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Show 83-83001. 00 Utah Press Assoc. 467 East 300 South Salt Lake City, UT 84111 ) ( --ill , W I1 Sophisticated enhanced 9-1-1 system at City of Orem communications center may produce miracles for people of Orem and other communities. See story below. Or Gary Giles, left, and Ken Holts man the telecommunications center at the Orem City Center where emergency calls are dispatched utiliz ing the new enhanced 9-11 number. Volume 60 Number 14 SllilJj Wednesday, April 4, 1990 3. Council approves CDBG funding with some changes By Jeanne Thayne Mrs. McCown said she didn't think SCERA. was a worthy Gene Carleyofthe Utah Housing Authority in Utah Coi City Council approved some $600,000 in Community cause for CDBG funds "because so many other people come to ty explained the request for $20,000 for a low income park. Development Block Grant funds at the recent City Council meeting. But not without some flak, some pleas, and a few changes. At the recommendation of City Council, $200,000 earmarked ear-marked by the CDBG committee for the Revolving Loan Fund for businesses was targeted for purchase of the Scera Park to assure the park as a city facility to be a park in perpetuity. The RLF will be financed instead by its own program income. Seeing the $200,000 earmarked for the park purchase caused a bit of flurry from the CDBG committee as they had agreed not to fund $160,000 requested by SCERA and felt SCERA had done an "end around" to get the funding. Margie McCown, a member of the CDBG committee, ques- tioned the propriety of purchasing the park "The whole purpose pur-pose of giving SCERA the park was to help them. Now they give it back to us and we have to buy it back?" Mayor S. Blaine Willes explained the properties were owned by SCERA and were not given to SCERA by the City. "They (SCERA) pulled away from recreation as this was taken over by the Orem Recreation Department, except for the swimming pooL SCERA did the Shell and the Family City USA and have been expanding. They owned the park outright" us who are really hurting and are handicapped. Willes said the park purchase will assure that the park will remain a park. "The park does serve low and moderate income as well as any other single thing. That's often all people can afford. The SCERA would have been able to change the park to whatever and the City is anxious to keep it as a park." The City Council also opted to take $2,000 from Administration Ad-ministration funds of $110,000 to help start a Dentistry program pro-gram for the Homebound. Ross Chessman, DDS, had requested $25,000 to initiate the program. He estimates at least 240 elderly and poor homebound people have not received dental services for many years. The funds will be used to begin a screening program to determine needs. , . Despite a request for $17,000 to a women's counseling program at Orem Community Hospital, the CDBG committee recommended only $11,000. Lisa Dunn, a counseling researcher re-searcher at OCH, said 123 people were served in 1987-88 and last year 318 people received help. "We are running out of money," she said. Student counselors are paid $8 an hour. "Fees for the same service elsewhere would be $25 to $60," she said Gene Carley of the Utah Housing Authority in Utah Coun ty explained the request for $20,000 for a low income park. He said the proposed park was actually a couple of undeveloped lots in a 10-home housing project. He said HUD will not fund more housing but rather than leave two lots to become an eyesore, they could be landscaped with a sprinkling system to be available for public use. He said he had volunteers who can help with the work The committee recommended $5,000 for the project. It is located at 753 South Main. Other entitlements were approved as follows: Kids on the Move-$15,000; Low Income Recreation-$15,000; Administra-tion-$108,000; Gathering Place $15,000; Community Action Agency-$15,000; Senior Citizen Housing-$55,000 for one year; PERC-$8.000; Housing Revolving Loan Fund-$50,000 (plus program income); Public Works Projects-$64,000. Sertoma-$12,000; Sertoma-$12,000; Smoke Detectors $5,000; Barrier Removal-$20,000. City Manager Daryi Berlin said that the CDBG funding may be cut six percent He suggested the shortage be made up from the Public Works funds in that case. A motion by Keith Hunt to accept the recommendations was approved unanimously. Hunt suggested that those who needed more funding bring their recommendations back to the council as a budget item. Emergency number is same but service is miraculous By Jeanne Thayne You still call 9-1-1 in an emergency emer-gency but now you can be assured fire, police or medical assistance will be on its way to your house, even if you weren't able to complete com-plete your call. With the miraculous advances advan-ces of electronics, the phone number num-ber and address of the caller is automatically flashed onto a computer com-puter screen at the Department of Public Safety and help is on its way. "Even if the caller were only able to lift the receiver and dial 9-1-1, we'd be on our way," said Gary Wise, Division Commander ofODPS. The enhanced 9-1-1 system began fully operating about 5 a.m. Sunday morning. The cut over from the old system was started about midnight and took nearly five hours to complete. "That's our slowest time," said Gary. Preparations to put the system sys-tem into operation took a little longer, nearly two years. That included in-cluded planning, completing the data base and installing state-of-the-art equipment in the basement base-ment of the Orem City Center. For the past couple of weeks, citizens were asked to call a practice prac-tice number, 8-1-1, and dispatchers dis-patchers discovered a few errors during that time. These were usually people who had moved or were typographical typo-graphical errors, said Wise. To be sure the data base was complete and no groups were missed, fire units contacted every 3rd house on every street in Orem prior to beginning operations. The center in Orem answers all emergency calls for Orem, Pleasant Grove and Lindon, but those cities dispatch all other calls to their own departments. The Provo center answers for Spanish Fork, Goshen, Spring-ville Spring-ville and American Fork. When an emergency call comes in it is relayed to Salt Lake City, to Denver, and to Orem. It all takes about a second. In addition addi-tion to flashing the name and ad dress on the screen, there is an automatic print-out of the call which also gives the address and phone number of the caller. The entire system including , prep time and equipment cost $365,000. Funding is being generated by a 60 cent surcharge on the 20,000 phone lines linked into the system. What happens if you move? "US WEST gives us the change within 24 hours of the move," says Wise. 