OCR Text |
Show ill lirnii-r- jDmliiUcmiei -1,v' Mr EDITION YOUR TOWN, YOUR NEIGHBORS, YOUR NEWSPAPER THURSDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2008 50 CENTS SCHOOLS: Christmas gift ideas for teachers TOWfJ HALL: Bank collecting teddy bears IUSIDE: Donated ambulance, supplies go to Mexico vw Utah Valley IXigh School Sports iib City 10 ds fundraiser . " if, . I ..- x . I, ' V. Swim " , l"111 I CP o 1 . . V , ;'. . MARIO RUIZOaily Herald Actor Vincent D'Onof rio stands with American Fork Police Chief Lance Call and other officers in front of Rib City Grill in American Fork during a fundraising event for Cops and Kids Sharing Christmas Charity on Dec. 1 1. The "law and Order" actor was in town visiting his sister, Rib City Grill owner Toni Jorgensen, and volunteering his time t6. raise money for the charity. "We are very in sync with the police in New York," D'Onofrio said. "They help us out with a lot of things. 1 feel the same way anybody on the right side of the law feels about the police.They take the time and do these things for kids. It is an amazing thing. We should help them out." The fundraising event was Thursday and Friday. - Restaurant owner recruits law and Order' actor for charity event Barbara Christiansen - , NORTH COUNTY, STAFF Fans of "Law and Order: Criminal Crimi-nal Intent," those seeking to help others at Christmastime and customers cus-tomers who just enjoy barbecued food gathered together last week, with the result that Six kids will . ' have a chance tado some Christmas Christ-mas shopping with a police officer on Saturday. , Toni Jorgensen of Rib City Grill had a benefit for" two days at the restaurant,' calling in assistance . from her brother, actor Vincent 'f " D'Onofrio, who stars in the TV U-show. U-show. She said she was pleased .J. with the results of the fundraising.". "We raised almost $3,000 in - American Fork," she said. The goal was originally $2,000, but the restaurant's customers exceeded that. In the Sandy location;, they 'i collected more than $4,000 to help the effort. ; "Everybody was' just excited fo see Vincent," she said. "They were also supporting the cause." Jorgensen said people came finto , the restaurant after her brother hadJeft, but asked her to deliver messages for them. ' . . , r y , , "Tell him I love him," she : reported that they said "I got random phone calls about him on Saturday. . . " A record number of customers ate lunch at the American Fork location on Jhursday. ' - , . , , "It was double the amount we ; usually get," Jorgensen said. "We thank our customers for their ' iSee FUNDRAISER, Page'3 Donations Anyone who would like to donate to help a child this : year or in the future may ' make a check payable to , the American Fork FOP . Lodge and send it to the . city at 51 E. Main, American Fork. FOP is the abbreviation abbrevia-tion for Fraternal Order of Police, a nonprofit organi- zation.v. Mate IMS Barbara Christiansen v NORTH COUNTY STAFF Some American Fork businesses, learning of the financial impact of the new water rates associated with the pressurized irrigation system, sys-tem, are ready to close if they have to pay the new bills. Parker's Drive In is one. Owned by Lillian Parker, it has been in business busi-ness at 500 East and State Street since 1953. Officials Of-ficials from the pressurized irrigation project met individually with Parker and other business busi-ness owners, presenting them with estimates what their new water bills could be. Parker's reaction was one of dismay. "I just told them if this goes through, my See WATER, Page 2 Cemetery dept. requests more land Barbara Christiansen NORTH COUNTY STAFF The American Fork Cemetery Department is looking for new land for expansion. With the failure of a bond issue on the November No-vember ballot, the city lost an option to purchase pur-chase property north of the present cemetery, which is between 100 West and 100 East, from 600 North to 750 North. The bonding would have purchased 6.5 acres, which would have provided approximately 6,500 additional cemetery cem-etery lots, which would have been expected to See CEMETERY, Page 3 STORE TO CLOSE - Sears Holding Corp. is closing its Sears Grand store in American Fork - one of 22 underper-forming underper-forming store closures it recently confirmed con-firmed as retailers nationwide battle one of the