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Show "The military don't start wars. Politicians start wars." General William C. Westmoreland, American military comman- der. - i - Thursday, January 18, 1S96 The Daily Heraid e Carrying one's own weight is hard task last November of asking the 15 would consider workers if enough. But it is even more laborious when they library one is further burdened by unrealistic expecresigning. The goal was to replace them with tations and demands from others. A casein less costly who would not be entitled to insurance, sick leave and other point is the Provo City Library. When Mayor George Stewart took office benefits. in January 1994, he proposed that the library, Happily,, that was a choice none of the e like all other city departments, be required workers had to make: Farnsworth to pay for utilities, employee benefits and . received permission from the mayor and the other costs formerly picked up by the city. Library Board to deplete the reserve below That same year, the council went along with the mayor's proposal. m The rationale for requiring city depart. f 4 ments to budget for utilities and other expenses is sound. As Councilman Karl . Thalman noted, it serves as a .powerful incentive for department heads tq be .mdre conscious of cost "1" ?; All things birig equal,'. it, would seem to be a sound policypr the library as well. But" all things are dcidetlly :;not equal. Unlike On The Mark other departments infrovofc library officials ' are saddled with a; building that has a the 15 percent mark. That's fine as far as it statewide reputation- for being poorly it designed, expensive to' operate and too goes, but ignores the fact that the library's is one of the mayor's and council's problem small. ' " ' '. making. Utility costs are $2.22 per square foot at Treating the library like any other departthe library, according to I?94.figures.VThat ment may sound good in principle, but it is with the for $1.03 Sandy Library,; compares manifestly unfair when consideration is giv$1.34 for the Washington County Library en to the poor building and other challenges and 98 cents for the Weber North Branch Farnsworth and workers there are saddled Library. with. In addition, maintenance costs at Provo's Since 1989, for example, Provo's popula;i triangle-shape- d library amount to $2.85 per tion has grown 24 percent to 9 1 ,000. During square foot, compared with $1.07 for the that same period, library circulation has Sandy Library, $1.64 for Washington Counincreased from 5.59 to 9.79 items per resity and $ 1 .04 for the Weber North Branch. dent. The annual circulation over the same "We have the most infamous' library time frame has more than doubled, going building in the state," Library board memfrom 409,296 items in 1989 to roughly ber Paul Sybrowski stated last year. '893,000 items in 1995.' Given such realities, is it really fair to Despite those increases, Provo has main- treat the library like any other department? tained a smaller staff per. 1,000 population The answer might be yes if the library could , .than any other library in Utah, other than d raise its property tax levy by to the' Davis County. Tn addition. Provo's operafull one mill allotted to libraries by state law. tional expenses per capita are $12.40 per But that option was effectively eliminated lowlast year when state lawmakers enacted a year, far below Salt Lake's $34.86 and than national the er for of $17.37 average two-yefreeze on all property tax increases sized libraries. similarly unless they were approved by voters. These 1994 figures plainly show that the To make do, the library spent more than Provo t Library needs no added incentive to $76,000 out of its reserve operating fund last, 'economize. year and expects to spend another $65,000 Its resources have been and are being out of the fund this fiscal year to comply with the mayor's and council's directive. But stretched to the .breaking point. Something needs to give here, and it shouldn't be the Provo City Library Director ,' Julie Farnsworth cringes at the thought of dipping library or its. staff. Library workers are into the en;i?kyrhds for a third consecalready giving all that they are able to serve the public. utive year. Now it's the mayor's and council's turn. Other city departments are asked to maintain a 15 percent balance in their reserves.-Rathe- r It's time to back down from their shortsighted policy and carry the extra load for the than go below that amount to maintain current staffing levels at the library, library's utilities and employee benefits until Farnsworth was faced with the unpleasant., ..sorne of these other inequities are addressed. full-tim- part-time- rs full-tim- 77"? N-- ;sQ Mark EsMingten 'i-.- -.i MUST HAVE &EH AN51HER .SUMMIT "ON SCHOOL ftfcM. UBRAftV HiS 8EEH CHECKED OUT .EXCEPT THESE' THE SocK M EVERV TW0-i':r ; . one-thir- ar -:. . Court affirms failing grade given for report on Jesus d. er .decerifc'? While her classmates chose "Spiritual-ism,- " 1','Reincarnation" and "Magic Throughout History," Brittney chose to : w rite 0$ "The Life of Jesus Christ." teacher, citing reasons revealing i'ijinoraVice and bigotry, rejected the paper, :Tand gave Brittney a zero. ; ; :The tieacher was supported by the ;' .ihooi board, the federal District Court, ;. and the federal Court of Appeals. Now the"' ;L'.S. Supreme Court, Brittney 's last hope, ' Ihas rejected her appeal. -- Brit-.'