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Show New Utah - Thursday. September 5. 2002 - Pace 2 Opinion i Changes improve our paper The New L'tah community ncw);ipcr hr"uP has undergone under-gone changes. Last week one of the most noticeable changes took place with eacli newspaper sporting a color front pare. Occasionally in the past, color has been used on only one newspaper front page when a high school sport team took state or some other major event happened. The process was cost prohibitive prohib-itive for five individual newspapers news-papers to switch to color permanently, per-manently, until now. With the addition of the (lene Harvey advertisement on the bottom of the front page, the expense is covered by ad revenue and will be for one year. There are already other businesses in line trying to capture the new front page ad space. This means the ad driven driv-en color page will probably be a permanent change and puts New Utah newspapers on the same competitive level with other community newspapers that have had color pages for years. What it means to you is a more appealing, better quality newspaper. There have been other changes in the last five months not quite as apparent as the color page. There have been staff changes. New Utah is now a cooperative of three editors, edi-tors, production staff and two advertising employees, all overseen by Daily Herald management. man-agement. The New Utah computer system is no longer PC, but is state-of-the-art Mac computers Here's the answer to the fish that got away Last week I made a special plea to our readers, asking someone out there with some knowledge to please share it with me. I have noticed little green fish painted on many of our city streets and had asked several city officials what their purpose was, but did not find the answer. So I went to my best source, our citizens. citi-zens. A kind gentleman answered my request and gave me the information infor-mation so I can share it with you. Grant Nielson is a member of Amateur Radio Emergency Services, Ser-vices, a group which operates ham radios. In order to keep their skills up to date and serve the public at the same time, the radio operators help with biking and running groups and their events. He informed me the fish were information for a bike ride, done on Aug. 17 by the Bonneville Bicycle Bicy-cle Touring Club. It was the ISth annual Utah Lake Century Epic Hide, or U.L.C.E.R. The acronym may be relevant, but for me S.A.D.D.L.E. S.O.R.E. would be more appropriate. The reason they call it a century centu-ry ride is that it is 100 miles long. That's right. 100 miles. On a bike. And they call it fun. For the last three years the group has started at American Fork High School, then goes through Lehi. Saratoga Springs. Elberta. Goshen. Genola, Springville. Provo. Vineyard and New Utah American Fork Citizen. Pleasant Grove Review. Lehi Free Press, Lindon New Utah. Lone Peak New I tah 5 W. Main American Fork. UT S4003 An edition of The Daily Herald, a Pulitzer. Inc. new spaper ISPS 01S-5S0 (ISSN: 1521-6S45) XEWSSTAXD PRICE: 50 cents SUBSCRIPTION RATE: 1 year - S26 (in county) S35 (out of counts ) (Thursday and Sunday plus Holiday deliveries) Holidas deliveries include delivery the week of Easter. Memorial. Independence. Pioneer. Labor. Thanksgiving. Christmas & New Year's. connected to the Daily Herald family network. Although unseen to the reader, the advantages are a coordinated team of news staff to bring our communities the best and most current news in the valley when it is available. When there is a story that the Herald city editor, who is New Utah's old managing editor edi-tor Marc Haddock, is interested interest-ed in, we cooperate and visa versa. This has helped in follow up on court cases, something our limited manpower previously would not have allowed us to report on. Another noticeable change for our customers has been the pairing of the two-day weekly with the Thursday New Utah edition and the Daily Herald Sunday newspaper, all for the same low price. If advertisers and readers have visited the New Utah offices, they have also seen the changes made there. A lot of the clutter is gone. Many of these changes have been expensive but were made to bring you a better quality product. The changes made at New Utah have also served as a model for the other newspaper newspa-per weeklies in Utah County under the management of the Daily Herald. This has made you, as well as New Utah, in a sense, guinea pigs. Thank you for bearing with us during these changes. In the long term, we intend to deliver as always, more local news than any other source - now brought to you in color. - : ".. back to American Fork. The actual actu-al distance is about 105 miles. The fish are spaced to indicate to the riders where they should make turns, and after they have turned, they have one pointing straight ahead to show them they are on the right track, so to speak. I haven't taken time to follow the path, but I have been told that some of the fish had numbers in the eyes, which were painted yellow. yel-low. Those could have been some kind of mile marker, perhaps. According to Nielson, there were several hundred riders who participated this year. He reported very few