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Show upmion a c; ram Page 3 Orcm-Gcncva Times Wednesday, September 19, 1990 lfai Foundation Reports: Court ruling could result in property tax shi A recent State Supreme Curt ruling could create a shift : in the tax burdens paid by the various classes of property and might affect local governments that rely on the property tax as a major revenue source. This was the conclusion reached by Utah Foundation, the private tax research organization, in its analysis of the Utah Supreme Court decision in the Amax case (Amax Magnesium Mag-nesium Corporation v. Utah State Tax Commission) that was decided on July 18, 1990. Utah law has provided a 20 exemption on locally-assessed real property in recognition of certain intangible costs. This 20 exemption is not extended to state-assessed property and to personal property, the Supreme Court in the Amax case ruled that Utah cannot arbitrarily discriminate against one class of property simply because it is assessed by the state rather than by the county, ' According to the Foundation analysis, if it is determined deter-mined that all state-assessed property must receive this 20 exemption, it would cut property assessments in Utah by $2.4 billion and reduce property tax revenue by $31.5 million per year. Furthermore, if the exemption is extended to personal property (motor vehicles, machinery, etc.), it could add another $23.5 million to the potential tax loss. Thus, the decision could impact the By Postmaster Clyde E. Weeks Sunday will be the first day of Autumn, and it will be a perfect day to look around and enjoy the many visible evidences of this perennial change of seasons. Nights are cooler and days are sparkling inthei Autumn sun- a light. The leaves in the canyons ? and on the' hills have turned to red and gold, emblazoning a royal seal of Mother Nature's handiwork. hand-iwork. It's a perfect time to get in the car or truck and head for the hills. Somehow, the great out-of-doors seems bigger and more expansive in the Autumn than at any other time of the year. Horizons stretch into the eternities and clouds al-most al-most take on lives of their own. It's time for one more picnic. One more fishing trip.l One more adventure on the lake or in the hills. It's the time for busy people to get out and to get in touch one . more time with nature. ..and themselves. LETTERS FOR LITERACY ' People don't write letters like ' they used to. Some can't They don't know how to read or write. And because illiteracy in the United States has become such a shocking problem-nearly 15 per-- per-- cent of adults can't read-the Postal Service is launching a "Letters for Literacy" campaign encouraging more letter writing. "Letters for Literacy" is the theme of this year's National Card and Letter Writing Week, Sept. 24-28, and it supports the President's literacy goal. If you are distressed about the number of children growing up to become adults who don't fully appreciate ap-preciate the value of the written word, you can do something about it. You can write a letter. WRITE THE PRESIDENT Write to a Member of Congress Con-gress or to the President, if you wish. But even more effective would be a letter to a young relative rela-tive or the child of a friend. All of us value letters, everi the briefest . of notes, because they are seen as a gift of the writer's time and thoughts. What better way to stimulate , an interest in the written word . than by setting a good example for a young person. A letter in remembrance of a special occasion oc-casion might become one of the i ; child's most cherished possessions. posses-sions. And if you can establish an ongoing correspondence, you will develop a valuable pattern that . could last a lifetime. , Sometimes, the most unexpected unex-pected letters are the most welcome. wel-come. Here's an example: Orem-Qenevalimes USPS 411-700 Published each Wednesday for $10.00 per year by the Orem-Geneva Orem-Geneva Times, 546 South State Street Orem, Utah 84058. Second Class postage paid at Orem, Utah 84057 v . , POSTMASTER: Send address changes to the OremGeneva Times, P.O. Box 65, ' Orem, Utah 84059 ' 1 POST MARK 1 1990 "Dear Helen and Clyde, Steve and I are celebrating our 13th wedding anniversary this month and it made me think of our wedding day. I just wanted to thank you for coming to our reception to make ourjday; so . happy and memorable. Ana for the glasses you gave us. That was so nice of you. Thanks again, ,!' ' Love, Sheila Thayne" LETTER TO EDITOR I hope you didn't misa the Letter Let-ter to the Editor which appeared on this page last week, taking me to task for pointing out some of the pitfalls and perils which people would face if the U.S. Postal Post-al Service were privatized dna America's Universal Postal Service Ser-vice were decimated. Letters to the Editor are the ultimate complement com-plement to. any