.tney- 's; - Brittney 's "zero" was government-sponsore- R-II- ious people in the name I., of the Establish- ment Clause. The goal is true government neutrality. America's public schools are not the only places where religious people experience discrimination. Meet Larry Witters, a young man from Washington state with a progressive eye condition. Witters, wanting to try to beat the odds against him from his disability, applied for vocational rehabilitation assistance for the blind. The state program made grants to blind students seeking business degrees, but denied 7 In the name of the Establishment Clause, the state court approved of this discriminatory treatment, and the Supreme Court let the ruling stand, shouldering Witters with another disability to overcome. . Few realize that the First Amendment fqrbids government from establishing a religion so that the people are truly free to practice the religion of their choice. Yet, in the last the Supreme Court has turned the First Amendment on its head. The concept of "establishment" has come full circle from forbidding government actions that impede religious expression to requiring them. In its tenacious struggle to avoid even tenuous appearances of support for religion, government repeatedly has resorted to the constitutionally "safe" practice of active opposition to religion. Yet, such a practice does violence to our other First Amendment rights. With any form cf discrimination, one group is harmed while another'is helped. True religionists have been harmed by ' current religious discrim-inationand arc eager for relief. Those, hostile to religion will vigorously defend their place of privilege. The principle of ; government neutrality i$ not new- - it is the aim and result of the First Amendment properly understood. A religious liberty amendment could restore this saving principle, so that our First Amendment would not be used to promote the empty state religion of secularism, buuo promote true freedom, and the promise of freedom's fulfillment in truth, to which every American is entitled. Ccthlcen A. Cleaver is the Director of w7v Research Legal Studies at the D. C. based Council, a Washington half-centur- y, . ever-expandi- d discrimination against religious The violation ofBrittney's First speech. Amendnjeji't (right is reflective of a disturbingly rebiirrerit'vutteroJbf 'discrimination against religious expression. Even President Clinton has acknowledged that "some Americans have been, denied the right to express their religion." and Earnest Reps. Henry Hyde, have been working Istook, recently on a "religious liberty" amendment to the Constitution aimed at prohibiting religious discrimination. Hyde and Istook want to restore" the internal balance of the First Amendment upset by confused Supreme Court jurisprudence, and to clarify that government may not discriminate against relig- Marden Clark's column on "Stewardship" in the Jan. 6 Herald was a great disappointment. Stewardship is a positive word; a word denoting assumption of responsibility. Dr. Clark's column was full of negatives. This column could have been packed with identification of positive efforts being made, now, all over the United States: I, too, am a retired professor. As a volunteer at the BYU Museum of Art, I have met -many young people who weekly reinforce my belief in bur future world. They are eager, creative, responsible and cheerful. They have plans for their future; several plans, in fact, that only speak of stewardship and responsibility. ; .t I am also a camper and hiker. I have experienced unusual groups of persons committed to making the environment, their responsibility. Of course there are. those who disgrace the rest of us, but I don't have to concentrate on them. Besides, a kindly, pleasant suggestion that they honor the outdoors usually results in a smile and different behavior. So let me shout to the world that there are at least two groups of people which I have had personal experience with who are positive examples of active stewardship. How about the forest service workers who exist on miserable wages, yet do their ., best to help maintain our dedicated acres? They also sometimes live in housing. I have had wonderful discussions with these folks and we have laughed about government regulations and the stupidity of some of the language. Join the National Parks and Conservation Association, Dr. Clark. V Have you ever helped the Nature Conservancy as a volunteer on a project? Do you know that hundreds of people in the Los Angeles area are planting thousands of trees? . Have you assisted the folks who work on the Habitat for Humanity homes? Do you know there are folks who periodically buy color books and crayons and take them to day care programs and sit and color with the children and talk to them? Why are you apologizing for "my efforts to keep a small garden producing"? What's wrong with small efforts? Added together, they make sunshine and progress. Kathleen Hedtke Highland rd .Witters the assistance to which he was because he wanted to study to tt entitled become a pastor. By CATHLEEN CLEAVER Religious discrimination is alive and well, and taxpayer-funde' Ninth-gradBrittney Settle received an assignment in her public high school class tp'write a research paper on any top-i- c thai was "interesting, researchable and Accentuate positive . state-sanction- ed Scriptural veracity In response to Grant N. Mildenhall's letter to the editor of Jan. 16: Grant alleges that no evidence exists for the Book of Mormon, nor can any scholar, FARMS, BYU or anyone else defend it. Mr. Mildenhall finds himself on the