injuries or breakdowns for which the radio operators needed to render assistance. The ride is just that, there is no race involved. No time keepers, no trophies, just a lot of fun and a chance for a day in the sun with your friends and an opportunity to maintain an admirable fitness level. I hope we have been able to satisfy sat-isfy the naturally curious individuals. individ-uals. (I hope I was not the only one.) Thanks to you Grant, for taking the time to call. SEWS: We welcome news tips. Call 756-7669 to report a news tip or if you have a comment or a question. We welcome letters to the editor. All letters must include the author's name (printed AND signed) and a telephone number. We reserve the right to edit letters for clarity, punctuation, taste and length. Letters are welcome on any topic. Published Thursdays by Pulitzer Newspapers, Inc., 59 West Main, American Fork, Utah S4003. Periodicals postage paid at American Fork, Utah. Postmaster: Send address chanses to 59 West Main, .American Fork, UT 84003. Member: Audit Bureau of Circulations Warning: Thanktimony ahead This week's house editorial "As we see it" leaves out some behind the scenes information. Some of those changes weren't accepted willingly, like when the American Fork city editor, Barbara Christiansen, threw herself in front of her PC and refused to let the Daily Herald staff pull the plug. They barricaded Barbara in her office and went about their work anyway. They also let her keep her old computer for a few more weeks. It was hard to say good-bye to old friends, but we've made some new ones. Throughout all of the changes there have been a few people peo-ple who have patiently put up with our whining. One of those is The Daily Herald's Her-ald's Heather Marcus. In order to get the color front page up and running run-ning she spent hours working with us (we did the talking, she did the work) on the newspaper mastheads. mast-heads. Each newspaper has an individual individ-ual yet similar masthead with its own mountain, color and newspaper newspa-per name. Heather also has spent days, weeks even, working with us and showing us how to build our pages on the new system. - Another behind the scenes per- Strike might have killed the golden goose Everybody connected with professional pro-fessional baseball should have breathed a big sigh of relief at the announcement that a strike had been averted. If it had happened, it would have been the ninth time in 30 years when games would have been missed over a labor dispute; it was the first time during that period peri-od that a strike date was set and didn't actually happen. That was hailed by some as "historic;" "his-toric;" by my way of thinking, it was just common sense. Given the mood of the country right now, with joblessness job-lessness and bankruptcies growing and even many working people barely able to get by, the public was in no mood to endure any more nonsense from billionaire owners and millionaire players. I've followed the dispute pretty carefully, and it wasn't that each side didn't have legitimate complaints; com-plaints; it's just that the rarefied circles of wealth and public adulation adula-tion these people move in are so far removed from the lives of most fans that the ordinary ticket buyers buy-ers have a real tough time sympathizing sympa-thizing with the whiniiig. It has been pointecLbut by other columnists that the present salary structure of professional baseball is one of the purest examples of the work of basic capitalist principles (i.e. the laws of supply and Get water check Editor: I had the idea that I was saving water by decreasing my watering time. Actually, I was. However, How-ever, I decided to check how much water was being put on the lawn by placing five tuna fish cans on the lawn and letting let-ting the sprinklers run for one hour. I usually let them run for two hours because in my mind I thought this must be about right. To my surprise, my front lawn was getting one-half inch of water in one hour (which is the suggested amount) and the back lawn was getting get-ting over an inch. This DEADLINES Classified Advertising Tuesday, noon Display Advertising Monday, 5 p.m. News Monday, 2 p.m. Missionaries, Weddings Monday, 2 p.m. Sports, Letters to the Editor Monday, 10 a.m. Community Calendar Monday, 10 a.m. Obituaries Tuesdav, 11 a.m. "fa. son who has been invaluable in the changes has been George Marcus. George looks like a football linebacker line-backer who is always smiling and ready to help when we need a computer com-puter guru. As well as the greater changes mentioned in the editorial, there have been small things that make a big difference in getting the whole production process to run smoothly. Brain Tregaskis, the Daily Herald Her-ald information technology director, direc-tor, also has had a lot to do with getting the new system running smoothly. He saw to it that the minutia as well as the obvious was taken care of. Larry Hatch and his crew are the ones who helped "dejunk" and made our offices safer and more functional. Last week, Jack Reid and Quin Swallow met with us about the Web site. It's in sad shape, the brunt of jokes, and needs redesigning redesign-ing in order to fit the needs of five community newspapers. There