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Show OREM TIMES Thursday, September 14, 2006 Page 2 NEWS AND NOTES TO KEEP YOU INFORMED AND INVOLVED Mosauito Abatement director honored he Utah County Health Department De-partment recognized Bob Mower of Orem with its Employee of the Quarter Award. "We love to take this time to recognize our employees," commented Dr. Joseph Miner, the Health apartment's executive ex-ecutive director. "Their co-workers always have such wonderful things to say about them, and we appreciate all the time, effort and dedication they give to the Health Department and citizens of the county." Mower started working with the Mosquito Abatement Division 26 years ago. At the time, he thought it was the perfect "summer job" as he could recharge his batteries in the outdoors while earning some extra summer money. After teaching biology at Orem High Sch(xl for 32 years, he left teaching to become the Health Department's Mosquito Mos-quito Abatement director in 2006. He started heading up the division just as West Nile virus came into the state and has worked tirelessly to help protect Utah County residents. Mower is well qualified for this new position, Miner said. He met with the county commissioners and requested additional funding for aerial spraying if West Nile virus became a problem in Utah County. It turned out to be a very bad year and the Health Department has sprayed about 5,000 acres by air. Mower has upgraded the maps, making mak-ing it well organized and easy to keep track of work in progress. He makes sure the new workers are well trained and know their areas. OREM CITY BRIEFS I Patricia Ann Beaty, O.D., F.A.A.O., was named president of the Utah Opto- r 'far l ft. or ,; v ' t f: Utah County Health Department Dr. Joseph Miner, director of the Utah County Health Department, presents Bob Mower with Employee of the Quarter. metric Association (UOA) at its annual summer convention in Park City. "The president of the UOA bears the responsibility of representing optometrists statewide in preserving high standards of eye health care and furthering the practice of optometry," said Clive Watson, UOA executive director. Beaty previously served on the UOA board of directors. She is also a member of the American Academy of Optometry. She is currently a visiting lecturer at Brigham Young University. Since 1994, Beaty has been the clinical clini-cal director at The Cataract and Lasik Center of Utah in Orem. Dr. Beaty obtained a bachelor's degree from Indiana University. She received her doctor of optometry degree de-gree from Indiana University School of Optometry in 1992. I The Orem City Beautif ication Commission Com-mission has recognized 12 homes for its September beautification awards. The following homes have been singled sin-gled out for the award. Lorna Call, 1050 N. 100 West; Art and Denise Leifer, 349 E. 1250 North; Emma and Al Smith, 726 E. 550 South; Don and LaRaine Littleford, 145 N. 400 East; Jean Mc Pherron, 241 W. 1880 South; Mark and JoLynne Miner, 105 W. Hidden Hollow Drive; Maynard and Mar Jean Anderson, 1095 N. 700 West; Brad and Shelli Payne, 736 W. 1800 North; Robert and Elaine Millet, 240 W. 765 South; Jalane Olsen, 739 S. 200 West; Randy and Debbie Chris-tensen, Chris-tensen, 825 W. 450 North; and Mary-anne Mary-anne Anderson, 640 W. 400 North. Ordinance Continued from lJuge 1 cilities. Group homes for the elderly, the disabled, and juveniles juve-niles with behavioral problems are now permitted in residential residen-tial neighborhoods, following Tuesday's vote. Steve Earl, an attorney with the city's legal department, presented the agenda item and said the ordinance is intended to permit group homes for "individuals "in-dividuals who would not constitute con-stitute a threat to the neighborhoods, neighbor-hoods, but could benefit from a group home setting." Earl emphasized that the youth transitional homes would not be dealing with juveniles ju-veniles who are in the criminal justice system. The new ordinance also limits the number of people who can live in a group home in a residential neighborhood to eight. Previously, the ordinance ordi-nance had no limit for disabled persons in a residential facility, facil-ity, and allowed up to 16 in a small, assisted living facility. As approved, the law also eliminates a spacing requirement require-ment for facilities for the disabled, dis-abled, because it is unenforceable unenforce-able under the Fair Housing Act, according to the city attorney's at-torney's office. The definition of "disability" now conforms to definitions contained in federal fed-eral law. Three off-street parking stalls for each facility are now required, where before, only one stall for every four bedrooms bed-rooms was mandated. "We are becoming more restrictive, not more lenient here," Earl said, noting that the ordinance can be revisited if it does not prove to be restrictive re-strictive enough. Carpool Continued from Page 1 "The first few days, it was ugly," Moss said. To help alleviate the congestion, conges-tion, parents have created a carpool pickup system in cooperation with the school in which they've organized themselves them-selves into car pools and each vehicle is assigned a number, she said. The students in each carpool wait in their classroom class-room until their ride arrives and their carpool number is