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Show (3B1fillfifilIfi)G Free Press - Wednesday, November 30, 1994 - Page 2 Many cold, few frozen, but traffic's better Editorial 20 hours is too long Twenty hours. Could you occupy yourself with just one topic for 20 hours? It would have to be an interesting subject, to be certain. And there would have to be plenty of material to keep from rehashing the same old thing, hour after hour. Nevertheless, for the past three weeks, a group of north Utah County's top elected officials have sequestered themselves behind closed doors for 20 hours to discuss one thing-- - "the character, professional competence, or physical or mental health of an individual." And frankly, we think 20 hours is too long for secret meetings about such a specific topic. After all, this wasn't a murder trial, nor were matters of national security at stake. It was simply an investigation into allegations against American Fork City Councilmember Rick Storrs, who also happens to be an employee of the Timpanogos Special Service District. Monday night, Storrs was reinstated -but not until after 20 hours of secret meetings. And while the investigation may have been warranted, nothing warrants 20 hours of closed door meetings to deal with what should be a relatively simple matter. With 20 years of professional experience coveringcity councils, school boards, county commissions and other public bodies, the editor of this publication can't recall a single incident that merited 20 hours of closed door deliberations. It was excessive, and it violated in principle, if not practice, Utah's open meetings laws. Those laws specify four reasons for which public meetings may be closed to the public. In addition to discussions of legal strategy or collective bargaining agreements, the placement of security equipment and investigating criminal conduct, such public bodies may also close their doors to discuss "the character, professional competence, or physical or mental health of an individual." But how can it conceivably take 20 hours of closed door meetings to discuss such? It's hard to imagine. The members of the board of directors of the Timpanogos Special Service District - a public body created to build and manage the waste water treatment plant for north Utah County - are familiar with this law. All are mayors or members of local city councils. They abide by these same open meeting rules each week. They often close their doors to discuss the matters quoted above - but they don't close them for 20 hours. Such extended secretmeetings are a poor way to conduct the public's business, and are harmful to democracy. More than that, if a city council held 20 hours of closed door meetings for one employee, there would be a public outrage. But with the Timp Special Service removed from the pubDistrict lic, there hasn't been much outcry. Only frustration and a belief that the open meetings act was misused in this case to protect the District from embarrassment despite the fact that the district is a publicly owned and publicly operat-- -- one-ste- p ed concern. Twenty hours is too long. Learning a lesson from a speechless magpie Most of us, I am sure, duringour lifetime have known someone we could classify as a character, whose personality and actions set them apart as being different from regular mankind. Such a man was Dai Dobson. He lived down the street, close by the old Welsh Church. Shade from some large horse chestnut trees fell on his property. It was Christmas and some of us boys were out singing carols. We hesitated at Joe's house, knowing of his reputation as a character. But it was Christmas and who were we to judge him? So we sangathis door and to our surprise he invited us in. On his table was an empty ale flagon and Joe was feeling the effects of the contents. We sang several Christmas songs for him, then he told us of his life. "I have been alone now for several years. My missus, God rest her soul, passed away, and I was lonely. It was then I started to collect my friends (his friends being several animals and birds). When the weather warms up a bit, come on down and I will let you see my friends." Spring came with some warm sunshine an d I decided to visit Joe and see his friends. Joe was pleased that I came and took me out in his backyard where his friends lived. In various cages there were ferrets and a magpie that talked and a thrush that sang. "This is my favorite," he said, pointingto the thrush. "It wakes me every morning with its song." We stopped at the cage of the magpie and, wonder of wonders, it did talk. Joe said, "Hello, Maggie," and the magpie said, "Hello, Joe." Before I left I asked Joe to tell me how to teach a magpie to talk. The twinkle in Joe's eyes should have told me something, but I was young and believing. "Sonny, bachgen," he said. "You take a young magpie out of its nest as soon as it is feathered and raise it for. a few months, then you split its tongue with a sixpence. When it gets well you can teach it to talk." I knew of a magpie's nest up in a beech According to family legend, my father considered