 hours of volunteer service. Our Ambulance Service has an authorized strength of thirty-two thirty-two volunteers. Twenty-three volunteers have obtained their Intermediate Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) certificates to provide advanced care and five have obtained their basic EMT training certificates. Ambulance members responded to almost 650 calls for service last year and are credited with saving many lives through their dedication and willingness to serve. Fire and ambulance services provide professional emergency response to our community 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Each of these volunteer organizations has openings and is looking for qualified and capable members. If you are interested in serving your neighbors and friends in Springville in times of need by providing a professional, life-saving service in exchange for well deserved personal satisfaction satis-faction and increased pride contact con-tact Fire Chief Phil Whitney for an application. Public Works-StreetsWater Waste water: 2001 was a very busy and productive year for public works. The Director of Public Works commented on his pride in the departments and for the efforts that were made to accomplish the many projects completed during the year. Streets: 250,000 square feet of our roads and streets along 400 East, 400 South, 200 North, 400 North, and in front of the High School were chip sealed. A new procedure of "fog coating" was accomplished on parts of the projects and should extend the life of the treated areas greatly. Another 800,000 square feet of road and street surfaces received re-ceived a 2" overlay of asphalt where surface deterioration was more severe, e.g. older subdivisions. subdivi-sions. And 105,000 square feet of new 3" road surface was placed along 100 South and Canyon Avenue as part of projects that included removal of existing asphalt and sub-base and improving improv-ing the new sub-base. Also, many of our sidewalks and curbs were replaced and repaired. Water and sewer: Some 760 feet of casing has been installed in the new Evergreen well. At this point, tests indicate that the water quality is excellent. A determination of perforation of residential zones within the city and a significant change in the zoning structure of historic areas. In personnel related matters, a performanceincentive program for City employees was implemented imple-mented and an evaluation of the City's pay grade system was completed confirming that Springville Sprin-gville City's pay grades are in line with competitive, neighboring neighbor-ing cities. Public Safety: One has only to read the newspapers of this past weekend (e.g. shooting of a Police Officer and suspect in Orem; discovery of a marijuana growing operation in Springville) to know why Springville City continues to consider public safety as our highest priority. The public safety department is staffed with a combination of trained volunteers and professionals profession-als who deal with routine and emergency issues involving public pub-lic order, criminal activities, fire, and ambulance services. Springville has 24 full-time police officers. These officers responded to 13,000 calls for service in 2001. This included over 640 traffic accidents, 136 assaults, 579 thefts, 146 cases involving the possession of drugs or drug paraphernalia, 133 burglaries bur-glaries and 330 family disturbances. distur-bances. Springville officers also participate par-ticipate in several multi-jurisdic-tional projects, including the Utah County Major Crime Task Force, the Utah County Sex Crimes Task Force, the Serious Habitual Offender Comprehensive Comprehen-sive Action Program (SHOCAP) for repeat juvenile offenders, and the . Utah County Emergency Response Team. This participation participa-tion allows officers to track offenders as they move throughout through-out the county and to pool information infor-mation and resources. Three of these officers are school resource officers (SRO) who work directly with the youth in all Springville schools. This year Springville police worked together with the Nebo School District to improve the elementary elementa-ry school program so that it reaches all students at all grade levels. Our initial evaluation of this program from parents, teachers teach-ers and students is very positive. This year Springville added a Community Officer to address the concerns of residents about nuisances nui-sances in and around the community. commu-nity. This officer has been instrumental in-strumental in aiding residents and businesses in cleaning up junk cars, unsightly trash and weeds, and in enforcing zoning laws and ordinances to provide a safer, cleaner community. Our Fire Department has only one full time professional and up locations and test pumping will soon be underway. Budget allocations alloca-tions will allow completion of the infrastructure to bring the well on line during 2002. Several water service line replacement projects were accomplished accom-plished to include changing out service laterals to reduce the possibilities for future excavationreplacement. excava-tionreplacement. Significant extensions to culinary and sec ondary, water systems have been developed along 1750 West. Springville City will continue to develop water conservation plans for protecting water usage as the most critical and limited of our natural resources. Sewer and waterline replacement replace-ment was accomplished along 300 East beginning at 400 South to improve services, including culinary and secondary water distribution, to all residents. Along with the infrastructure improvements the street itself was rebuilt. Sewer extensions were con- structed in the west fields to connect the new Westside Elementary Ele-mentary School with the Mountain Moun-tain Springs Lift Station. Sewer crews are conducting video inspections in-spections of existing lines to locate infiltration problems for sealing projects and to identify maintenance and replacement requirements. Wastewater: The City has installed additional pumping capacity at the Mountain Springs Lift Station. Also, the