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Show (The iTtnifs-- 3 nbrpnidrni Thursday, July 13, 2CG0 -- Community Comments .,'3 JlL by Sam Taylor Opposition to a modest increase in utility bills, and reluctance on the pan ot some city council members over the proposed charge a tew weeKs ago may tiave been pretty short sighted The revenue generated was to have been earmarked for flood control measures, part of a $6 million total flood control plan Moab City has had a maior engineering firm develop of it flood the mitigation proiect, and a very small portion has been completed Most on the council agree that the work should be done But adding $2 a month to utility bills over a 5 year period drew some citizen opposition and council indecision Sunday evening's lightning storm and cloudburst proved a couple of things F irst, it substantiated the fact that there is no part of Moab City (or Spanish Valley, for that matter) that is immune to flash flooding under the if right circumstances Second, proved that the flood Moab has done the past year work that City mitigation or so works The storm was pretty typical of this community's monsoon season It hit fast and furiously, drenching part of the vailey and leaving other parts dry and dusty In downtown Moab, well over a half an inch of rain fell in less than one hour Residents ot upper Spanish Valley and Castleton sat in their dry yards and watched Should all residents of the community be asked to pay for flood control measures in cedain parts ot town? think the answer is "Yes'" We are all vulnerable under the right circumstances Completing the flood mitigation plan prepared by engineers should be a number one priority for the City of Moab Cutting budgets in some areas can provide some of the money However, if that is not sufficient to pay the $6 million tab over a few years, a small increase in fees is totally justified I sjt few yeais ago Moab City's modest sales tax was declared illegal It was that tax that had made if possible to eliminate personal property taxes by the municipality Moab had levied a local sales tax for over thirty years If was called a Gross Business License Fee," to make it sound a little less than an ad valorem tax, but the fact that vendors could pass it along to customers A it away In fact, for many years Moab was the only city m Utah to use this hardly legal tax mechanism, but local officials liked it and there wasn't much fuss by those gave who paid it because when compared to the state saies tax it was pretty cheap. And no one likes to pay personal property taxes To help some communities heavily impacted with visitors requiring municipal services, the Legislature a few years ago passed a law permitting cities to levy up to 1 5 m sales tax on single items with a value of less than $2,500 where transient room capacity is greater than or equal to 66 of the permanent census population Eleven Utah cities qualified, including Moab. But the way the 66 is calculated is bothering some state lawmakers For instance, Park City municipal corporation is permitted to impose an additional one cent sales tax rate for the city budget because motels in town keep 1 5,455 pillows available for tourists Monticello, according to the Utah Taxpayers Association, made the 66 number by counting campground spaces as motel rooms So what, in my estimation People staying in campgrounds who require municipal services (water, sewer, garbage, police, etc.) create just as great an impact as those staying in the most expensive motels in town. According to the Association, the Intenm Revenue & Taxation Committee of the Legislature is considering ways to tighten up the law. These include a precise definition of room capacity In an effort to simplify the sales tax, it has been suggested that the I egislature also look at eliminating the resort communities tax altogether and allow cities to count their transient population in the distribution formula for the regular sales tax. It would take an accountant or someone deeply involved in municipal finance to work on the numbers, but that approach might be fine. One thing is certain. The passage of the resort communities law a few years ago saved Moab's fiscal bacon. On top of rising property values in this county, it would be awfully tough on business and home owners to face the possibility of Moab City levying a property tax as it did for many years. Many Trails by Adrien F. Taylor and doors is complete, will be the tuck pointing, or at least as much of it as is finishing possible. The Star Hall Committee would like to acknowledge and thank the Grand County Council for allocating an additional $9,500, which will come from the Restaurant Tax, to get the renovation work to where it is today. With recent donations from the Moab Community Theater and from Bill and Inalyn Meador, a total of $4,150 has come in from the private sector to benefit Star Hall since Jan. in, and several events since to it's time installation, report again on what's happening at Star Hall. Actually, all the finishing is not completed around the windows, and the new front doors havent arrived, but the building is looking a whole lot better, and the atmosphere inside is also nice. I had the chance to be both on and off stage last week, as the Valley Voices had been asked to bring the Austrian choir onstage for their July 5 concert. The choir was traveling to Moab from Phoenix, and what with the Arizona not being on daylight saving lime zone effect and who knows what else, it was nearly 7 p.m., time and we were told they hadn't arrived yet. We had prepared three western songs, and quickly rehearsed three more old favorites, so that when the curtain opened, at about ten after 