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Show New Utah American Fork Citizen - Thursday, March 27, 2003 - Page 10 Police Continued from front page addition of a full time School Resource Officer at American Fork Junior High School this year and increased enforcement. In other areas, burglaries were up by 13 percent over the previous year; assaults, 27 percent; thefts, 22 percent; per-cent; and family fights, 27 percent. A breakdown of the burglaries shows there were Hfi residential burglaries, burgla-ries, 78 business burglaries and 23") auto burglaries or parts theft. Of the 149 assaults investigated, 121 were simple assaults and 19 aggravated assaults. Officers were called to 139 violent family disturbances, distur-bances, 122 non-violent, 91 protective order violations and 52 child abuseneglect reports. In other areas, there were seven rape arid 58 sex offenses investigated, as well as 613 larceny reports (compared to 502 in 2001), 53 auto thefts, 107 disorderly disorder-ly conduct, 342 criminal mischief, and 67 runaways. One hundred twenty-two motorists were arrested for driving under the influence, and there were 228 drug offense arrests. This was up from 170 the previous year. During the year, six officers offi-cers were assaulted. There were 845 adults and 844 juvenileg arrested. Traffic citations issued were down from 6,340 to 5,774, and there was a slight decrease in the number num-ber of tralfic accidents, 850 A A A 800 I V V TOO j' feurf too " "55(t' 500 ml -e-cu soo r A 200 V1T 100 II mlZP f f f f Graphs show dramatic changes in American Fork's traffic traf-fic through the years. The traffic offenses have decreased, while Injury accidents have increased. That increase is attributed to the volume of traffic, while the decrease in offenses is credited to new traffic officers. compared to 893 the year before. Fox said the decrease in the past several years was due to the department's new traffic division. "The accident rate skyrocketed sky-rocketed until we started the traffic division he said. "I think traffic is still our number one problem in the community." "We want to keep our citizens cit-izens safe," he added. The bottom line is that we are having fewer people hurt." Officers teach the DARE program at seven elementary elemen-tary schools in American Fork and Cedar Hills. This year about 670 sixth grade students will take part in the core DARE program, which lasts 17 weeks. Additionally, Addi-tionally, a one-time "Visitation "Visita-tion Class" is given to every class in grades kindergarten kinder-garten through five at each school. In 2000, the DARE officers also began teaching the I-SAFE Internet Safety curriculum which was developed by officers from the department as part of the course. American Fork was one of the first communities in Utah to have police initiate an independent traffic school program with the first classes taught in 1996. Since that time, thousands of citizens have been taught the fundamentals of safe driving, providing an alternative alter-native to the court system and costly insurance premium premi-um increases. In 2002, a total of 3,301 people attended the traffic school with the highest number, 407, attending in April. A close second was February with 372 in attendance. 0 Recorders Continued from front page record and amend the council coun-cil minutes, preserve records, documents, maps and statistics. Their assignments assign-ments are frequently varied and the "unexpected" can always be expected. They are familiar with that most dreaded of all job description descrip-tion terminology "and other duties as assigned." The city recorder is routinely rou-tinely requested to formulate formu-late special letters being sent to special people. On Jan. 17, 1934, under the administration of Mayor William S. Storrs, the City Council declared the recent Civil Works Project (CWA) a success. The continuation of the program was supported by resolution. The program was to continue con-tinue until June 15, 1934, and the council wanted to be assured that American Fork receive a share of the funds. This was a means of providing relief for the many unemployed residents. resi-dents. It was decided that recorder (Thomas A.) Bar-ratt Bar-ratt formulate the documents. docu-ments. He was to send a registered letter to President Presi-dent (Franklin Delano) Roo sevelt "expressing our appreciation' for the splendid splen-did work that is being accomplished and the need for continuing the same." The letter to the president presi-dent was to be signed by the mayor and the chairman of the American Fork Democratic Democ-ratic Party. The resolution, to be sent to Congressman J. W. Robinson, was to be signed by the mayor -and all members mem-bers of the City Council. The next city recorder, Karl H.Bennett, served from 1936 until he declined to run for office in the 1945 election, knowing that work in the public sector would pay much higher wages. Ray C. Nelson was returning from an overseas tour of duty with the mili-, tary. En route from England he became ill and was hospitalized hos-pitalized with surgery for appendicitis. When his mother, Stella Conder Nelson, discovered that Bennett would not be a