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Show American Fork CitizenLone Peak Press - Thursday, November 4, 2004 - Page 2 Opinion Live near wildlands at your own risk It's as predictable as death and taxes. Every year residents who move into property bordering on wildlands, pepper city and county officials with complaints about situations which arise because of our continuing encroachments into natural habitats and ever-higher ever-higher locations on the hillsides. Here's just a sample of things that have happened in our communities com-munities the past few years: Homeowners fill in irrigation ditches, and then they complain when the irrigation company digs up the easement so water can run. Or, the water comes down the blocked ditch and then floods several neighboring homes, and the owner who filled in the ditch wants someone else to pay for the damage. Wildfires on the hillsides threaten buildings, and local firefighters fire-fighters strive valiantly to preserve pre-serve homes whose owners have ignored their own fire chiefB recommendations rec-ommendations to improve their chances of surviving a fire. Sometimes, Some-times, the fire wins. Those who live below burned-out slopes are subjected to mudslides during heavy rainstorms. rain-storms. First heavy snow cover, then drought have driven deer into backyards looking for forage, and owners are upset about losing their expensive landscaping. Low water levels have caused difficulty in pumping enough water to high-elevation properties to keep plants more suited to Michigan than Utah alive during hot, dry summers. We have the freedom to lose My colleague, T.J., lived most of his life in .. . well, let's just say he lived in a country very different from the United States of America and leave it at that, shall we? Consequently, he has been more than a little interested in watching the American political process unfold during the past year especially espe-cially during the last few months. As you might expect, he has had hundreds hun-dreds of questions about everything from Al Gore to Zeb Miller. "It is surprising to me," he said one day, "that in a county that seems to be so committed to the concept of monogamy, that your ruler would have more than one spouse." "More than one . . T I started to ask. Then it hit me: he'd been watching watch-ing Rumor, Slander and Innuendo Week on the History Channel again. The only question was, which presidential indiscretion was I going to have to explain? The slave? The driver? The movie star? The intern? Thankfully, T. J. actually bailed me out himself "I hear all about the First Lady" he said, "but I never hear about the Second Lady. I assume there must be a Second if there is a First Correct?" Cor-rect?" Thankfully I had an answer for his semantic confusion. So now T.J. has a pretty good handle on presidential presi-dential monogamy (which is more than I can say for some of our former presidents ... but I digress). That leaves two things about American elections he's having a hard time comprehending. First, he doesn't understand how powerful and popular popu-lar candidates, each with millions of passionate supporters, can appear to be so angry at each other without throwing down the gloves and physically phys-ically attacking each other or urging urg-ing their followers to do so. They insult each other, then they smile and shake hands," he said, shaking his head. It seems so dishonest dis-honest and uncivilized." The second thing he struggles with is the whole concept of losing. "In my country we vote, but usually usu-ally there is only one name on the ballot," he said. "So nobody loses. You Insects move down from the hills and ravage already-weakened vegetation. The Constitution gives everyone every-one the right to buy property wherever they want, and we understand what draws people to these areas. Buyers just need to be aware of the natural consequences conse-quences of living by wildlands and accept them as part of the trade-off. Of course, people also have the right to complain whenever they want. Just don't expect your city governments and your tax-paying neighbors to be sympathetic about fixing your foreseeable problems; after all, you bought the property, they didn't. Don't plan on the developers doing anything for you either; if you had doubts about these issues, you should have asked before you signed on the dotted line. They got their money, and that's all you should expect them to care about. . And although it would be nice, it's beyond reasonable to expect them to educate buyers about the entire range of potential hazards. The Constitution doesn't guarantee guaran-tee protection from our own stupidity, stu-pidity, even though there are a lot of people making money in the courts trying to interpret it that way. Last but not least, don't expect the irrigation company, grasshoppers, grasshop-pers, rattlesnakes, deer or cougars to leave just because you happened to decide to move into the neighborhood. After all, they were there first. Uik V1 just vote to say you approve of the selected candidate. It must be a difficult diffi-cult thing to lose and to experience such shame in such a public way." Difficult? Yes. But shameful? No way. In fact, losing an election is one of the