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Show American Fork Cili.en - Thursday, March 10. 2(X)5 - Page 2 Opinion More time for writing, editing UVSC deserves the money B ack if) 0 tober. it looked like someone in the legislature would use budget drafting riowers to punish Utah Valley State College after students stu-dents invited controversial filmmaker film-maker Michael Moore to campus. It didn't (dine up in the 2005 session, however, and I'VSC came oui of the budget process in fairly good condition, with $i,7 million in new funds on top of the current s 1 1 7 million in slate money While UVSC didn't get its new hhrary, it ilui secure funding for the operation and maintenance of it - Wasati h ( 'ampus and for the Liberal Arts and Kducation buildings build-ings on the Orem campus. The college had to pull from other fund- for those buildings, and can now u-e that money for educa-t educa-t lonal purposes instead. UVSC also took a small step closer to par ity with other higher education institutions in the state Tlie Legislature approved 2 million as an institutional funding correction. The state's contribution is ti.7 percent of the college's budget, which forced students to shoulder more of the financial burden through tuition. It is the lowest percentage of the stale's nme colleges and universities universi-ties and tile only one below the .0 percent mark. By contrast, the College of Kastern Utah based in Price, is almost fully funded, with .9 percent of its operating budget coming from the state. IT, i .i 2 million Ix)st is terrific. terrif-ic. aiu more than UVSC expected. Whatever the weather ... It was an unusually hectic Friday Fri-day morning, and Anita and I were trying to make weekend plans on our wav out the door My suggestion was sleeping Ltt having hav-ing brunch, sprawling out in front of the TV to watch college basketball basket-ball and then going to a movie or something Anita was thinking of something more along the lines of getting up early and going for an invigorating walk, doing some woik in the yard, shopping for groceries gro-ceries and then going to a movie. Well, at least we agreed on the :no ic Wir.ih plan we were going to t.illow pretty much hinged on the weather Inclement weather meant sleeping, eating and sprawling ( "mod weather meant . . . you know work. We lixiked outside, where a clear spring morning was smiling smil-ing on every unkempt corner of our yard A wickedly triumphant ghmmer sparkled in Anita's eyes Hut I still had bore. We have a saving around here this time of year If you don't like the weather, w.ut a few minutes. As if on cue. the weather guy-bounded guy-bounded onto our TV screen You know that he's the weather guy because he's not wearing a tie and he !ounds i serious journalists journal-ists wear ties and almost never bound'. We lingered to see if the weather guy would settle our weekend plans Tet's go to the radar to see what happened outside while you were sleeping . . " "I don't care atxiut the weather while I was sleeping." I said i yeah. I talk back to the TV - doesn't everyln)dy?i. "As long as there were no tornadoes or hurricanes that changed local topography. I'm t K with pretty much anything that happened during the night." ''"Now let's look at our Super Duper Whopper Dopier to see what's going on now . . "I can look outside to see what's going on now." I said, my voice rising slightly. "I just want to know if I'm going to need a . Hut it doesn't fully close the gap. It would take $43.9 million to bring the school to parity with other Utah schools. Part of the problem is that UVSC has leen seen for far too long as a sort of foster child in the higher education system. To many people, it is still Utah Technical College, the vocational school that picked up the kids who couldn't cut it in a "real" college. But UVSC, while retaining vocational programs, has evolved into a credible institution of higher education. edu-cation. It is one of the fastest-growing fastest-growing colleges in the state, offering 31 four-year degrees in fields such as aviation and education. educa-tion. It is a place where nontradi-tional nontradi-tional students can get the skills they need to adapt to 21st century centu-ry work force requirements. For many Utah County students, stu-dents, UVSC is their best opportunity opportu-nity to get a college education since it is closer to home than the other state-run four-year colleges. And it's more affordable and accessible than Rrigham Young University. UVSC helps ensure that our best and brightest stay here to help build up the state. We hope the Legislature will continue to beef up appropriations appropria-tions to UVSC. So far, it's looking good: The new library is now first on the priority list for the Legislature's Legisla-ture's 2(M)6 General Session. And with powerful allies like Gov. Huntsman, Lt. Gov. Herbert, Senate Sen-ate President John L. Valentine and