announced over the school's intercom. Moss said school officials have been working with Orem police to resolve any traffic issues is-sues and are also considering a request to the city to have the stoplights on 400 South synchronized. School administrators are The safety of the students is our foremost concern. Sharon Moss NOAH WEBSTER ACADEMY FOUNDER AND ADMINISTRATOR also seeking a way to prevent some westbound drivers from speeding up in the area of the school to make the traffic light at State Street, she said. They're looking into the possibility pos-sibility of extending the school zone surrounding Scera Park Elementary School just east of Noah Webster Academy on 400 South to include the charter char-ter school. Currently, Moss said, the school zone ends a few hundred hun-dred yards east of Noah Webster Web-ster Academy. Though the school has a few walking students, none is crossing 400 South near the school, she said, though some may cross at the State Street intersection. "The safety of the students is our foremost concern," Moss said. Apparently, the school's efforts to ameliorate the congestion con-gestion are paying off. Moss said the after-school carpool pickup time has been reduced to 20 minutes and there are fewer backups on 400 South. "Parents are seeing an improvement," im-provement," she said. "What we're doing right now is working." NorthCounty NEWSPAPERS ' 399 E State St Pleasant Grove Phone: 756-7669 Fax: 756-5274 Kirk Parkinson 443 3250 Vice PresidentPublisher kparkmsonheraldextra.com Marc Haddock 443 3268 North County Editor mhaddock heraldextra com Cathy Allred 443 3262 Lehi, Saratoga Springs, PI. Grove callredheraldextra.com Barbara Christiansen 443 -3264 American Fork. Alpine. Cedar Hills bchristiansen heraldextra com Mike Rigert 443 3265 Orem, Vineyard mrigertheraldextra.com Beky Beaton 443 3267 Sports bbeaton heraldextra com DAILT EBBiLD PUBLISHING OO. r.VlTt.HMl.TI Josh Walker 443 3260 Advertising Account Executive jwalkerheraldextra.com Jennette Esplin 756-7669 Office Manager Erin Stewart 344 2558 Protect Coordinator, DesignerCopy Editor Rachel Bentiey 344-2570 DesignerCopy Editor Jeremy Harmon 344 2585 Photographer Volume 134 Issue 37 Oreni Imes Daily HtaU edition USPS 411-700 a weekly newspaper published at 399 E State St Pleasant Grove Utah 84063 Henodeats postage pad at Pleasant Grove Utah 84062 and at additional madtTy olces Poatiwair: Send address changes to Orem T mes. P 0 Box 65. Orem. Utah 840S9 006b Puornhed thursdays by Lee Publications, wnrch s a division of Lee Enterprises Inc Member Audit Bureau of emulations Fond memories of elementary Give us a call at 756-7669 I went to my 35-year high school reunion two years ago and nobody recognized me. I hadn't seen many of these people for 20 years or more, and many of us change a lot in those years between being teen-aged and middle-aged. Apparently I had changed more than most, since I recognized almost everybody, but nobody could figure out who I was until I told them. So if you were to gather with your friends from elementary school after 40 years, how many people would you recognize? Of course, most of us don't have elementary school reunions, because many of the same people in our second sec-ond grade class also graduated from high school with us. This was particularly true in the small town I came from because we only had one elementary elementa-ry school, one junior high and one high school, and people didn't move much. We basically knew everybody from kindergarten through to high school graduation. But while I remember high school as a pretty painful experience, adolescence being the traumatic trau-matic experience that it is, I probably learned more about dealing with people in the six years I spent wandering the halls of A.J. Winters Elementary El-ementary School than I ever did in high school. Before there was pre-school, elementary school was your first opportunity to learn to deal with social groups. It was where you learned if you were cool or not a status that usually carried through all the way to the senior se-nior class. It was where you learned to avoid the playground play-ground bullies and how to curry favor with the teacher. My favorite game was four-square. Do they still play that? My favorite teacher was Mrs. Esterholdt, who taught third grade. I would never want to go back, but that school yard helped mold part of my personality. personal-ity. I carry it with me every day. So I can understand why several of our schools are inviting the community to help celebrate cele-brate milestones this year. Windsor Elementary in Orem and Greenwood Elementary in American Ameri-can Fork are commemorating their 50th year. That's a lot of kids walking down those halls! 