worst consumer spending environments on record. The 70-worker store at 175 Northwest State Road in American Fork, which ' opened just two years ago, is expected to close on Feb. 22. The American Fork . store, in 2006, was one of 14 Kmarts -converted to Sears Grand, after Kmart purchased Sears in 2004 in an $11 bil-4pn bil-4pn merger brokered by Wall Street Jiedge fund billionaire Edward S. iampert. Sears interim CEO W. Bruce Johnson John-son warned of more Sears and Kmart Store closings to come, on top of the 22 announced closings, as a steeper-than-expected third-quarter loss threatens the company's turnaround efforts. ; "We believe we have positioned our- iommtin ityBriefing selves well for a difficult holiday shopping shop-ping season," Johnson said in a state-, ment. He added that Sears would consider con-sider additional closings or divestitures, remodels or repositioning of stores, acquisitions and repurchases of debt and stock to shore up its earnings results. Blaming the housing slump and slowing slow-ing consumer demand for appliances and other household goods, the Hoffman Hoff-man Estates, lll.-based retailer on Tuesday Tues-day posted a net loss of $146 million, or $1.16 a share, for the fiscal third-quarter ended Nov. 1 more than twice the loss analysts had predicted. A year ago,, it garnered a net profit of $4 million, or , ; three cents a share. Revenue dropped 8 percent to $10.7 billion from $11.62 billion a year ago as Sears same-store sales in the United States slid 10.6 percent, and Kmart same-store sales slipped 7 percent. Total To-tal same-store sales, or sales at stores open at least a year, a critical retail gauge, fell 9 percent. The company also , withdrew an earlier estimate for eam-i ings for the second half of the fiscal year ending Jan. 31, citing "severe condi- tions in the economy." In November, the company said it would close eight additional underper-forming underper-forming Sears and Kmart stores in th first quarter of fiscal 2009. It expects to record, in the fiscal fourth quarter, w a charge of up to $21 million related to these store closures. , ' Kimberly Freely, a Sears spokeswoman, spokeswom-an, could not immediately specify how many affected workers at the American Fork store will receive severance payments; pay-ments; "But we hope some of those" - , workers can take positions, if available, at other stores," she said. But more cuts in the retail industry are expected once the holiday season which analysts say is shaping up to be one of the weakest on record is over, said Kelly Matthews, executive vice president and senior economist with Wells Fargo. "The impact of reduced residential construction has impacted the sales environment more powerfully than I imagined," Matthews said. "Utah's sales tax collections have been real weak, and one of the reasons is because the housing sector has been so extraordinarily extraor-dinarily damaged in terms of reduced construction." "Utah hasn't lost that many jobs yet, ' even though October is the first month when the jobs report turned negative. Many people are still getting between 3 percent to 3.5 percent increase in Wages. There's no reason for retail sales to be hurt so aggressively if not for the bad housing situation," he said. Grace Leong EARLY DEADLINE - In preparation prepara-tion for the upcoming holidays, the American Fork Citizen will have early deadlines for submissions. Celebrations (weddings, birthdays, missionaries, anniversaries, an-niversaries, Eagle Scouts and others) need to be submitted by 2 p.m. Friday Dec. 19 for the Dec. 25 edition, and Friday, Fri-day, Dec. 26, for the Jan. 1 edition. . Public notices must be submitted by 5 p.m. the same Fridays. Classified advertising deadlines are at 3 p.m. Monday of the week of the publication; and obituaries by 11 a.m. Mondays. The North County Newspaper offices of-fices are located at 399 E. State Street, Pleasant Grove, and may be reached at 756-7669 for anyone who has questions or needs directions. 6 lll,61055"00050'll,8 .ymWJilf.AlQ,rM CAM. 375-5103 TO SUDSCRtgr 7 PASS ATDUAl.AC PW'H. S" " V CO 878770 MSRP t2640S VV LOADED lEATnER ONSTAR CD t mM fl S ' IPA&S.678780MSHPt44610 S 1 7 : rrrrVi am irnir;ti rr-immri 1 ATHER V4 AT CD ONSTAR fliViUilUHH fllAJUI A1 PWPl M7IK30 . MSRP U744t OJIIKT TO PttOt UU U5 IU I UttKI U.t NtCt! M (WOT TNMI BW u mm |