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Show New Utah - Thursday. July 25. 21X12 - Page 2 Pleasant Cane Res iev.,"LinJon Edition Opinion Curb seasonal crime Sport your patch with pride For many, crime is something that occurs on someone else's street, in some other town, until it hits their home. Short of pleading with citizens door-to-door this summer, public servants in north Utah County-have County-have been frustrated in their efforts in alerting the communities communi-ties they serve to the high risk of seasonal crime. Burglaries and instances of vandalism reported to our law-enforcement law-enforcement agencies rise exponentially expo-nentially from May until reaching reach-ing its height during the last few weeks of summer vacation. Warm weather and unsupervised unsuper-vised juveniles contribute to the seasonal trend that tapers off as the weather gets cooler. Repeatedly, police and sheriff department officers have asked citizens to not leave their valuables valu-ables in vehicles, to lock doors and to take additional precautions precau-tions against crime. They want to protect the innocent, inno-cent, but would like to have the innocent also make an effort to protect themselves. Our communities are no longer the small towns they once were. Long-gone are the days when homes could remain unlocked for anyone to enter. To do so now, is to invite a burglar into a free and easy smorgasbord. Every week, officers report a long list of stolen valuables from unwary residents. Expensive stereo equipment, cell phones, purses, briefcases, Uxls, CDs anything that can be resold at a yard sale or used for cash is at risk. While traveling, take your valuables with you or hide them discretely so nothing worth stealing steal-ing is in view. The same rule applies at home. Police also say-motion say-motion sensitive outdoor lighting discourages burglars and vandals. van-dals. Every summer, vandals destroy property and cause thousands thou-sands of dollars in damage to construction equipment, landscaping, land-scaping, vehicles and housing. For many families it is difficult to supervise children when both parents are working outside the home. Programs sponsored by the city, churches and other civic organizations are designed to help and provide a network of adults to serve as role models for youth. As summer programs and activities end, teenagers begin to look for other activities to occupy their time. Parents, know where your children chil-dren are. Know who they are with and what they plan on doing. Have strict curfews and consequences conse-quences for breaking those curfews. cur-fews. Most towns in north Utah County have an 11 p.m. curfew for minors. Report your suspicions to the police. Turning away and ignoring ignor-ing evidence, just invites more inappropriate activity. If you suspect a child has stolen property, call police and they will help you identify it. Prevent Pre-vent your own property from disappearing dis-appearing by using the common-sense common-sense advice of the peace officers. With less than four weeks left before public school starts, take precautions to ensure your family enjoys the last of summer vacation. AF choice could help all By the time this is printed, American Fork may have taken an opportunity to purchase millions of dollars worth of hardware from a now-defunct fiber-optic Internet company, and everyone in the north end of the country could be better for it. Switch Point, which began operation oper-ation under the name of Air-Switch, Air-Switch, started in a small neighborhood neigh-borhood in Springville several years ago when some families with techno-dads decided they could patch into a high-speed Internet "backbone," share the cost, and wind up with screamingly fast Internet access for about the same cost as a glacially slow dial-up service. They went to the city of Springville and pitched themselves them-selves as a utility, like cable-TV or the telephone company. The city worked out the arrangements and the huge project got underway. Their next plan was to move into Provo, then Orem, then points north, including American Fork. Not too surprisingly, Provo leaders lead-ers were too tied up in being official offi-cial to be innovative, and they made it all but impossible for Air-Switch Air-Switch to move in. Orem was not any better. It really wasn't until they hit American Fork that city leaders rose to the bait and let AirSwitch (soon to be SwitchPoint) start running run-ning lines through town. The the technology advanced so much that AirSwitch was able to offer American Fork even more stable, faster connections. Then, as often happens, a shark came swimming by and swallowed SwitchPoint not for the high speed