newspaper, demonstrating that its columns are read and evaluated by its readers. Walter A. Nicholes really excoriated ex-coriated me as a minion of "a national na-tional postal system which Benjamin Ben-jamin Franklin was truly inspired in-spired to organize." Letters to the Editor prove that there is a great diversity of opinion in our great country which people are not afraid to express. I congratulate Mr. Nicholes on annunciating his views so well. Believe it or not, the Editor of the Orem-Geneva Times would welcome wel-come a dozen or so letter each week from his readers, expressing express-ing their views about the issues ot the day! " ' LOTS OF LETTERS Someone else in Orem who is getting a lot of letters is 17-year-old Nathan Jensen-and these are all from the Soviet Union. A couple of years ago, Nathan enrolled en-rolled in a pen pal program at Orem High School. He wrote to the Soviet ' Embassy in Washington, D.C. for information. informa-tion. He then wrote to three Soviet schools and three newspapers, asking for a pen pal. . The first response came last June, and since that time he has received over ,1,300 letters and postcards. It seems his name and address had ben published in a nationwide Soviet newspaper. Some writers wanted to become friends. Others wanted help in defecting, and one wanted someone some-one to provide American goods to sell on the Soviet black market ; You are really blessed if you can read and write! This wouldJae . a good week to help someone wkj can't property tax by as much as $55 million per year. To deal with the problem created by the court decision, an number of possible options have been suggested: 1. The 20 exemption could be extended to all state-assessed property and personal property and the tax rates increased to make up the revenue loss. v 2. The 20 exemption on locally-assessed real property could be eliminated and tax rates reduced to prevent any possible revenue windfall. 3. The exemption for residential property (which is provided for in the State Constitution) could be increased in order to protect the homeowner against any tax increase. in-crease. 4. The legislature could decide to do nothing and wait for further legal clarification, this option has been discounted dis-counted by many, however, because it would involve the state in protracted litigation, virtually all state-assessed property owners have protested the assessment on their properties. Foundation analysts point out that regardless of which option is adopted by the legislature, the equalization of assessments in utah will result in a shifting of tax burdens among property classes. Property taxes on 6tate-assessed property and personal property are likely to decrease, Letters to the Editor Against some clean air restrictions Dear Editor: I am against the proposal of the Clean Air and EPA Committee's members to regulate, regu-late, restrict and eliminate all wood, coal burning stoves and factories fac-tories by their preposterous claims, especially with the threat of war, arising from the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq. We should not be so dependent of foreign oil but should have used our own resources resour-ces and alternatives which have been discovered long ago. If we had done so, our national indebtedness indeb-tedness would not be as it is today, nor would we have to pay so much for gasoline at the service stations. I am also in favor of haying clean air and if necessary restrict, regulate harmful toxic, waste deposits, poisonous gases and chemical insecticides but the United States and Utah are in a state of limbo and chaos with the loss of jobs from industries and with the threat of more jobs because be-cause of the making of such foolish rules and regulations on the burning of wood and coal and especially the burning of hospital trash. These laws are very foolish especially when such places must be destroyed by fire as soon as possible, for they are breeding grounds for disease and deadly dangerous and harmful bacteria which survive in open air and can be carried by ticks, flies, fleas, and mosquitos to all parts of the world such as Cholera, Bubonic Plaque and Pulmonary Plague and AIDS. We are all aware of the claims of Canada that their air pollution Open letter to Orem City Council I read in the newspaper concerning con-cerning the State Department of Corrections wanting to put a halfway house in Orem. Some City Council members seemed to be receptive and the Mayor asked them to drive around, select a site and report back. The question arises why us? Perhaps because we are known as Family City U.S.A. and this would be an ideal place to locate. For this reason alone, we do not have to take a back seat to anyone. We need to be more discriminating dis-criminating and careful to protect that image, and we do not have to give away our tax base to do it. Since the Mayor is taking up