'V Marc Haddock THE EDITOR'S COLUMN The one that strikes closest to home, however, is Shelley Elementary, Elemen-tary, which will celebrate its 40th year on Friday with most appropriately appro-priately its annual Fall Carnival. I got to know Shelley Elementary quite well from 1982-1996, not as a student, but as a parent of several students. Over that 14-year period I had at least one child attending school there, starting with my daughter, who was in the first grade when we moved to American Fork. For a brief time I had three children and three stepchildren enrolled in classes at Shelley all at once. During those years, the elementary elemen-tary school was an important part of our lives. We were associated with the school at least twice as long as any one of our kids were. I spent time there reading, with the first- and second-graders. I enjoyed en-joyed that because I think reading is important. I helped out with a couple of class projects, went on field trips to the Utah State Fair as a chaperone and used the school gym as a practice prac-tice area for several basketball teams made up of little girls. I always thought my kids got a good education educa-tion at Shelley Elementary because most of the teachers cared about who and what they were teaching. Sharlene Ricks helped my daughter Erin appreciate Sherlock Holmes. And our house is still decorated with artwork cast in clay in Joseph Germaine's art classes many years ago. One very large and heavy brontosaurus created creat-ed by Derek still roams among the houseplants. My kids were also taught by Anita Lyons, Nancy Knowles, Robert Larson and David Bird. All of these men and women still teach at Shelley. I don't think a person can teach in the same elementary school for 20 years if they don't care about the kids. Our kids are grown now. We have two grandsons in second grade, and four more grandchildren starting kindergarten this year. I would hope they can have the same kind of experience we had at Shelley Elementary. These schools are the backbone of our public education system. They deserve all the happy birthdays they can get. Meth Continued from Page 1 husband he'd seen people coming and going from the home at odd hours of the night that there were late night parties and alleged there was drug activity in the home. "He recommended we have it tested," Cynthia said. They contacted Kyle Adams Ad-ams of Low Cost Cleanup and Restoration, an experienced expe-rienced methamphetamine tester and former narcotics police officer, who tested several areas of the home. A few days later the Hal-lidays Hal-lidays got a call from Adams urging them to leave the home immediately because it was contaminated with methamphetamine. "It was a horrible feeling. You feel like you're carrying carry-ing poison. ... Here we've lived in the house for five months," Cynthia said. Adams said because the Hallidays had painted all the rooms, they may have unknowingly covered telltale tell-tale warning signs of methamphetamine meth-amphetamine cooking or use, including yellowish to rust-colored hydrogen iodide stains, a chemical gas emitted emit-ted by the drug. Because of the contamination, contamina-tion, the Hallidays say they lost all their possessions including furniture, appliances, appli-ances, TVs and electronics equipment, a piano and their clothing. But what's worse is they lost irreplaceable sentimental sentimen-tal items and heirlooms such as Cynthia's book collection and oil paintings done by Paul's grandmother. He also lost a harmonica he played with his late father. "The afghan was from his mother. She passed away two months ago," Cynthia said. "You can't replace it." Of more concern is the Hallidays' fear of the short-and short-and long-term health effects of living in the toxin-filled home for five months. Cynthia is pregnant with the couple's first child. She experienced bouts with skins rashes, coughing and diarrhea while living in the home. The couple chalked the symptoms up to heat and stress, and would have never guessed they might be from exposure to methamphetamine. metham-phetamine. Based on information on methamphetamine exposure on the state's Department of Safety Web site, it's unclear whether the symptoms the Hallidays experienced are consistent with exposure to methamphetamines or the chemicals used to make the illegal narcotic. "Doctors all say at this point 'We know you're exposed, ex-posed, but we can't tell you what's going to happen. ... It's too early to tell you how it affected your child,' " Cynthia Cyn-thia said. The couple's finances are in tatters. They're stuck paying $1,200 a month mortgage mort-gage payments on the home they can't live in, combined with a $600 a month apartment apart-ment rental payment. In Utah, homes contaminated contami-nated with toxins such as methamphetamine must be decontaminated and pass a state-administered test before being reoccupied, Adams Ad-ams said. One estimate the Hallidays Hal-lidays received from a certified specialist indicated the decontamination of the home could run anywhere between $5,000 and $15,000, according to the lawsuit. Even if the home were decontaminated, de-contaminated, Cynthia said the couple would not move back in. "We were so scared of living in that place, we don't want to have any contact with anything in it," she said. Adams recommends that prospective homebuyers look for chemical stains, talk to neighbors and even request a report on the past criminal history of a property prop-erty from police. If those three measures raise eyebrows, Adams said buyers should research meth testing companies and spend the money to have the home tested. No one living at the home before the Hallidays had been convicted of meth use or manufacturing. A self -administered test can be purchased from Datacam Laboratories in Salt Lake City for $30 and Adams's charges start at $100 for a test. A list of certified cer-tified testing companies can be obtained from the county health department. POOR liiedlhdh 4kJb Pallia |