House Majority Leader Jeff Alexander. UVSC should gain the respect it richly deserves. jacket today and what's it going to W like tomorrow." "lxt's really crank up the Super Duper Whopper Dopier to see that a wispy cloud is casting a slight shadow on this compost pile in a back yard on State Street . . " I was starting to fume now. "Oh. for the love of. . ." "I should know better than to let you watch the weather," Anita said. "Tell me if I need a jacket today and what I can plan on tomorrow." I groused. "That's all I want to know!" "Yes. dear." Anita said soothingly sooth-ingly as she tugged me toward the garage. "Save the technology for NASA and for people planning invasions and stuff." I continued. "I just want to know if I need a jacket." "And now. here's our forecast." We stopped and edged our way back toward the TV. "Today looks bright and balmy," the weather guy beamed, "hut there's a cold front moving in. and it looks like winter will be returning for the weekend." "I love this guy." I said, joyfully. joyful-ly. ''He's, like, NEVER wrong, is he0 I mean, look at all the great technology, the Super Woofer Weeder Tweeter and everything." "Grab your jacket." Anita said. "And rest up tonight you'll need it tomorrow." "But he said - "Exactly." Turns out I DID need the jacket jack-et that day. And I'm still recovering recover-ing from working in the warm sun all day Saturday I even got the Christmas lights down, believe it or not). But the yard looks better t we're ready for our close-up, Mr. Super Duper Whopper Whop-per Dopier!), the shopping is done and we saw a pretty good movie. It's amazing what can happen w hen you know who to trust. Astute readers may notice something different about this week's newspaper. We've combined the stories we classify as "celebrations" or "milestones" from all five of our weekly newspapers into one section. sec-tion. That means the pages containing con-taining stories about missionaries missionar-ies and weddings are the same in all the papers. This is not a precursor to consolidating con-solidating other parts of the paper. On the contrary, it is the first step towards making the other parts of each newspaper more focused on the community it covers than it may have been in the past. It is all part of a massive effort to redesign and redefine these community newspapers an effort that has been planned for almost three years. At the heart of the plan is moving the production part of the newspapers to Provo, where it will be put together by Daily Herald page designers and editors. edi-tors. That will free up our local weekly staff to spend more time Minutes stay It's been said before, but it is still true. The more things change, the more they stay the same. It seems I am not the only one who has been amazed at the consistency of issues through the years. At the last American Fork City Council work session, Mayor Ted Barratt was commenting com-menting about an issue he had reviewed in which the city was working to close rail crossings in order to open another one. That concern has been on the City Council's list for more than 10 years. It has been a campaign issue during the past few elections. elec-tions. Promises were made to move ahead to create a new-crossing new-crossing at 560 West. The issue has created headlines as various groups and factions have responded to proposals to close certain crossings in order to comply with requirements to open a new rail crossing. While that is certainly not news, since we have been watching watch-ing this at various stages for many years, Barratt said the issue has been around even longer. He cited articles he had read Natural beauty loses out as American Fork progresses 1 have been enjoying the progress American Fork has been making. The businesses that have recently moved in are adding an excellent tax revenue and the homes that are being built are bringing good people to our community. Amid all the good things, one particular event that happened a couple of weeks ago made me stop and think. The beautiful grove of trees that were east of Target was cut down. Now, Cedar Hills Open enrollment ends March 18 for the Lincoln Academy, a charter school opening in the fall, and serving students in K-8th grades. Residents can enroll at www. Lincoln-academy, org, by email at info2 Lincoln-academy.org, or by calling Sarah Smith at 437-6108. Eagle Mountain presented as Eagle c- - JsX. reporting and writing stories. For decades, producing the papers has been as large a part of the weekly newspaper operation opera-tion as the news gathering process. When I first came here in 1982, we would report, write and edit stories two or three days a week, and build pages for two days. And when I say build pages, I mean that we literally put the galleys of type on the page as if each one were a 14-inch-by-21-inch scrapbooking project. An Exacto knife and a metal ruler called a pica pole were essential