Show The Herdd Journal Logan Utah Sunday March Our View 30 1984 Ifj I TO REACH OUR GOAL OF BEING A TRULY SELFLESS SOCIETY COMRADE GORBACHEV HAS CALLER FOR A READJUSTMENT IN SOVIET THINKING INCENTIVES LIKE BETTER WAGES HOUSING CONSUMER GOODS HEALTH CARE RECREATION FACILITIES Garff Gardens dispute teaches several lessons Another chapter is nearing conclusion in the complex and controversial history of Logan’s Garff Wayside Gardens park It can only be hoped the lengthy volume that comprises the history of the park will have a quick and relatively happy ending City state and federal officals and a representative of the Cache Group of the Sierra Club recently met to discuss the sale and development of portions of the park which has been a source of controversy for more than 10 years At issue were concerns of the local Sierra Club which after conducting an extensive study of the park at the request of local residentsr felt that the proper procedures had not been followed to replace the land developed in the park The 3 park just south of 100 South between Main Street and 100 East was first approved for purchase in AREN'T THOSw' CAPITALISTIC NOT IF WE READJUST OUR THINKING INCENTIVES? 1975 Plans at the time were that the parcel of land would be long-terdevelopment of a canal and river walkway connecting city parks from the mouth of Logan Canyon all the way to Willow Park The Cache Knitting Mill on the property was scheduled to be torn down under the original plan for the park The park was purchased by the city in June 1976 Funds for the purchase came from a National Park program which grants money to buy property to be used for outdoor recreation purposes Any property purchased with the Land and Water Conservation Fund must be used for outdoor recreation purposes Property converted to other use must be replaced with land of equivalent value with equivalent use part of the m Service-administer- ed and location The current administration of Mayor Newel G Daines Inherited Garff Gardens or the Bicentennial Park as it was then known and all the public interest and controveriy the park has generated Some city residents seeing commercial value in the property wanted to get rid of the park Others cared only that the historic knitting mill building be preserved — at any cost Still others just wanted to keep the park as just that— spark City officials agreed to by to save the knitting mill if some suitable enterprise could be located there After lenghty efforts to sell the building Daines finally worked out a sale to the Cache Knitting Mill Partnership The municipal council approved that sale last April With the money from the knitting mill sale the city in June purchased under the conversion requirements property at 1313 South US 1 land that will ultimately be used for an municipal golf course 89-9- 18-ho- le At that time many people assumed the controversy was over Residents who many times had publicly expressed their desire to keep the park assumed their concerns had been addressed City officials assumed their plans were known and accepted As happens with most assumptions those beliefs were shattered last November when the city covered a good portion of Garff Gardens with an access road and more parking Residents in the area of the park were outraged Members of the city's Parks and Recreation Advisory Board were surprised as were members of the municipal council though the council’s approval of the knitting mill sale specifically called for the access road Residents contacted the Cache Group of the Sierra Club and asked that organization to lock into what had happened at and to the park Rudy Lukez who chairs the Cache group said the organization went into the matter with "a very open mind” “We did not see this as a confrontation” Lukez said was not an "The golf course was not an issue issue We were concened with the loss of urban parkland and wanted to find out what had happened” In an issue that has been marked more by emotionalism more than anything else the Sierra Club's approach to the situation was refreshing Aware that they may not find anything amiss in the handling of the conversion process members of the group made no public statement until after their study was complete and last week’s meeting was over Basically the group felt the conversion of urban parkland for golf course property did not meet the “equivalent use” standards of the LWCF and that residents' concerns had not been adequately addressed by the city Because of the issues raised by the Sierra Club a National Park Service official was interested enough in the park to travel to Logan from Denver just to see for himself what was going on with the conversion of the Garff Gardens property The meeting ended with the city agreeing to convert more land than was originally intended even though city officials felt they could defend all the actions they took Federal and state officials agreed that the golf course did qualify under the “equivalent use and location” standards though the Sierra Club did interpret that differently There are a number of important points that came out of this latest Garff Gardens chapter Citizens need to make sure they take the time to follow closely any and all issues that affect them not relying on others — or on assumptions — to make sure their concerns are addressed City officials need to make sure residents are aware of city plans that may impact their neighborhood Here again assumptions have no place Garff Gardens is not just a neighborhood issue and not just a parks issue The long controversy surrounding that small piece of Logan shows in our view that people do care what and that citizens get happens in their community frustrated when they feel the governmental process has ignored them Chi-Chi- 's Education proposal is a good concept WASHINGTON - Big Bill Bennett secretary of education made a strong pitch a few weeks ago for the administration’s bill to provide tuition vouchers for poor children permits taxpayers in computing their state income tax to deduct expenses incurred in providing “tuition testbooks and transportation” for their children The deduction is neutrally available to every family with children of school age but it especially benefits the parents of about 91000 children in private schools An estimated 86000 of these pupils attend sectarian schools Speaking through Justice William five members of the court found no violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment The primary aim of Minnesota’s tax law was not to benefit religious instruction but to benefit parents ' Justice Thnrgood Marshall speaking for the four dissenters' contended that the system served “to advance religion’’ and hence could not pass constitutional muster But cm Jan 26 of this year Justice Marshall spoke for a unanimous court in what is known as the Witters case This Involved a grant of public funds to a blind student seeking to become a minister All nine members of the court agreed that such grants flow to religious institutions "only as a result of the genuinely Independent and private choice of aid recipients” Five justices west out of their way to reaffirm the positions they had taken in the Mueller case Bennett’s bill appears to qualify under