7, we were there with a package of six songs. As we left the stage, the choir members were coming into the auditorium. For those of us who sing, it was very interesting to listen to their vocal warmups behind the curtain, after which they gave a very fine program. Its a case of alls wen that ends well" With I the the new windows work on windows 1. The next projects up are not so visible as new doors, windows, and tuck pointing. Number one is restoring the basement, which may or may not include a new heating and air conditioning system. At whatever point that this system is replaced, the stage will also have to be replaced, as it sits directly on top of the current equipment. Then there is the electrical, which is problematic at best currently, and the lighting, about which the same can be said, or so Im told by those who know more about it than I do. So more money is needed to continue the work on our splendid old Star Hall. I hope it doesnt take until 2006, which will be Star Hall s centennial to finish the renovation. Either way it should be a great birthyear celebration. For those who are able to make a donation to help with this project, checks can be made out to Grand County Star Hall Renovation, and all donations are fully tax deductible. guess. The concert was given with no window coverings, which was a very different feel, both for those on stage and those in the audience. Light coming in from outside will not be appropriate for all events in the future. Light blocks for the windows are planned. Whether the elegant velvet draperies will be replaced is still a question. And in the priority list, I suspect they will be down a ways. Speaking of which, the next thing, when the rest of Yk Brick Bats and Bouquets Accolades and Admonishment with regard to issues in our community Bouquets to Marian I)eLay for all the work she did to bring the Austrian Choir to Moab last week. On top of her regular duties as Travel Council director, 6he attended to wealth of details involved in making this outstanding concert available to Moab residents, free of charge, even. And when the choir was late arriving, the unflappable Marian carried forth with a smile on her face. Shes a great asset to this community. Such people rarely get the thanks they deserve, so this time, 6hes getting it. Thank you, Marian. lc jN.'r mes-nhcpenbe- ttt ) (UPS) Entered as Second class Matter at the Post Office at Moab, Utah under the Act of March Second class postage paid at Moab, Utah 84532. Official City and County Newspaper. Published each Thursday at: 35 East Center Street, Moab, Grand County, Utah 84532 6309-2000- address: editormoabtimes.com Postmaster: Sena changes of address to: The P.O. Box 129, Moab, UT 84532 ail Times-lndepende- or FAX 435-259-75- Member 435-259-77- NATIONAL NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION and UTAH PRESS ASSOCIATION Samuel J. and Adrien F. Taylor, Editors and Publishers Sena T. Flanders Associate Editor News Wnter Circulation Mgr., T- Maps Systems Manager Advertising Representative News Writer, Sales Mail Room Supervisor Production Manager Franklin Seal Tom Taylor. -l Ron Flanders Mary Wright Sadie Warner. Dorothy Anderson Zane Taylor. Ericson, Steve Cooper, Bobbie Domenick Backshop Ken Davey Contributing Writer Green River Correspondent Betty Bailey. Ron Drake Castle Valley columnist Ron George ......Columnist Kelly ; Joss Churampi I iCUbbWW J s4. Mrr SoOfli Idle Thoughts from Mt. Waas by Ollie Harris Reunions When I grow up 1 want to go hang out at the truck 6 top or wherever it is that the men gather each morning to shoot the bull. 1 want to listen to their stories. I doubt that Ill have much to contribute having dissipated my best years and talents with children. But, I want to hear of big bucks, bulls, bears, revolutions-per-minutmanifold pressure, man hunts and neardeath experiences. They dont even have to be true. I have missed out on most of the really good bull sessions. This was brought home to me on several occasions during the month of June as I attended various family reunions. When you get to be one of the old guys at reunions you dont have to do much but sit around and tell stories. I had a significant assign-- r ent at one of the reunions which consisted of cooking about 65 pounds of fresh pork shoulder roasts. Once I got the cooking underway, even that assignment consisted mostly of sitting and watching over the meat and listening to the stories of those who like to hang cut where the food is being cooked. There were a couple of stories that I had never heard. One was about some folks who were traveling through the country when one night in camp a little toddler came up missing. They could not find the child in the dark but at first light next morning they found him with his arms wrapped around the leg of one of the big old horses. Another story was about a man who worked hard at a job all day and then came home and worked all night on his farm. It was told that he would set the irrigation water into the furrows at the head of the field and then go to the bottom, lie down and sleep until the water trickled down and woke him up. I heard a similar story when I was just a boy. One of the old timers in our little Colorado community was said to have stayed out too late when he was a teenager. He went to the field, cut the irrigation water into the furrows then lay down in a little ditch to sleep. e, Columnist Distribution His father came along and discovered him so he turned water down the ditch and flooded him out. At one of the June family reunions I saw a photoSarah Alice graph of my paternal Lee Harris, taken at a reunion in St. George in 1930. I had no idea a photograph of her existed. It