the banner for the State, I propose that the street the Mayor lives on be extended, and build the halfway house there on his street There also is a large mansion man-sion for sale near Keith Hunt's home, which would be ideal as a halfway house. There are several vacant lots near the homes of James Evans, Joyce Johnson and Lucile Steele which would b Two thumbs up for OH sports Editor, The Orem High sports program pro-gram is one of the bestprograms in Utah. Orem High offers many sports like basketball, football, baseball, soccer, volleyball, swimming, swim-ming, track and many more, f Orem High does very well with the facilities in which they have. For instance, we have no swimming pool at Orem High.but we still have a swimming pro- Sram. The swim team just has to rive to the Orem City Recreation .pool, which is a little inconvenient, incon-venient, but they get the job done. The coaches are very skilled in their areas and are very involved in-volved with the students' educa- problems of acid rain is due to the fallout from the American factories fac-tories but have failed to notice that all the storms originate in the Pacific Ocean and off the coast of the North Pole and they then travel across the United States at almost the same time as they would across Canada, except of course during a hurricane and those originate in the Caribbean Seas and off the coast of Mexico. By remembering all chemical changes all acids are diluted by the addition of more water and so it is impossible for acid rain to exist during a hurricane, a rain or snow storm and especially in the atmosphere. Therefore, Canada, due to their own dumping procedures proce-dures and bug infestations have 1 caused their own pollution problems. ;v. ' The atmosphere contains a lot of dust particles and many people are allergic to the smell of ragweed, rag-weed, cigarettes, animals and the taste of chocolate but how can one person differ between that and the smell of smoke from wood-( wood-( burning stoves as causes toward their allergies as they traVel on the highways when they are at such a distance. Their noses must be better than any chemical laboratory. It is appalling, carbon monoxide gas is colorless, odorless, odor-less, tasteless as most all poisonous gases are. Carbon monoxide gas given off by automobiles, boats, RVs, trucks and buses. Sincerely yours, - Louise Futile s ". .' .- Orem t- ideal for building a halfway house. Why not draw straws? The short straw would get to have the halfway house on their block. Seriously, I do not believe it is necessary to locate the halfway house in any residential neighborhood. neigh-borhood. Suggest to the State Department of Corrections that they clean up the eye sore on their own property on 800 North between be-tween 900 West and 1200 West and build the halfway, house there by the Highway Patrol facility. They would have a beautiful view of Utah Lake over the Geneva Steel smokestacks. Whenever any City, County, State or Federal facility is built, then that property is removed from the Property tax rolls. Orem City professes to be trying to broaden the tax base, not shrink it further. If this serious proposal of mine is not satisfactory to the State Department of Corrections, then invite them to offer the deal to some other deserving City. Bob Wright Orem tion. They realize that education UUU. Xlicjr iconic uiok suuwuwv.s is much more important than Bpoirs. oui every veuui ui uj- produce, has very good grades, 11 i il , .. ana aoes very wen in me seasun. The basketball program of 88-89 produced an average GPA of 3.2 and had a winning season. The coaches get very good reviews from parents. The coaches also get the parents involved in-volved which boosts the attendance atten-dance and helps pay for uniforms and generalized fees. All in all they nave really got it together. As a student of Orem High I give the program two thumbs up. Glen Ostler . ' ; Orem while taxes on locally-assessed property are likely to increase. The report indicates that the tax shift will tend to be greatest in those taxing jurisdictions having the largest proportion of centrally (state) assessed property. Among Utah's 29 counties, the percentage of state-assessed property varies all the way from 6.6 in Davis County to 93.0 in Millard County. Many property owners have more than one class of property. Homeowners, for example, usually own one or more motor vehicles andor other personal property. Tax reductions on personal property (such as motor vehicles) could help offset some of the increases in real estate taxes that might result from the shift. Another point brought out in the study is that it will be virtually impossible to protect all taxpayers from a tax increase because of the different proportion of state-assessed, residential, other locally-assessed, and personal property that exist in the tax base of the various local jurisdictions. For