northern Utah Valley to be the most place on earth when he first had the m isfortune ofbeing a ssigned to God-forsake- n Camp Williams by the army. Maybe his subsequent service at Fort Ethan Allen, Vermont, or the theater in Africa, but from that inauspicious beginning, he changedhis mind completely about the area after he met my mother and later chose this area as the settingfor therearing of his family. Until I fully understood the background of th at story, I never could figure out why he always said he was glad to be back in "Zion" as we would round the Point of the Mountain on our return from trips to his native northern California. And until I became a father myself and started taking my own family on vacations, I never fully understood why "Zion" could look so good. Last week, we enjoyed a few days vacation with family and friends in Cedar City, Las Vegas and southern California. Our first day was uneventful and relaxing. With no time constraints, we not only enjoyed the popular potato logs at Fillmore and the cheese curds at Beaver, but we also had a very enjoyable visit with family in Cedar City. Neither was there a need to rush on to our stop in Las Vegas for the evening, yet we still had plenty of time to visit with family members there, too. Not until Thanksgiving Day did we encounter any trouble at all, and even with the minor inconveniences, the day turned out to be nearly perfect. We had intended to "slip away quietly" at about 5 a.m. so we could arrive at our friends' house in California in a timely manner in order to spend Thanksgiving with them. The car had a very different idea about Anyone who wants to see what American Fork has in store with the completion of the Mt. Timpanogos LDS Temple has an opportunity now to get a preview of that structure. The church recently completed construction of the Bountiful Temple, and is currently holding an open house for anyone who wants to walk through the building prior to its dedicated in January. Of course, once the buildingis dedicated, only members of the LDS Church who qualify for temple recommends will be permitted inside the temple. For this is a opportunity to see the inside of this particular temple. And the open house is drawing lots of people. A news story in a Salt Lake daily Saturday reported that some 30,000 people are walking through the temple each day - a million visitors are expected to tour the building by the time the open house ends. The building offers an interesting look into the future - since the Mt. Timpanogos Temple will be built using the same floor plan and the same basic exterior design as the Bountiful Temple. The open house itself also provides an interesting preview of what American Fork and the surrounding communities can expect when the Mt. Timpanogos Temple holds its own open house prior to the temple's dedication. Mainly what we can expect is a lot of people and an building that is impressive in its size, its appearance and the quality of workmanship and materials. And I don't think it's stretching things to say that the temple will provide an overall boost to the spiritual life of the north Utah County community overall. Saturday night we joined the tens of thousands of others who had visited the Bountiful Temple. Tickets are required, although they are handed out at no charge. But by requiring visitors to hold a ticket, the people in charge of the open house can keep the number of people at a fairly steady pace. Our tickets were for 9 p.m., and circumstances prevented us from arriving at Bountiful until about 15 minutes before our tour time without our tickets. They had to be picked up at the Bountiful Regional Center which was identified for us with an obscure address in North Salt Lake City. However, finding our way to pick up our tickets, and then to the temple was not a difficult task. All we had to do was read the signs. Besides, the temple is very visible. -- By TOM GRIFFITHS jf tree on Rhysog Mountain, so I climbed up and looked in the nest. There were four little ones fully feathered and about ready to fly. I put one inside my shirt and descended the tree. I had built a ramshackle cage and put the little magpie in it. I didn't think it would live, but to my surprise it started to grow. I fed it little pieces of meat and a little raw hamburger. When it was about four months old I decided it was time he learned to talk. So one Saturday morning I borrowed sixpence from a sister and took the bird out of the cage and attempted to open its mouth to split its tongue. I must spare you the grisly details, but on Sunday morning when I went out to the cage my little magpie lay flat on his back, his feet int he air. He was dead. After school the next day I went down to see Joe. With tears in my eyes I told him what I had done. I asked him what I had done wrong. "It must have been a dull sixpence," he said, then he put a hand on my shoulder. "Bachgen, you must learn not to take anything seriously that Joe says, for he fibs quite a bit." Health care: We keep killing ourselves oul All the big brouhaha about whether suicide should be legalized goes on, while in