most remarkable things about democracy. Implicit within the concept con-cept of freedom is the opportunity to succeed AND fail. It is our choice whether or not we will run for public office; it is the choice of the people whether we will win or lose. Freedom Free-dom and choice are the key elements here: we are free to run for public office, the electorate is free to choose from a slate of (more or less) qualified quali-fied candidates, and everyone is free to win and to lose. Of course, losing an election is never easy theoretical nobility aside. So much time, energy, effort and money are invested in the campaign cam-paign by candidates and supporters alike. After spending months raging about the inability of your opponent to do the job, it is difficult to turn the other political cheek and offer your support to the people's choice. Difficult but not impossible For that is what democracy demands of candidates and their supporters. You see, we don't do coups in this country. We don't do riots in the streets (unless we've won an important impor-tant ball game, in which case all bets are off). That isn't how we deal with Election Day defeat We understand the people have spoken, and we graciously gra-ciously accept their will narrow though the margin of defeat may be. Oh sure, we may have hurt feelings, feel-ings, heartache and, occasionally, hanging chads. But ultimately, we have order. And discipline. And profound belief in a system that produces patriots who are winners win-ners as well as patriots who are losers. We are at the I know Bomebody always has to be the first one. It's just that 99 million times out of 99,000,001 it is somebody else. This time it is American Fork's turn to be at the beginning of the line. Admittedly, in the grand scheme of things, being the first in the country to have a new design for an Arby's restaurant is not at the top of the scale. However, How-ever, it still makes it interesting. The new Arby's which opened yesterday at The Meadows is a prototype of the Pinnacle 3000 design, which the company is trying out. If it is successful here, then it will be implemented in other locations. How does that make us feel? Well, I had a chance to tour the facility before its official opening. I had heard about the new design before I went there, and I was expecting something a little different. Somehow I thought it would be more futuristic futuris-tic than it actually is. That's fine. I'd rather eat my Actually, Mr. Okay, this will date me, for' better or worse, so take it how you want. When I was young, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood was always on after Sesame Street. I always watched Sesame Street always. I can even still sing those 70s ditties, like the disco song, "Gimme Five!" I can also still sing the one my mother hated because it went on forever, "There's a Hole in the Bucket." But I always turned off the TV before Mr. Rogers came on, much to my grandmother's frustration. She loved Mr. Rogers and made us watch it whenever we were over at her house. But to me, back then, he was too slow and "boring." And the puppets in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe were all kinda spooky-looking, especially that one, Lady Elaine, I think, the one who called everyone every-one "Toots." Well, now, I'm a mom with a toddler who gets up early enough to watch Mr. Rogers (6 a.m. on KUED, by the way.) And Cedar Fort At its council meeting on Tuesday. Nov. 9, the Cedar Fort Town Council will consider and vote on a contract with the Utah County Sheriffs Office for a part-time deputy to provide police protection for the town. Other tentative agenda items include a building permit for a proposed commercial building to house an IFA franchise, a resolution resolu-tion on a pre-disaster plan, and an abandoned vehicle ordinance. Cedar Fort The most recent water test from the well at the Cedar Fort Community Center certified the center's well water as safe. The water had failed a previous previ-ous test, and signs were posted on all water faucets in the center warning people not to drink the water. The signs have now been removed, and the water is considered con-sidered safe to drink. The town's municipal water comes from a separate source, and was never in question. Cedar Fort Mayor Jeanine Cook said at the Oct. 12 Town Council meeting meet-ing that results from the flow and pressure tests on the town's test well will be delayed by a month because the test was interrupted. Someone turned off the valve during the first week of information informa-tion gathering. i". When the interruption was discovered, the test had to be started over. pinnacle mm aw i4v mmmmmmmemmamm food in a place that looks more like a restaurant than a space shuttle. Ordering the food was quite pleasant the choices were very readable and well marked. The semi-circular configuration of the ordering window was part of the new design. It allows more access for the customer and a better working pattern for the kitchen. That sounds like it would be a good combination. Meeting Oven Mitt and having hav-ing a quick "conversation" was also interesting. It's not something some-thing you get to do every day. The general manager, Tammy Dozier, sat down to visit with me for a few