access lines, but for its innovative inno-vative technology. It was destined to be used to show movies-on-demand to a different type of subscriber. sub-scriber. Suddenly, with very little warn- m.i.m mi . I am I in mm in i n mi I ing, subscribers in Springville and American Fork were left without service. The hew owners of SwitchPoint offered to sell the hardware and software to both Springville and American Fork. Springville turned into Luddites said no. Tuesday night, it was American Fork's turn to make the call. We don't know what the asking price for the package was, but city officials said it is ridiculously low. We hope AF officials took the chance. This is not a conventional service offered by cities but it may well be in the near future, just as surely as some cities offer electric power and potable water and sewer service. The hardware is in place and is ready to turn back on. We understand under-stand the'offer to the city is a fraction frac-tion of what it actually cost. Like so many other things, this move is bold and daring, causing the city to step out of its comfort zone and take a risk, although apparently not too much of a risk. Success could mean affordable high-speed access to every home in town. Folks would move to AF just to get the service it's that significant. The city stands to save $2,000 per month for its own Internet access connections and, with as few as 1,500 subscribers, could make its money back quickly. It seems to be a good thing that the city should do, and while there might be some risk involved, banding band-ing together to make life easier for everyone is one of the things government gov-ernment exists for. We hope American Fork went for it. The entire region may well be the beneficiary of the city's wisdom. A yellow patch on one's lawn is becoming a patch of honor in our communities. Our city leaders have asked that their residents ration water and the very act of rationing is separating sep-arating those who do and those who don't. If your lawn has a yellow edge to it where the sprinklers didn't quite hit from minimal watering, you are in. If your lawn is lush and moist, you are out. Some years ago, my sister, who lives on the western Washington coast, was at a loss as to what to do about a drought the state was having. hav-ing. Whole golf courses were brown because, while there was plenty of reservoir water, there had never been a need for sprinkler systems in western Washington, where it rains almost daily. My sister's lawn was also dying. She didn't have a sprinkler system, sys-tem, of course, but I asked her if she had a hose and sprinkler. Yes, she did, but she had trouble remembering to use it. It seemed to be a hassle she could not get used to she and the rest of the west coast. Sprinklers up there, you see, before the drought, had been used exclusively by children as an summer sum-mer afternoon pastime. It was a social crisis she was r , able to commiserate about with neighbors . The death of the Olympic rain forest, however, was more of a concern con-cern than my sister's front lawn. The same is true of our regional water crisis. I am more worried about the fire hazard, the threat to our farming community and the health of our wells, than I am about the yellow patch on our lawn. Lawn grasses are resilient anyway. any-way. We spent a few hundred dollars dol-lars this year to fix our sprinkler system before the inevitable water rationing hit this summer. We were proud of our foresight and were looking forward to having hav-ing one of the greener lawns on our neighborhood block. The installer said he had set it to begin running at 2 a.m. for Monday, Wednesday and Friday. No one would know we were watering. Weeks past and everyone else's lawn was turning a lush green. Ours seemed to be stuck in permanent perma-nent winter-brown mode. It was embarrassing. Finally, I went to check this great system timer the company had installed. It had never been tum., never told anyone. ' But the lawn bounced b--so can yours. :- The Lehi city marn.. made a science out of w" : lawn. He waters his la? than is necessary twice a " except for a few telltale edj; green. : The city has also used a . compost under the Uga sod to see how it could he'-" serve water. So far, it SeeV working. There are many ways we,, izens can help out. In the Pleasant GroveU-edition GroveU-edition last week we featuC Bouchever family that has cojT ed their yard to rocks, K; " gravel, drought resistant p.. and cement decor. It is tempting to think off, ing their example. I'm just nou I'm quite ready yet for a xeri' garden. Join us in the community e?-to e?