'We expect some real success stories within the next few months," says Wise. By success, he means that sometime in the near future a life will be saved even though the caller was not able to give complete information to the department. That kind of miracle ought to be worth 50 cents a month to everybody. " ' Names announced for Girls, Boys State James L. Smart, center, math teacher at Mountain View High School, receives $1,000 from Mayor S. Blaine Willes for his part in an ongoing educational project at the school. Others from left to right are: Virginia Johnson, principal; Brian Pead, assistant principal responsible for attendance; Doyle Buckwalter, chairman of implementing the Strategic Plan for Orem which lists education improvements as a priority; and Kelvin Clayton, city councilman. Teacher at MVHS wins project award Miss Orem tickets now on sale Tickets to the 1990 Miss Orem Scholarship Pageant are now on sale, according to Dan and Tammy Thomas, who are in charge of ticket sales. Persons interested may contact any of the 13 Miss Orem contestants for tickets to the pageant to be held Saturday, Satur-day, April 1, at the Orem High School Auditorium. All seats are general admission ad-mission for $4. Tickets also may be purchased at the door the night of the pageant. The event is scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m. with the title "Am I the One." Orem High School has announced an-nounced names of students who will attend Boys and Girls State to be held at Southern Utah State College, Cedar City, June 10-June 10-June 16. Orem High School's representatives repre-sentatives are: Holli Davis, Kris-ten Kris-ten Kennedy, Macy Sanderson, Rubs Williams, Robert Cox, Mark Porcaro, Dave Hanson, Dave Sanders and Curtis Morley. To be chosen, students should have qualities of leadership, good character, courage, honesty, cooperativeness, be in upper third of class scholastically and be a citizen of the United States. The purpose of Girls and boys State is to educate young women and young men in the duties, privileges, right, and responsibility respon-sibility of citizenship. Boys and Girls State is an effort by the;, American Legion Auxiliary to bring the boys and girls of Utah a knowledge of the fundamental, principles of American Government Govern-ment through actual practice and control of the state offices during the Girls and Boys State meetings. meet-ings. As future voters and office holders, the girls, andboys should have an understanding of the problem of elective officials, their duties and their functions. Coal mine disaster topic of lecture 'The Aftermath of the Castle Gate Coal Mine Disaster" will be described by Dr. Janeen Arnold Acosta in a lecture sponsored by the Utah Valley Chapter of the Utah State Historical Society on Tuesday, April 10, at 7 p.m. in the multi-purpose room of the Provo Public Library. Explosions in the Number 2 mine of the Utah Fuel Company on March 8, 2924, claimed 171 lives. By Jeanne Thayne A math teacher at Mountain View High School received $1,000 from City of Orem recently for his part in helping to increase attendance atten-dance at the school. Jim L. Smart, math teacher, was recognized for the honor as chairman of Education Network Attendance Project with the goal to reduce the school drop-out rate by 50 percent. That also is one of the goals recognized in Orem's Strategic Plan. The pilot program was kicked off at the beginningof 4th quarter because there is more absenteeism absen-teeism during this time. "We're up against the odds now," said Smart. The project links 10 schools across the country in a common goal to reduce student drop outs. Leaders of the group have held three training sessions in San Francisco over the past nine months to help them develop personal per-sonal plans of action to accomplish ac-complish the goal. "We also have lots of teleconference telecon-ference sessions," said Smart. "All the groups share ideas and challenges and also report atten dance to the Education Network." Smart said Mountain View's attendance, now at 94 percent, is already higher than most of the other schools. Some inner city schools participating in the program pro-gram have attendance rates in the 80s. The goal at MVHS is to increase in-crease attendance to .98 percent. Interestingly, attendance at MVHS varies from as much as 82 percent to 86 percent during a single day. These fluctuations are because of tardiness, dental appointments ap-pointments etc., and teacher error in reporting activities. Several programs have been developed to eliminate many of the problems. They include "adopt a friend" where a student becomes a friend to another student stu-dent who is struggling. This involvement in-volvement may include tutoring, counseling, or just being "friends." The schools counseling department will help to train students stu-dents in developing counseling skills. Competitions within the school will help motivate students stu-dents to be there. These include coupon prizes, drawings, and cash awards for achieving attendance atten-dance goals. "We want to create overall awareness that it's important to be in school," said Smart. "We'd like to have a super drawing at the end of the year, for a car, I hope." He also said businesses are cooperating in offering prizes for classroom competition and challenges. chal-lenges. For instance Hardees is offering a breakfast for the winning win-ning class. There also will be certificates cer-tificates of achievement given where appropriate. Education Network Attendance Atten-dance Project is a non-profit organization or-ganization committed to achieving achiev-ing the objective, said Smart. It is funded by businesses, private groups and a foundation. The program at MVHS is significant sig-nificant in improving education said Doyle Buckwalter, chairman of Orem's Strategic Plan. It fits in with the educational goals set by the commission. "Other awards will be forthcoming for outstanding outstand-ing teacher projects." The $1,000 presented to MVHS is part of $18,000 set aside by City of Orem for Education. i v. V'." |