minutes. Rogers was actually pretty cool at that early in the morning, through my groggy morning fog, Mr. Rogers is just my s-p-e-e-d. So, after many, many mornings of watching him, I finally get it I finally appreciate what he did, and still does, for young kids. Without all that spastic, action-saturated, over-stimulating bright colored flair so many shows rely on today, Mr. Rogers really candidly and straightforwardly straightfor-wardly taught children. He didn't did-n't soup it up in a bright purple suit or use digital enhancements, enhance-ments, he just said, "Hello neigh bor, I've got something to show you," and we were learning about tractors, emotions, food, art, music, disabilities, exercise, fitenniO(Iiii?iJ ii iii in i Eagle Mtn. The City of Eagle Mountain is proposing to apply for grant money for neighborhood streetlights street-lights in the City Center, said Adam Lenhard, city planner. Discussed Dis-cussed at a City Council meeting on Oct. 19, the grant would be provided by the Community Development Block Grant. It uses federal funds from the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to benefit low- to moderate-income housing, Lenhard said. Lenhard said the strongest case the city had to receive the CDBG money was to propose the neighborhood streetlights street-lights plan. The city is planning to put the streetlights in City Center neighborhoods that were not planned with lights. Lenhard said the project specifically targets low to moderate-income housing, and there is a real need for the project. Cameron Baker, governor, and Caleb Cox, It. governor, were selected at Boys State this summer sum-mer and will serve in the 2005 Boys State program. The LHS seniors ran on the Federalist Party ticket against the Nationalists National-ists and were voted in by a majority major-ity of approximately 60 delegates at the primary. The delegates were voted in by about 300 "citizens." Boys State and Girls State host students from every high school in Utah. First the boys divide into cities and four countries. Those who choose to run for city office are selected, and then the students stu-dents elect a party chairman. Lehi ? for a moment Despite the chaos of the open ing evening, she was very gracious gra-cious and took time to answer my questions. She explained the kitchen was expanded to allow twice as many workers as previous versions of the restaurant. State-of-the-art equipment cooks the food and keeps it at the right temperature for serving, while maintaining its freshness with liquid so it does not go stale. Dozier was obviously enthusiastic enthusi-astic about the facility, and it appears it is justifiable. Even more rewarding, however, howev-er, was her praise for the community commu-nity and the people she had met and worked with to get the restaurant off the ground. She had many good words to say about the personnel and how excited she was to be here. We are excited, too, to be at the forefront of an experiment. It may not be earth-shattering, but still we can say we were among the first in the nation and the world, for that matter. etc. My son and I especially like his Picture-Picture, because we get to learn how so many things are made. Mr. Rogers always picked the coolest things to find out about, from kazoos, to dolls, to jeans or toy trucks. And you can tell, by watching him, he really enjoyed what he was doing on his show. He really was learning, too. And that is always the sign of a magical teacher one who discovers along with you. So, I'm much belated in my appreciation, but finally I've joined the ranks of Mr. Rogers' fans, and I say thank you to those many companies and TV stations out there that sponsor excellent shows like his. With all that competes for our children's attention, I'm grateful there are still a few shows that put teaching first, and simple entertainment second. That Lady Elaine still spooks me though. Hffe City, the Lehi CIA, Lehi High School and the Lehi American Legion Post 19 co-sponsor the Lehi delegates for both programs. LeW The Lehi Officer of the Year is Jeremy Elswood. City manager Ed Collins made the announcement, announce-ment, and he gave out the award at the Oct. 12 City Council meeting. meet-ing. Selected for the honor by bis peers, Elswood is the LPD canine officer and a member of the SWAT team. According to Chad Smith, Lehi police chief, Elswood, has taken hours of training with the department's law enforcement enforce-ment canine Inzo, loves the community, com-munity, helps other officers with training, does a lot of community awareness, teaches in the schools, churches and for other 'civic organizations. Elswood began working for the city in July 2000. Lindon Brigham Ashton and Ryan Schill said they hoped London's City Council would approve then-proposal then-proposal to realign Lakeview Drive Oct. 5. No residents objected object-ed to closing the current intersection inter-section and shifting Lakeview Drive south to intersect State Street at 200 North. Lindon's current master transportation plan shows 400 North continuing past State Street and among into 400 West, but Fellowship Bible Church is at 400 N. State Street, and as for right now, there are no plans to put the road through. No council members objected. POO i |