have been New Utah staff demand) in our society. It's certainly true. It's also true that what the original labor movement move-ment in baseball was about decades ago that is, the struggle to improve working conditions, salaries and benefits for rank and file players, who helped provide the huge profits most franchises made but shared little of the benefits was a legitimate attempt at American-style labor reform. Most young fans today have no idea that professional players were treated more like indentured servants ser-vants than pampered stars for the first century or so of baseball as a business. Still, baseball has outdone itself in excesses. While the other professional profes-sional leagues have salary caps and restrictions aimed at keeping the financial playing field within a reasonable range of even, the Yankees Yan-kees can still field the best team money can buy and keep on winning win-ning championships with it. Here is another lesson on the so-called so-called "golden rule of capitalism," that is, "he who has the gold makes the rules." Irrr rnTtri1mmMmmHhMminm in iiiii.i-.ir ii Reader's Forum was a wake up call for me. I called Central Utah Water Conservancy District Dis-trict and they sent a man out who placed 32 cups on the front lawn and 28 on the back lawn. This shows the water distribution distri-bution pattern. This was a wake up call again. Some areas were over watering and others getting hardly any water. I know some folks are over watering. I've even been told "I'm paying for it, so Tm going to use it." This is a vulgar overuse of a resource, which right now, we can ill afford to abuse. I encourage you to call 801-226-7187 and get your free water check. This might also be revelation reve-lation to you. --Newell Turner Ill-Mart manager says thanks Editor: I just wanted to take a minute to thank all of the great people I've had the privilege of serving every day for the past eight and one-half years at 105 E. Main. It's amazing how fast things can change when you find a group of individuals indi-viduals who have no idea of what good quality cus-' tomer service is. The folks that head the Speedy Turtle chain of stores decided that I (as well as all the other Tri-Mart managers in that have also pitched neiped with the chs Davis, who we hi iave duMvvi ,.'.r. photo guv," has helped wuh.Vt duction.He has been invaluW ,r the editorial staff, as has K, f.: Greening. The next time she to go on vacation we are U her up at the office. She can't Other New Utah people, have become invaluable are J -n Peterson and Jennette Et v They are usually the ones , greet customers when thev com te and they also look after staff na From nrnviHincr rwro i- . ""t lu iisieniQ :it complaints, tney make better. everytf Meanwhile Al Manzi, the D Herald general manager, spe! time with us every week tryinf,. help us become money-sawy ft " '. his visits, the gist is most of major expenses are past and revenue is increasing. , ' Most importantly, from aj' nalist's point of view, as writers f have been able to continue to bi you the best product possible . spite of being "barricaded" to rooms. We are still and 0 remain, "More local news than; '8 other source." ;5U Cathy Allred can be reachec. callrednewutah.com. , f"' 'fne There is also a big dispaie among the players even on a sii -ini teams; while big-name players tsi tinue to rake in contracts' unheard-of magnitude, the ot . s team members only get a small fi tion of those big dollars, even thof J. the success of the stars depe heavily on their supporting cast,::IJ 1 Add to that the national grace of steroid use and quests tin about the methods used to rea and train players from poor co tries, and professional base) i was already in big trouble withjf buying public. Skyrocketing ticket prices jj, arrogant behavior also certai didn't help, and the rethinking priorities following 911 was aniujl er factor contributing to the pu'Hl outrage over a potential walkoi When asked, I gave it as my vate opinion that if there wajat strike this year, the pro ga io a might never recover. I'm glad craf didn't happen this time, but I no real confidence that the sa ire things won't start up all overag when the present agreement is for negotiations again four ye' from now. " 011 This time around was a wa '1 ing. If pushed far enough, the pf 20( lie may simply close their walfop and move on, leaving both own j v and players out in the cold. rrien ;;am ifts Utah County) did noffiv into their future pla : so they terminated i n This so-called group "team-players" just Pei the entire team thtt brought so much siiar. cessful service over years, and it all 1"'- pened in a few sh.JjJ days. So, that being sa to the purpose of this L ter. It's to let all of jj know that all of thefr jokes, good times a) laughs that we've U over the years are real . important to me. It has been my Pla ure to serve you and U relationships that ve torged wiu cohu""m as long as I'm aruu-Mj that's for sure Thank you. - Audrey R'Jflj Subscriptions & Delivery Service . , . . . . 375-51 News & Advertising 756-766N Fax 756-527' E-mail nueditornewutah.cofl PG City Editor Cathy AIM" Lehi City Editor Cathy Allr AF City Editor . .Barbara Christians Lone Peak Editor . . . .Beky Beatcf H -Tit |