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Show tfcimc8-(3nhepenhe- Week in Review area newspapers .., the chart . . . Snowpack offacross Uintah Basin and North the Vernal Snowpacks Slope of above The is north divided. area somewhat the Uinta Mountains are to much above average at 156. The southern area is higher, near 202 of average. This is the highest Feb. 1 snowpack ever, reports the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Precipitation during January was much above average, nearly 180, bringing the season accumulation (Oct.-Apri- l) to 167 t of average. Vernal Express IPP plant to continue . . . Delta There are no plans to close the Intermountam Power Project near Delta. So says Plant Manager S. Gale Chapman after issuing a Feb. 10 memo stating that the Intermountain Power Serd vice Corp., the company that manages the power plant, will be doing an assessment and evaluation of a plant closure lasting 1, 3 or 10 years. The assessment will address staffing levels, layup of systems and restart of the plant, Chapman wrote to his employees. We need to identify and evaluate the costs associated with each of these scenarios. Chapman said the memo was not an announcement of layoffs or of a plant closure but an effort to figure out various costs connected with the project as deregulation grows nearer. The plant employees 558 men and women. Millard County Chronicle-Progres- s coal-fire- Elks leader in Moab . . . Exalted Ruler Daniel Stott presented Utah Elks State Association President James L. Szatkowski with a Utah Centennial Book of Photographs by local photographer Tom Till during his official visit to Moab Lodge on February 14th. Pictured above are from left to right Daniel Stott, Exalted Ruler; State President James Szatkowski, and Past District Deputy Clayton Brown. This was the first time the State President had been in Moab, and he commented that he would like to spend more time here seeing the sights and enjoying the people. He was greatly impressed by the public response to the Amanda Carrigan Benefit Dinner. Bomb explosion Elder News-Journ- al at high school . . . Richfield Law enforcement officers are continuing their investigation into a pipe bomb explosion last Tuesday morning at South Sevier High School in Monroe. The bomb exploded shortly after 7 a.m. at the northeast comer of the building. Sam Ware, business manager of the Sevier School District, said the schools custodian, Ken Finley, had just entered a door on the north side of the wing when he heard the explosion. He investigated and noticed that a piece of concrete from the foundation had been chipped off and evidence of a bomb was on the ground by it.He contacted the Sevier County Sheriffs Office, which responded immediately to begin their investigation. Ware said there were other people inside the building but none heard the explosion. Of most concern was the fact that the bomb exploded just a few feet from where the natural gas line entered the building. If there had been a major explosion, we could have been in serious trouble, Ware said. The Sheriffs office is still investigating d fire at Richfield High School last spring just prior to an commencement ceremonies. The Richfield Reaper arson-cause- Big new jail opening . Roosevelt . . The Duchesne County Sheriffs Department recently d hired nine jailers to staff the new jail now under construction north of Duchesne City. Seven men and two women make up the 160-be- group who were selected from 120 applicants. They are now undergoing training at the Peace Officer Standards Training course in Salt Lake City. Three more jailers are expected to be hired in March, to bring the total number of Duchesne County jailers to 16.1n addition to local prisoners, Duchesne County will contract with the State of Utah to house state prisoners in the new facility. Uintah Basin Standard High school bond election . . . Blanding The San Juan School Board met with representatives of First Security Bank during its February meeting to discuss the intricacies and costs of holding a bond election in May. The District is proposing the bond election to help pay for a new government mandated high school at Navajo Mountain. If the bond election passes in May, the Utah State Legislature has promised to give the district an additional $2 million to finance other district projects in addition to the Navajo Mountain High School. The architectural firm of Naylor and Wentworth, Salt Lake City, has been retained to design the new high school, along with other projects throughout the county. Blue Mountain Panorama Japanese travel market to be discussed here at Council meeting The Grand County Travel Council Board will hold their first meeting of 1997 on Thursday, March 6tl' at 7:00 p.m. in the County Council Chambers at the Grand County Courthouse. The guest speaker for this meeting will be Mot Shimazaki who works for the Utah Travel Council promoting this state to the Japanese market. Mr. Shimazaki will discuss the importance of the Japanese market as well as affordable advertising opportunities to reach this mar- ket. Other items on the agenda include a review of the application process for Community Enhancement funds, an update oh 1996 transient room tax collections and an update on Travel With only eight days of de- sive transportation needs without a gasoline tax hike. Thanks in part to hikes in other areas, like vehicle registration. Sen. C. Peterson has proposed a bill that get tough on bate remaining tensions are mounting and the battles are beginning at the Utah State Capitol. Everyone wants a piece of the pie, and if they dont, they want a say in how it will be cut. This last week brought hot debates throughout the legislature from everything from the perdilemma to how pubpetual lic utilities will be deregulated. Utahns who register their Contractor license exams in Moab given Twelve local men completed seminar for a Utah Contractors License at the Coa week-lon- g llege of Eastern Utah-Moa- b Higher Education Center during the week of February The seminar was conducted by Paul Madsen, Director of Utah Contractors School, based in Provo, Utah. The seminar curriculum covered both parts of the Utah contractors exam (business & law; and trade). Students could come and go at their convenience with an avhours. erage study time of State exams normally given at Salt Lake were mailed and administered at CEU- - Moab Higher 10-1- 4. 