is a trea- sure. My aunt, Ida Harris Elkins, who had the photo and who turned 90 in April, referred to her as Grandmother Lee Harris." Aunt Ida still comes to the reunions from her home in California. Her son, Donald, and a couple of his grandsons always bring her. Sarah Alice Lee Harris is the one who found herself alone at Willow Springs between Flagstaff and Tuba City, Ariz., in the early 1890s with her two litcle sons. When fell the food they had left was a chunk of hard, dry bread, she sustained her babies by nursing the youngest and then soaking small pieces of the hard bread in breast milk and feeding them to the little boy who became my grandfather. She is also mentioned in a journal by my maternal grandmother, Maude Letha Bell Job. , as being in Moab in 1920. It is pleasing to me that those two women, my ancestors, knew each other and crossed paths in Moab. Oh, by the way, the pork that I was assigned to cook turned out to be exquisitely delicious. There are few things that I can do with any degree of confidence, but I can just about guarantee my pork. This year, since there was a moratorium on fires, I cooked the pork over a bed of charcoal briquettes. It was my first time using charcoal. For several years I have done the pig over a bed of coals, which requires a continuous fire from which to take coals to replenish the heft beneath the meat. I seasoned the meat by injecting a solution of sugar cure into it with a large hypodermic needle. Next, I rubbed sugar cure on the outside of the meat. I placed the meat on the grill 12 or 14 inches above the heat, covered it with tin, threw handfuls of mesquite chips onto the charcoal and let the meat cook in a great cloud of smoke. It was wonderful. Great-grandmoth- High Country News Writers on the Range user fees The real reason for public-lan- d by Ed Quillen It used to be said that if you worked in the rural West, you took a goodly portion of your pay in scenery. Backwatei wages may have been low in comparison to mainstream pay scales, but for many people, there was compensation in the free recreation on the public lands all around them. Granted, the National Park Service has charged entry fees for about as long as anybody can remember, but the U.S. Forest Service and the federal Bureau of Land Management offered millions of acres everything from slickrock and sagebrush to alpine and it was free to all visitors. The only panoramas time you had to pay was if you used a developed campsite. But lately, weve started to see signs on public land that demand daily fees for things like parking or strolling on a trail. Some friends have pointed out that the Forest Service budget has been shrinking even as forest visitations have grown. Accommodating forest users costs money, and it has to come from somewhere. Our Republican Congress has shown no willingness to be that forest visitors are apparently not gensomewhere erous campaign contributors and that leaves visitors as a revenue source. Other friends just observe that those $5 a day use fee" signs make excellent firewood. But maybe there are other reasons for charging entry fees for public land. If your stomach can handle chili verde, its probe ably 6trong enough to handle reading the rural advertisements in any newspaper published in the Mountain West (or the Wall Street Journal, for that matter). Youll often see phrases like adjoins National Forest" or surrounded by public land." Obviously, these are sales points. Theres a country Realtor with whom I am often on speaking terms, and he offered some details. Being next to public land adds at least 25 percent to the value of a parcel, and being surrounded can double the value, he said. Private land can get subdivided and developed, real-estat- Jed Taylor, Oliver Harris CDWtiCt maybe even into a trailer park, he continued, but public land is pretty safe from development. Buy a parcel next to public land, and youre reasonably assured of never having many neighbors at all, let alone the wrong kind of neighbors." So being near public land adds value to property, sales are a major industry in every and Forest land. with National county But whats the point of paying a pretty penny for f that parcel if just anybody like beater driving an could camp right next to your fence, any pickup time they wanted to? Wheres that seclusion you like local thought you bought when just anybody dishwashers wearing Ai my surplus along with a brace of homely mongrel dogs can walk past your estate? This being America, its really important to protect property values. And it seems obvious that the best way to preserve the premium prices on those next to National Forest" domains is to keep the riffraff out. The Homeowners Association cant exactly install guards and gates at the National Forest boundary, but it can encourage the federal government to do pretty much the same thing guards that collect user fees at the gates. Those who cant pay cant enter, and those who cant enter the National Forest arent going to be lowering the property values of adjacent homeowners. f Thus are the kept out to the benefit of the new gentry of the New West. Since everything else that has happened around here in the past decade has been to the benefit of that group, this seems like the most sensible explanation for those public-lanuser fees. As for us well, it appears we wont get paid in scenery any more. Trouble is, nobodys offered to make up for that by increasing our other wages you know, the kind you can fold and spend. Ed Quillen is a contributor to Writers on ihe Range, a service oHigh Couniry News (uiww.hcn org). He lives in Salida, Colo. real-estat- e gun-totin- cracked-windshiel- g riff-raf- d riff-raf- d riff-raf- f, |