fact, we are killing ourselves at an unprecedented pace. about rising medical All the big costs continues, when most of that burWe want government den is to take care of us, yet we refused to take care of ourselves. Cigarettes are costing you a lot of money - whether you smoke them or not. Diseases relating to smoking are running bilup hospital bills amounting to $26.9 homes lion, doctors $15.5 billion, nursing $4.9 billion, prescription drugs $1.8 billion and home health care $900 million. The total: $50 billion dollars. That is 500 thousand million dollars! That is just the cost of smoking. Other diseases relate to the drome, the crime carried out by alcoholic mothers on their unborn children: another $2.8 billion. In all, that's nearly $100 billion per year to take care of alcoholics and their to-d-o self-inflicte- self-inflicte- mis-use- of d acc- drugs, alcohol, sex and idents, diseases related to illicit obesity. voluntary The reason for the high cost of medical care is us. Let's take alcohol. In a 1993 article in the government journal Alcohol Health alcohol-relate- d problems. That's $50 billion for smokers and twice that for drunks - and that's not all AIDS, the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, is killing us literally and figuratively. In 1992, according to the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, there were 66,300 cases of AIDS. With an average yearly treatment cost of $38,000 per person and an average estimated lifetime cost of over $100,000, the cost to the nation for 1992 alone reached $10.3 bil-- 1994 Paul Harvey Product Inc. -- and Research World, Dr. Dorothy Rice of the University of California has compiled the following economic costs of alcohol- ism: Hospitals, specialty organizations and the like: $8.1 billion. Doctor and other professional visits: $570 million. Nursing homes and support costs: $1.9 billion. . Morbidity: $36.6 billion. Mortality: $33.6 billion. Crime, accidents and welfare: $10.5 billion. Costs related to fetal alcohol syn high-traffi- Daly Planet By RUSS DALY that plan, and decided to balk about our intentions. Fortunately, all it required was a little water to slake the thirst of the battery. Finally departing at about 6 a.m., we again assumed all would be well. (Note the absurd use of the word "assume" in that sentence.) I expected the freeway that same road that traverses Utah - would give me some indication that I needed to for another thoroughfare that leave would take us to Orange County. As we continued south, with signs to San Diego becoming alarmingly more prevalent, I kept trying to find something familiar about the road, something that I might have remembered from when we made the trip seven years ago. was asleep in the coach secMy tion with one of the passengers, so I wasn't able to get any bearings or input on the surroundings, and I didn't want to alarm the other young passenger that had joined me in the cockpit. did wake up, she sugWhen the gested that maybe we change course, starting with a prompt exit from the freeway, even though we had no idea where we really were. Although Fallbrook, Calif., was not our destination, we enjoyed a delightful side trip through some beautiful rural country, user-friend- ly -- co-pil- ot co-pil-ot lenged. Leaving our friends certainly wasn't a pleasant part of the trip, but leaving the southern Californiafreeway system was, to say the least, a relief. On the return trip, another stop in Las Vegas made us recognize the positive aspects of the pleasant weather conditions of both Nevada and California, but somehow the traffic issue still tugged at our memo ries. Maybe that's why the return to the snow and cold didn't deter us from actually coming back home and enjoying the feeling of being back in "Zion" once we arrived. Tour is preview of Mt. Timpanogos Temple -- t IT Big an excursion that would soon give way to the mad rush of the southern California c system. Following a pit stop for a soda, and an additional cry for libation from the battery again, we were all too soon thrust into the congestion of Interstate 5. Two hours late for our expected arrival, and quite a distance farther south from our exit, we joined a mass migration of people heading in the same direction. We were amazed that everyone's relatives seemed to live north of them and frustrated that none ofthem had learned to make the drive successfully. To add to our tension, we saw massive warning signs on the freeway depicting a runningman and woman, with a child being dragged in tow, informingus that we should be aware of people crossing the road at any time. If we hadn't been on vacation, all of this might have been overwhelming, but we decided to county our blessings that we had enjoyed a side trip and that we had ultimately received cooperation from the car. Even the fact that it was a vacation, though, could not erase the fact that we judged the majority of our fellow drivers as incompetents, or at least vehicularly chal- . lion. By 1995, the agency is estimating a nearly 50 percent increase in the number of cases of AIDS 97,800 people are of us $15.2 bilrest