20-3- 0 Education Center by Lorraine Guild, Director of CEU, saving time and travel to Salt Lake. Graduates included Rick Carrigan, Donald S. Cockayne, Charles E. Every, Keith R. Larsen Jr., Raymond G. Taylor, Mark Williamson, Stacy Wimmer and Leslie K. Zitting all from Moab. Also, Dan A. Hurst and Terry Perkins of Blanding, Jim Martin of Castle Valley and Russell Schafer of Monticello. Contractor Licensing Seminars are held by Utah Contrac- tors School throughout the state, with the next being held in St. George March and Logan March Price April In June a seminar is planned for 3-- 10-1- 8; 4; 14-1- 8. CEU-Blandi- June 3. 3. AARP meeting set for Man 5th his presentation. ve- hicles out of state in an effort to avoid paying Utah property tax and registration fees. The bill has been fairly quiet facing very little debate. If successful, the bill would generate approximately $15 to 20 million per year. Other issues include the much publicized cigarette tax. Senate leaders hope to increase the proposed 20 tax to its original 25 Republican legislators are getting excited as their plan gets closer to funding the states mas- - For information on all up Council leads and the toll free line. Members will also discuss, coming seminars call in some depth, projects that the or fax a request to Canyonlands Travel Region can submit to the Utah Travel Council (UTC) for matching funds. Each fiscal year (July I June 30) the UTC distributes $180,000 in The regular meeting of the matching funds to the nine travel Moab Chapter of AARP will be regions. In fiscal year 1997, the Canyonlands Region received held at the Senior Center on $24,000. Currently this region is Wednesday, March 5, 1997 at in the process of developing a 1:00 p.m. Chuck Davis, Adminworthwhile project for fiscal year " istrator of Allen Memorial Hos1998. pital will give an update of services available, such as TelemEveryone is welcome to attend this meeting. If you have etry to St. Marks Hospital and any suggestions for matching Teleconferencing with the U of U. funds projects or want to learn He will be available to answer more about the Japanese market questions and concerns of the please attend on March 6, 1997 members; the meeting will follow at 7:00 p.m. emphasis will he on educational videos, classic films or adaptations to film of classic novels; and tapes self-hel- p and some foreign films unavailable through rental sources in e, d. Grand County Librarian; Karen Lassen states that the how-t- o Brigham City Is a nuclear waste storage facility in Box Elder Countys future? Last June, County Commissioners were lukewarm, at best, when Holladay engineer William D. Peterson asked for approval to proceed with plans for a modular retrievable storage comit could be a plex in the West Desert area near Lucin. Money-wisboon tot he countys budget, but Box Elder County Commissioners were not ready to put their stamp of approval on it. At least, not until Gov. Mike Leavitt pulls back from an absolutely not attitude and The matter, however, is county residents would give it a back before the commission. Several Grouse Creek residents have shown support and those in Park Valley havent said yes or no but are giving additional study to the issue. Commissioner Lee Allen said, We told the people out there we wont do anything without their permission. It is their decision and we are not going to push it. Grand County Library was .recently awarded a $10,000 Title I Federal Grant to libraries for development of a video and audio collection. The grant does not require matching funds from community or private sources and allows the library to build a books on tape collection as well as a video library. The demand for alternative media in libraries continues to grow throughout the U.S. and Moab is not different in its dea services. sires for mateand audio video Providing rials allows the library to better serve the visually impaired the elderly and those who may he otherwise unableje to rent or purchase audio tapes or video tapes from commercial sources. multi-medi- Nuclear waste in Box Elder . . . Box B1 Videoaudio collection is coming to local library thanks to federal grant Area Wide News items from Thursday, February 27, 1997 nt, tax-relate- d cent-per-pac- k cent-per-pac- k. If successful, the new tax i -- would bring an additional $21 million into the states general fund each year. A major issue that will affect Utahns everywhere, but especially those of us in rural areas deals with the deregulation of the telephone and electric power industries. A very complex issue such as this will take months of study and planning to assure that whatever is passed will be beneficial for residents throughout the state. We started working on the deregulation of the telephone industry last year by passing legislation that started the process. This year a bill improving the universal fund is being debated. Also, we are starting to work on the deregulation of the electric power industry Essentially the electric industry has throe basic parts: the generation, transmission, and distribution of power. Deregulation will have very little effect on the transmission and distribution of power, as it would not be to duplicate existing lines. For this reason these aspects will remain under the oversight and be regulated by the Public Service Commission who will make sure the companies who own these lines are fairly compensated for their use. The main issue at hand