candidate, she thought her son, a graduate of Brigham Young University and a Republican, would be perfect per-fect for the position. She sent the following telegram to Ray in a military mili-tary hospital: "Will you run for City Recorder? How did the surgery go?" Ray sent this telegram: "No. Surgery, okay." By some happenstance, the telegram was delivered to Mrs. Nelson as follows: "No surgery. Okay." Thinking this was an approval, she went ahead and filed his papers for nomination as a candidate. By the time he returned home, he was elected as the new City Recorder. The rest, as the saying goes, is histo-ry! histo-ry! Nelson served in various capacities for American Fork City for 36 years. Theft in American Fork has Increased again In recent years, while sexual sex-ual abuse, driving under the Influence and accl-dents accl-dents have remained fairly consistent con-sistent in The total number num-ber of accidents has Increased nearly constantly and criminal crimi-nal mischief mis-chief has also risen. Cj J".; fcAJ 1 - . i" jl f I y ' 4 K A ' ' ' "" " 4P . ,yr r . l In' j v & r r4 ' S A The American Fork Police Beat includes: American Fork experienced increases in several areas of crime and decreases in others during 2002, according to the year end report compiled by police and presented present-ed to the city council. A high point of the year was the completion com-pletion and dedication of the new police and courts building, which is expected to serve the needs of the citizens for many decades. In addition to their regular duties, officers offi-cers were involved in several major events, including the Olympic Torch Run. The report showed the area of crime showing the biggest increase was fraud and forgery, said Police Chief Terry Fox. There was a 72 percent rise in reported offenses over the previous year, 277 cases compared to 161 in 2001. Fox said this area was related to the economy. "Until we get out of the recession, we are going to see our minor incidents continue con-tinue to grow," he said. "I appeal to the citizens cit-izens to watch out for each other." A corresponding decrease in robberies showed none during 2002, compared to 10 in 2001. Another dramatic rise was' in the number num-ber of juvenile arrests, with 436 in 2001, increasing to 844 in 2002, nearly double in number. This may be attributed in part, Fox said, to the addition of a full time School Resource Officer at American Fork Junior High School this year and increased enforcement. In other areas, burglaries were up by 13 percent over the previous year; assaults, 27 percent; thefts, 22 percent; and family fights, 27 percent A breakdown of the burglaries bur-glaries shows there' were 86 residential burglaries, 78 business burglaries and 235 auto burglaries or parts theft. Of the 149 assaults investigated, 121 were simple assaults and 19 aggravated assaults. Officers were called to 139 violent family fami-ly disturbances, 122 non-violent, 91 protective pro-tective order violations and 52 child abuseneglect reports. In other areas there were seven rape and 58 sex offenses investigated, as well as 613 larceny reports (compared to 502 in 2001), 53 auto thefts, 107 disorderly conduct, con-duct, 342 criminal mischief, and 67 runaways.' run-aways.' One hundred twenty-two motorists were arrested for driving under the influence, influ-ence, and there were 228 drug offense arrests. This was up from 170 the previous year. During the year, six officers were assaulted. There were 845 adults and 844 juveniles arrested. Traffic citations issued were down from 6,340 to 5,774, and there was a slight decrease in the number of traffic accidents, acci-dents, 850 compared to 893 the year before. Fox said the decrease in the past several sever-al years was due to the department's new traffic division. "The accident rate skyrocketed until we started the traffic division," he said. "I think traffic is still our number one problem prob-lem in the community." "We want to keep our citizens safe," he added. "The bottom line is that we are having hav-ing fewer people hurt." Officers teach the DARE program at seven elementary schools in American Fork and Cedar Hills. This year about 670 sixth grade students will take part in the core DARE program, which lasts 17 weeks. Additionally, a one-time "Visitation Class" is given to every class in grades kindergarten through five at each school. In 2000, the DARE officers also began teaching the I-SAFF Internet Safety curriculum cur-riculum which was developed by officers from the department as part of the course, j American Fork was one of the first communities com-munities in Utah to have police initiate an independent traffic school program with the first classes taught in 1996. Since that time, thousands of citizens have been taught the fundamentals of safe driving, providing an alternative to the court system sys-tem and costly insurance premium increases. In 2002, a total of 3,301 people attended the traffic school with the highest high-est number, 407, attending in April. A close second was February with 372 in attendance. Call 756-7669 to place a classified ad B-DECK W-DECK IN STOCK! 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