example, even though the homeowner exemption could be raised enough to shield residential property as a group, this still would not prevent taxes on some properties from going up while taxes on other properties are coming down. cliool District lotes With all of our learning... A Message from Alpine School District Superintendent Dr. Steven Baugh This month, most of our 39,000 students started back to school. (Our year-round students began July 31.) The students who are entering school this fall will benefit from the accumulated knowledge of thousands of years of laborious research, study, and agony. One of the most exciting things about living in our time is the vast amount of information accessible to the inquiring mind. And that's one of the things that scares me most about our modern education system: there's ' so much to learn that we run the -risk of making mere knowledge, the accumulation of facts, the objective; ob-jective; that we forget that the Iiurpose of education is not mere-y mere-y to learn, but to learn to live. With all of our learning, we ought to gain wisdom: the wisdom which emphasizes principles over facts, the wisdom which focuses on service as a product of education, educa-tion, and the wisdom which has for its objective the development of character. In our studies, let us go beyond the mere memorization of facts, figures or dates. That cannot can-not be called education which does not also instruct in the laws and principles which govern a .' body of knowledge. The history , student should come to understand under-stand the social significance of historical facts; the student of anatomy needs to become acquainted ac-quainted with the functions and relationships among the parts of the body; the individual who would study the building trades should learn the physical laws which operate in the world. Also in our learning, we should remember that an important impor-tant aim of education is service. Engraved near the entrance to a large American university are these words: "Enter to learn - go forth to serve." The phrase suggests sug-gests that without its application in the service of humanity, knowledge is of little value. Galsworthy wrote,. "Students Succeed in by Lily Eskelsen, president Utah Education Association We judge so easily. We weigh and measure and determine the worth of a thing. It's such a part of our nature that some believe we can rate anything-even the value of a child. But the grades I (71 V6 IT1Y 81) fimited 8tory sixth-graders tell a As a writing assignment, I asked them to imagine that Earth was on a collision course with a flant comet. The end was near, otal destruction. But scientists had built a space colony capable of traveling on a 20-year journey to the next habitable planet. Each child was to imagine he had been chosen by lottery to be one of the few saved. The chosen could take three people with them. Who would be chosen and why? As I read the first drafts aloud, I found students had chosen parents, friends, rock ft DR. STEVEN BAUGH should be taught first to think of others...they should be infected with the wisdom to know that in making smooth the way of all, lies the road to their own happiness." And finally, and perhaps most important, im-portant, true education should develop character. Character is what we are in the dark, what we are when no one is looking, when we are not influenced by the threat of disgrace dis-grace or the lure of fame. Character Charac-ter is our authentic self, not as others see us or as reported in the newspapers but, as we are, stripped of all titles, devoid of possessions, pos-sessions, minus the role playing and acting. Character is the real stuff-the final substance of all personality reduction. The short prayer of Socrates gave us direction direc-tion for the proper focus of public education: "Give me beauty int he inward soul," he pleaded. Regardless Regard-less of any other outcomes, unless our education system develops strength of character-it has failed. With all of our learning, then, let us gain wisdom: the wisdom which focuses on principles, promotes service to mankind, and develops character. school it stars and sports heroes. (No one took a teacher. I'll get over it.) Then I got Charlie's paper. He wrote: "I live with my parents and my two little brothers. I could never leave one of them behind to die, so I would give up my place so they could go. Maybe the scientists scien-tists were wrong. If they were right, I would help them build a laser and blast the comet before it hit. Then I would take the next ship and catch up with my fami- Now I was lost. I had no place to put the grade. Where could I Eut an A-plus in compassion or umanity or hope? i Test scores do give us measurements meas-urements of some types of progress. Charlie is my reminder that we do not always take the trouble to measure what we may value the most. . I |