is the generation of electricity. Many companies will be allowed to enter the same market and compete for the same customers. cost-effecti- This added competition should drive electricity rates down for the consumer, much 1 ke we have seen in the telephone long distance rates. It will be a long and tedious process, but in the end, we as consumers will benefit by cheaper electrical rates. If I can be of any service to you, please dont hesitiate to contact me at: Desk: House of Representatives: 538-121- 8, 538-102- 9, il: kjohnsonle. state. ut. us or Fax 538-190- 8. Moab. Books on best sellers, tape will focus on self-hel- p and classic literature. Additionally the library will be involving the community in building the collections Library Board chairman, Janet Lowe states, we are interested in building the collection around community needs. eduWhat cational videos would benefit local organizations? For example, if there is a series of videos about health care, diet or physical fitness that local physicians would like made available to this community, the library would like to add those titles to the collection. The library will be contacting local social services, health al care providers, educators and other organizations for their input while building the videoaudio collection. We also hope to take advantage of national advocacy groups who may offer free or reduced cost videos on areas of national concern such as heart disease; diabetes; domestic violence; child care, career anything that can help expand the knowledge base of our community and improve the quality of life, states Lowe. The library will also he seeking high quality instructional videos in areas of special interest such as horsemanship, gar- care, pre-nat- al changes dening, home improvement, foreign language, study skills and other personal enhancement and educational videos. Because some people learn better or respond more positively through a visual medium, Lowe states, wed love to be able to replicate critical parts of the book collection on audio or video, but of course, space constraints make that impossible. Lowe states that while the library board is excited about the new services being offered Grand County residents such as and video and audio collections, she states it creates a challenge for the board and staff in terms of administrating new programs Internet, CD-RO- within that space. Quite simply, were currently underserving the community by about 50 percent in terms of library space. As we add ser- vices that patrons demand and as more people move to Grand County, we squeeze more services into the same building and were getting a little crunched for study space, adequate research areas, agreatly expanded book collection and children reading areas, Lowe states. The library board is currently working with county and city officials to solve the space concerns of the library. In the meantime library board and staff hope that patrons will enjoy the expanded services, improved collection and new state of the art computer research in spite of space New area code is coming to rural Utah sometime coming during year Utah rank Utah As continues to among the fastest growing states in the country, certain changes are bound to happen. But a new area code? Apparently, such a change is being seriously considered for 24 of Utahs 29 counties, and Grand County is one of those. The proposed area code change, from 801 to 435, will be phased in over a period of time, according to Duane Cooke of US West Communications. Theres going to be lots of time to make the transition, so we encourage people not to go out and make changes to letterheads and stationery, he said. The method used for determining which counties will receive the new area code, he added, were based on population figures. According to Cooke, there are two goals for an area code split: impact the fewest number of people possible and make sure the code will not have to change again in the near fu- ture. Most of the population of the state lives along the Wasatch Front, he pointed out. Therefore, he said, the largest counties in the state Utah, Salt Lake, Davis, Weber and Morgan would retain the 801 area code. Cooke also stressed that while the counties changing over to the 435 area code will probably never see another code change, the Wasatch Front is expected to exhaust its phone number prefixes by the year 2006. The change has not been finalized, Cooke said. The plan has been submitted to the North American Number Plan Administrator, and they havent officially signed off on the plan yet, although approval was expected this week. residents experiencing the area code change will be af- forded a permissive dialing period beginning June 22, 1997. At that time, Cooke said, people calling into the counties with new area codes will be able to use either 801 or 435 to reach phone numbers. Its not mandatory that the new area code be used until January 18, 1998, he stressed. seven-mont- h GED on TV is enrolling new students The Utah State Office of Education is now enrolling students for the spring GED on TV program. The program allows individuals without a high school diploma to earn an equivalency certificate by studying at home. Lessons are broadcast twice a week on local television. After completing the course and successfully passing the GED exam, the student receives a GED certificate and up to five units of high school credit. Spring classes start in April and enrollment is free. To enroll, or receive more information, please call the GED on TV hotline at (800) 451-950- 0. SHOOTING RANGE CLOSED The County Shooting Range will be permanently closed as of Monday, March 10, 1997. Last year the County Council voted to sell the property and use the proceeds to fund a variety of recreational programs including the construction of a new shooting range south of town. Clean up efforts to remove lead shot at the range will begin in late March. |