cost to the expected lion! At that rate, the cost of illicit sex will one day top alcoholism and smoking -combined.! The high cost of medical care is US! - ish. From there we were directed to another tent for a video, also about temples. Then we were directed to the temple doors, where we were given paper coverings for our shoes and directed inside. It took about 20 or 30 minutes to walk through the building itself, with views of the baptistery, dressing rooms, the cafeteria, and other facilities, then we were directed onto the next level where we walked through the chapel, sealing rooms, the Celestial Room and endowment rooms. We saw the nursery where children and babies are kept until they can participate in sealing ceremonies with their parents. I won't try to describe the building itself. Photographs are available. But it is impressive that in this structure every attempt is made to focus the mind of man and woman on the positive, the uplifting, the eternal. For example, no one pretends that the Celestial Room looks like it looks in heaven. But by its design, the chamber elevates the mind and thoughts, and there is nothing in this room to distract from the contemplation of heaven. This temple is beautiful the Mt. Timpanogos Temple will be equally beautiful and a brilliant and shining addition to our community. What can we look forward to during the open house? Lots of hours of service, mainly. Many volunteers are on hand to make the Bountiful open house run smoothly. Many local church members will be called on to direct traffic and help those touring the temple during the open house of the Mt. Timpanogos Temple. Also, we can expect a lot of people to visit the temple during the open house. It wouldn't hurt to start sprucingup now so that we can put on our best face for the visitors who will walk through the Mt. Timpanogos Temple some time in 1996. Thousands of tickets for daytime tours are still available for tours of the Bountiful Temple. There is no charge. For information or to reserve tickets, call 80 Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 5 te By MARC HADDOCK wmmmmmmmsmmmm The large white building is lighted brightly with flood lights and shines from the Bountiful foothills like a beacon. You can't miss it. We left at the first 'Bountiful exit, following the signs that pointed the way to the Bountiful LDS Temple. I had suspected that the tickets were being di stribu ted from that once the domed building just off served as a theater and has since been purchased by the church. For once I was right. But to make it even simpler, signs showed us where to turn for "will call" tickets for the Bountiful Temple as soon as we were off the interstate. We picked up our tickets in minutes, were shown in a map how to get to the temple, and then were on our way. It turned out the directions were unnecessary. Signs pointed the way. Local businesses - especially fast food restaurants - welcomed those coming to Bountiful to tour the temple. When things got questionable, volunteers were placed in the road with flashlights to show us where to turn, and, eventually where to park. Parking, it turned out, was the most difficult part of the process, since the volunteers were uncertain, at times, as to where we should go. We were able to park about a block away from the temple, and has a brief walk in the brisk night. The tour begins in a tent, where visitors are given a brief explanation of the role temples play in the LDS Church - all displayed on posters in English and Span -- p.m. Letters to the editor Timp District disregards justice Editor: Never have I witnessed such a total disregard for justice, honesty and truth as I have at the Timpanogos Special Services so called "investigation" ofRick Storrs these past few weeks. It has been clear from the first meting that some of the district officers had only one purpose, and that was to get rid of Mr. Storrs by any means. A competent, honest employee who braved the wrath of his superiors to become a "whistle blower," he should be protected under federal law for disclosing the questionable activities that were occurring at the facility. However, it seems some of the people at the district believe they are above the law. I'm sure they are having some second thoughts now about firing Mr. Storrs, but it is a bit too late. Maybe an outside investigation will bring out all the facts about what has really been going on at the services district. The citizens of all the cities involved in the district should be grateful to Rick Storrs for having the courage to come forward and let us know what was happening. Mayor Green has been very supportive and Mayor Gibbs of Lehi seems anxious to get at the real truth of this m atter . Now let's all of us get behind Rick Storrs and give him our support. -- La Von Laursen Policy on letters to the editor We welcome letters to the editor. All letters should be typewritten and double spaced. Letters must also be signed, and must include the writer's name and telephone number. Please send letters to Editor, Newtah News Group, P.O. Box 7, American Fork, Utah, 84003. |