-to preserve water for the and security of our homes. F.; your lawn's yellow patch and" everyone know you support conservation. Sport it with pride and togei in the spring, we can re-sod. Cathy Allred can be reachei callrednewutah.com. Reader's Forum Reader questions impact of 252-unit complex in PC T?J:i ,. -:,, , r.nPH- Cnr. A A nrVin oKnf ,.,Vinr U J,.' . Editor: I read Julie Bellon's July 11, 2002, account of the PG City Council discussion dis-cussion regarding the proposed 252-unit complex com-plex in the Gateway zone with the same feeling of angry helplessness I get every time the City Council Coun-cil makes decisions about growth. Why have a Gateway ordinance at all? Why have a Master Plan? All a developer has to do is walk in the door, talk in glittering generalities, wave money and presto, ordinances and plans get changed and the rest of us are left holding the bag. Steve Miles' statement that "businesses wouldn't come to the city until they see an . established base" is a hollow disguise for his real motivation: Greed. Since when is the city in the business of ensur ing maximum profits for developers? Who gave the city a mandate to ensure adequate ade-quate customers for any business? Businesses locate in communities at their own risk. There are no guarantees. guar-antees. If a business is successful, great. If not, it moves on. It's the law of the market place. To hear a developer suggest otherwise oth-erwise is insulting. Why are questions about growth impacts always swept under the rug? When the Community Services Director dodges such a direct question by stating "master traffic areas have been looked at and there are other ongoing ongo-ing studies," that's scary. Translation: He doesn't does-n't know. But in the current cur-rent mode of "make it up as you go," let's not confuse con-fuse anybody with the lack of facts. And what about impact fees? Sounds like a great solution, right? Wrong. Impact fees are one-time money. The impacts of growth will still be around long after the money is spent. Then what will the city do? Hope and pray that other sources of revenue will appear? Betting on such an unknown will simply defer the crisis of a city bursting at the seams with inadequate services to the future. Such a deferral will come with a heavy price. One that you and I will pay. We ought to be very nervous when the extent of our city leaders' efforts to address density consists con-sists of contacting local schools and religious organizations. Such a statement clearly indicates that when it comes to im;. tant and legitk: issues that impact al us, credible data i; important to our ek. decision-makers. Important questk aside, in the final ana sis, it's all about mor.' Money talks. It always has. always will. Even so.: does Pleasant Gr: always have to list; Why the rush for & Why the rush to beet: the dumping ground the county for ev; apartment complex t can be squeezed c: every inch of avails ground? Why the rush tote today's status quo ' tomorrow's problems' Isn't there anytxxi; : the mayor's office or the city council enough courage to up and say "Enouf enough?" Anybody9 -Scott Audi'- Some beautiful yards don't require lots of water Editor: The American Fork Beautification Committee Commit-tee recognizes the efforts of citizens who take extraordinary care of their yards by posting a "yard of the month" sign on their front yard. WTe have four signs, so there will be signs placed in the north, south, east and west sections of our city each month. Some of these property owners irrigate their yard not with culinary but secondary water supplied sup-plied by the American Fork Irrigation District in which they own or lease stock. It is supplied every seven days and 20 hours, so a yard can be green and beautiful with only one deep watering per week. This method of irrigation irriga-tion drastically reduces the evaporation problem that is inherent with sprinkling turf grass areas. Cultivated areas such as these cool the ambient air temperature of their neighborhoods, allow ground water to be replenished and preserve the open space that we in Utah County love so much. I had the honor of placing plac-ing a sign this month on a large beautiful lot that was green and healthy. These wonderful people deserve to be recognized because it requires a huge investment of time, m, -opr.ivitV, H- and yes, even keep their place to-nice. to-nice. ;.. Before we co-anyone co-anyone for beautiful yard, it be well to leam them, they mightJ US I1UW u r and yet enjoy W . at the ties oi naiuic"- time. p.... -Doug I-" A F. Beaut New Utah American Fork Citizen, Pleasant Grove Review, Lehi Free Press. Lindon New Utah. Lone Peak New Utah 59 W. Main American Fork. UT S4003 An edition of The Daily Herald, a Pulitzer. 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