City has installed a communications system sys-tem that allows local or computer based control and status evaluation evalua-tion of the lift st? !in. The City will evaluate the impact of a new storm water utility during 2002 as mandated. Light and Power-Electricity: Beginning in June 2002 and remaining until the present is the Power Cost Adjustment (PCA). The PCA was implemented as a temporary means of meeting the actual cost of electricity to the City when the cost exceeded existing power rates without power interruption. The PCA is directly related to power usage and applies equally to the power actually consumed by each user. Due to the unstable cost of natural gas for in-house generation genera-tion and other unpredictable costs associated with external power sources, a new rate schedule could not, and cannot yet, be established. While it has been successful in meeting its intended purpose, the PCA is still largely misunderstood and unpopular. On the positive side, continuation of the PCA has covered all increased in-creased costs due to variations in purchased power and natural gas costs plus temporary costs for supplemental power generation. When market costs of electricity electric-ity and natural gas stabilize, a new power rate will be set by the City Council and the PCA will be a zero entry on the monthly utility statement. Comparisons between current electricity rates for the cities of Spanish Fork and Provo and those of Springville are misleading mislead-ing because both Spanish Fork and Provo are associated with the power brokerage services of Utah Municipal Power Association (UMPA) while Springville is associated with the Utah Associ ated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS). There were many times before the 2000 electrical crisis when Springville's power costs were less than that of Provo or Spanish Fork. As other cities have done, Springville City is continuing to diversify its external electrical power sources to include hydro, coal and natural gas generation, while continuing to upgrade its own power generation capability (dieselnatural gas) for meeting peak demands. Completion of the Whitehead Power Plant expansion project will include conversion of the three EMD engines to dual fuel (3 diesel and 97 natural gas) and repair of the Enterprise R-4-16 (K-4) engine (expected 1st quarter 2002). When completed, the Whitehead Power Plant will produce 34 KW. Power production produc-tion from all of the City's generation genera-tion plants during 2001 was 115,111,570 KWH resulting in significant power cost avoidance. The total system load was 230,3-13,791 230,3-13,791 KWH. The City's West Electric Substation was rebuilt to handle 12,4707,200 voir" power. The 3,500 KVA transformer was replaced with a 5,000 KVA transformer. Insulators, conductors, conduc-tors, switches and breakers were also replaced to handle the higher voltage. By using a re-built transformer, trans-former, with engineering and labor from department employees, employ-ees, the project cost was reduced from $400,000 to $90,000. The power transmission line, from the Evergreen Substation going west on 1600 South to the 1-15 corridor, was rebuilt with larger conductors to supply the businesses and developments on both sides of 1-15. A used 500 KW, enclosed trailer mounted, diesel fueled, emergency back-up generator was obtained to supply the Whitehead Utility Center with power when other power sources are not available. The State Department of Water Quality requires all wastewater treatment plants online, full-time, to prevent overflow of untreated effluent into adjacent waterways. This emergency back-up generator, purchased at a fraction of the cost of a new generator, has the capacity ca-pacity to supply power to the entire Whitehead Utility Center. Improvements to the Hobble Creek Hydro Penstock required replacing a section of calcified pipe and laying a new 500' section sec-tion of 14" pipe to restore the original capacity of the line. The project will improve power generation gen-eration at the Hobble Creek Hydro by 33. During the past year, the City's Light and Power Department Depart-ment provided 2,816 hours of electrical work for other City Continued on page 7 THE GOOD NEWS Herc'i a comforting thought: natural gas rates are going down again. Because the price we pay for natural gas has been falling, we asked the utah public Service Commission to approve a $66.9 million decrease in utah natural gas rates. effective January 1, 2002, this decrease lowered the annual bill for a typical customer about $86, or 11.2 percent. Thanks to three consecutive rate decreases, the typical customer's annual box is now $224 (OR 24.7) less THAN ONE YEAR AGO. Of course, how much you save on your bill will depend on four individual usage and winter weather. And no one knows how cold it will be this winter. Not even us. - : THIS WINTER'S FORECAST , . call for -f ";... - LOWER GAS RATES WITH A CHANCE OF SNOW 1 VM, Is & w - . y m 'wax a I .. V-jm 2 .rTst; MORE GOOD HEWS Questar Gas's rates continue to remain among the lowest in the nation. It helps that we have one of the most efficient gas-delivery gas-delivery systems in the country. But the cost of delivering gas only accounts for about 40 percent of your bill. The other 60 percent is the cost of the gas itself. So it also helps that over half of the natural gas we deliver to you comes from wells we own, at a cost generally lower than the prices we pay for supplies on the open market. Questar Gas's unique company-, oned reserves make us less vulnerable to swings in national prices which means your gas bill remains relatively low when compared to other household expenses. And you can count on reliable supplies. But no matter where it comes from ' company-owned wells or the open market we pass the cost of the gas on to you dollar : for dollar, at no markup. So when market prices fall, like now, you benefit. Without a doubt, natural gas continues to be your best energy value. And the most reliable. TAKE COMFORT. Gas to fwir irialfc mcr shilr tacpmg rtfe fcw m paMt TW hdpt ifl trf fad mm oaAxnHt |