both of these key cases It would proride courses so imthe specialized catch-u- p portant to the poor and it would promote James J Kilpatrick A Conservative View hie fold a “Parental choice in education” House committee “is an idea whose time has come” The proposed legislation is aimed solely at the parents of “educationally dis- advantaged children” the poorest of the poor “More affluent families can already give their children greater opportunities They can choose them schools by buying a home in the neighborhood of their choice or by sending their children to a private school “The poor don’t have that kind of choice Yet it is their children for whom education may represent the best opportunity for success in later life” Bennett would redress some of this imbalance by making available to such parents a voucher of roughly $600 for each child of school age The vouchers could be applied toward tuition at a private school or they could be used for specialized instruction at a public school The choice would lie entirely with the parents Three objections often are voiced against the proposal Critics charge that the plan would offer very little choice to poor families that it would “destroy the public schools” and that to the extent it benefits religious schools it violates the Constitution Bennett argues to the contrary A $600 voucher might not go far toward the $8000 tuition of an elite boarding school but the median tuition for a private elementary school is $773 That putt the possibility of private education within reach of many families near the poverty leveL Re-hnqu-ist Not all the eligible families would opt for private education Bennett believes many parents Would apply their vouchers to public schools outside their normal school districts and he denies that a voucher system would harm a public school system ' The city of Cambridge Mass he told the committee established a program by which families could select among public schools The program worked so well that many families withdrew their children from private schools IN two years the proportion of children attending the city’s public schools rose from 74 percent to 82 percent What of the constitutional issue? It is generally anticipated that thousands of eligible poor families would choose to send their children to a Catholic parochial top-flig- school Bennett did not address the constitutional question in his testimony but there is good reason to believe that at least five members of the US Supreme Court would find no problem in the plan to June 1983 the highcourt handed down its opinion in Mueller v Allen Here it voted 4 to approve a Minnesota law that comoetition in education The bill has been languishing too long in committee It's time to get it moving C WM UnlvarMl 5-- Firm Syndicate Free speech should not be licensed i When I read that a dozen broadcast and journalism organizations had petitioned a federal appeals court to stop the Federal Communications Commission from enforcing the “fairness doctrine” my memory flipped back 52 years to a literary exercise between my father and youngest sister Irene My father was bouncing “daddy’s favorite little girl” on his knee and pointed to a newspaper headline “Can you read this?” he mischievously inquired Irene assured him that she could What does it say? persisted my father “See what it says?” asked Irene pointing to the headline My father nodded “That’s what it says” Either the First Amendment says what it says or Congress and the courts have succumbed to the folly of Spencer’s lamer t “How often misused words generate misleading thoughts” The First Amendment does not “Congress shall make no equivocate law abridging the freedom of speech or the press’’ But Congress has made a law abridging television’s and radio's freedom of speech and the courts have upheld My dual professional commitments are a case in point In addition to this column I host a talk show on WCAU-Tin Philadelphia Many of the criticisms I have leveled at President Reagan or other public figures in my column would not be permitted on my television show because of the “fairness it V doctrine” It mandates equal broadcast time to any public figure who is attacked or criticized in an editorial or whose opponent is supported editorially If newspapers are not required to provide “equal time" why should television and radio stations be treated as citizens? For the same reason I guess constitutional Supreme second-clas- s Court held in Plessy the vs 1896 that “separate but equal” schools were constitutional and Congress agreed for the next 58 years Sometimes democracy is a slow learner But with painstaking nobility it does learn and change So far though the fairness doctrine a crusty relic from the past has defied change The only judicial rationale for the fairness doctrine may be found in one word Scarce “It does not violate the First Amendment” the Supreme Court ruled in 1969 “to treat broadcast licensees given the privilege of using scarce (mv emphasis) radio frequencies as proxies for the entire community obligated to give suitable time and attention to matters of great public Ferguson concern” An incredible leap from electronic fact to judicial fancy In the early years of radio broadcasters welcomed government regulation and allocation of scarce frequencies At some point our government decided the right to regulate frequencies could be translated as a right to regulate free speech Congress agreed Few protested Certainly not newspapers In 1986 with television and radio almost -- 9 equal partners in the dissemination of news and ideas and “fun and free discussion" the fairness doctrine debilitates the First Amendment Premature government worries about network monopolies on opinion have been proven fatuous Today there are 9766 radio stations 1208 television stations 1688 daily newspapers and we haven't yet fully exploited caue television In Philadelphia residents get the news from 20 radio stations nine television stations and only two daily newspapers Extending the Supreme Court's logic a “fairness doctrine” for newspapers would be appropriate “to present representative community views on controversial issues” Some 324 years ago John Milton wrote in “Aeropagitlca" that we injure truth “by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength Lei her and falsehood grapple Whoever knew truth put to the worse m a free and open encounter" Fortunately a swelling number of Americans including FCC Chairman Mark S Fowler and print and electronic organizations are trying to keep faith with “Licensing’’ of free speech stifles honest discussion whether it is practiced by the king of England in 1643 or the US Congress in 1986 If you agree drop your representative or senator a letter and say so Ntwipar EntcrprlM Association Other Views The Denver Post Instead of wasting more money on the Contras Congress and the president should begin crafting a sensible long-ranpolicy of support for our friends in the region — and to isolate our enemies Cuba and Nicaraugua being chief among ge a rational policy in that region requires the United States to face the Nicarsgui that we recentlj identified in Chile and elsewhere wc“’Li1ayi - the in "nmg policies of otter nations to our own fat l |