tools of the trade. We used a proportion wheel to determine percentages to reproduce repro-duce the photos we would use in the newspaper. It took a lot of time to build our pages. Everybody partici the same through the years Office "i l.. iiiiui iiiii mm about that very topic, but they predated the earliest of this round of discussions by at least 10 years. It was City Recorder Richard Colborn who brought an even older version of a current topic to light. One of the most talked-about items in American Fork and Lehi recently has been a request by Costco to put a store in Lehi, bordering American Fork. The two cities had an agreement in place how the property should be split, but the retailer did not want to work with two communities. commu-nities. Some quick adjustments were made to enable the development devel-opment to move forward. The final documents have yet to be signed, but there is an agreement in principle. Colborn said he had been browsing some old city documents docu-ments and noted in 1873, there Readers' Forum because of progress, a sight I truly enjoyed is no longer there. It makes me lament the price of growth. We have a beautiful city, and I know that the Beauti-fication Beauti-fication Committee is putting in long hours trying to make it even more so. It's true that the new businesses that are built there will plant new trees, but do we always have to wait for beauty? Why shouldn't mature trees be planned into the development rather than be cut down? I understand that curb and gutter, sidewalks and entryways need to be put in for safety rea Mountain's Woman of The Year on Feb. 26 at the Miss Eagle Mountain Moun-tain Scholarship Pageant. A Utah County Sheriff Department honor guard, made up of Deputies Aaron Zimmer and Rick Schemway, escorted Murphy to the stage. After Bailey presented the award and roses to Murphy, she was given a standing ovation from a standing-room-only audience in a gym. Through the Miss Eagle Mountain Woman of the Year award, Murphy is a finalist for the State Woman of The Year. The pated, with each" person assigned specific pages each week. Like everything else, computers comput-ers have transformed the process. In the 1980s, we would have six or seven people working work-ing two days to build three newspapers. Now we do it much faster and with half as many people. But the process of producing pro-ducing the physical newspaper still takes up time that interferes inter-feres with our ability to gather the news. The changes you will see during dur-ing the next few weeks, starting with the consolidation of our "milestones" stories, are all designed to speed up actual production pro-duction of pages, and to free the staff in our American Fork office to write more and edit more. And in the end that should mean more local news. So if something seems different differ-ent this week, now you know why. Stay tuned. Next week, I promise, you won't believe what you see when you go to the mailbox to retrieve your hometown newspaper. were similar issues. A perusal of the minutes of the City Council, from the flowery flow-ery handwritten script of Recorder John Duncan shows that to be true. "The Boundary Line between Lehi and American Fork was next discussed. "Moved and carried that Aldermen Adams and Hindley be a Committee to see that the Boundry (.sic) line be located between these two towns." There is no indication what portion of the line between the two cities was being addressed at that time. We didn't immediately find record how that committee suggested resolving the issue. I suspect that even back then, it took a while before the two cities reached their agreement. One thing quite different between the years, however, is that the minutes of the City Council meeting for that day were 37 handwritten lines. Today's meetings, with minutes recorded by computer, run around 15 pages. One recent meeting had 32 pages, nearly as many typed pages as Duncan's had handwritten lines. sons and to give the public access to the new business, but couldn't the trees that did not need to be removed be pruned and stay to add a maturity and stability to the businesses being built? It is too late for that particular particu-lar grove of trees, but I understand under-stand that more progress is in our city's future. I think that's a good thing, but hope that future developers will choose to keep the mature trees that are not in their way to help maintain the established look of our city and add beauty to their business. Julianne T. Schiess winner will be announced in June. Lehi Lehi Junior High School will implement a block schedule for the 2005-2006 school year. The A-day A-day and B-day schedule proposal passed 41-9 when put to a vote by teachers, said Kevin Cox, LJHS principal. He presented the faculty decision to teachers and parents who make up the Lehi Junior High Community Council on Feb. 16. Mayor Kelvin Bailey Sgt. Joann Murphy POOR |