wrong side of the argument. There are volumes of books and materials that very adequately demonstrate the authenticity of the Book of Mor mon. If Mr. Mildenhall, or anyone else, has a specific question about the Book of Mormon, they can fax their question for an immediate response to (801) Brent Hall Provo statehood, the federal, government achieved a level of central control over matters of religious conscience never before attempted on ' the American scene. Since 1896, the national government has also steadily usurped traditional local power in matters of health care, education, welfare and criminal justice. And, the "Potomac Power Rangers" have botched the job in every one of these human service fields. Partying it up under such unhappy cirI hope you will print a letter. cumstances ranks right up there with the On Dec. 26, 1 read a letter that I just could patriotic revelry and rationalizing we recent-- ; not believe. I could not understand how ly engaged in when we sent Utah boys and someone could be at the last community girls off to step into the middle of a Euromeeting with Rep. Orton and come away pean civil war far removed from our local or with such a negative opinion. even national interests. I and my wife were there for the entire Statehood events in 1996 should be occameeting. We are close to retirement age and sions of mourning, humiliation and local we were very concerned about all the media political education and fervor. information that we have heard about our, Instead, our political, cultural, business soon-to-b- e golden age. benefits that are to be and religious leaders seem to want to orchescut or totally taken away. trate yet another bout of denial about the I would say that about 95 percent of the state of political tyranny in Utah. people in the audience were there to be Could it be that some of our own local informed about the changes that our lawboys have themselves grown accustomed to makers are about to make and to give their the perquisites of bureaucratic power? Kim Shinkoskey opinions on the issues. There are a very few members of the standing-room-onl- y crowd Salt Lake City who had some other agenda. Rep. Orton opened the meeting by giving background information on current issues, and what was pending in the Congress in I would like to challenge the Provo city relationship to those issues. I felt he wanted mayor to have the budget presented to the to update the audience so we could have a citizens of Provo at a city council meeting in broader and more complete understanding a timely manner. This would allow time for of the issues. His answers were given in public comment to be thoroughly considered great detail and were very easy to underbefore the budget is passed in a separate stand. The meeting lasted from 6:30 to 9:30 council meeting. In the past, the budget has p.m., with all but 30 minutes spent on quesbeen presented the evening the city council tions and answers. is forced to approve the budget because if As the meeting ended, my wife and I they didn't, the city would go into default on watched several people who stayed to ask its loans. It doesn't matter what a citizen has further questions of Rep. Orton. I am sure to say or what a city council member would that this meeting was the most informative like to look into further, because the default community meeting I have ever attended. I is looming over their heads. would encourage all concerned citizens to I would like to see the agenda of the city attend these meetings. We are blessed to council cleared, as much as possible, so that have such a great Utahn to represent us in citizens do not have to wait for debate on the Congress. budget to start. In my experience, the budget Thomas Bennett is put last on the agenda, which usually Provo means debate doesn't start until 9 or 10 pin. By the time the city council starts to debate the issue, most people have gone home. Last of all. would like to see the Herald Utah is the place where all is always well, give front-pag- e coverage to the budget, with even when things are not going so well at all. an look into what the budget means to the average citizen. I feel we need public Recently, we began celebrating our statehood centennial year with a costume parade, discussion on the budget and the Herald musical gala and praise could be a facilitator in that process. about our past and future role in the nation. We need an accounting of what the mayEvent organizers want to commemorate or and city council have done in the past our federalstate partnership by focusing on with our money and what they are planning Utah's positive contribution to the nation, to do with our money in the future. while studiously ignoring the. story of the Again, I am asking the Herald to put this federal government's negative contribution issue on the front burner so we can have to Utah. meaningful discussion on the budget and Why are we pretending to be happy about have a chance to give input that will make a 100 years of progressively greater federal difference. encroachment on states' rights? Bonnie Bennett In the first place, when Utah "achieved" Provo 378-372- 4. Orton listened well pro-Ort- Report budget well Utah in denial? 1 th ," ' Doonesbury BY GARRY TRUDEAU lii V1RP?F&- - 1 41-3IX . rUonew fwfirmf, ff LVHCUNPEP 4 1 fJ INVB5TI6AriNG I -- NIGHTMARE IS CI3EZ3 iff KDOL1 w&vonizin5 bfvf imii rfl w c II.-,,,- 6 - fiSW n OH...UM.9m. fX , f 1 ijm V-5GSi ( TJRINPUStiV... 9 11 f KWN Hi I I fJIJ T research and advocacy organization. poor c&mi I . |
