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Show PAGE 4 THE ZEPHYR DECEMBER 1991 The Davey Report - ERRATA Ken by December is in important time for county government as budgets far 1992 are approved. For the current county comission, it's a time of reckoning The county financial record of foe last decade has not been good. During an era of shrinking population and relatively low inflation, county spending has skyrocketed, and county departments have expanded And as mineral resource production dropped off and led to a contraction of property tax revenues, the commissions decided to use surplus cash, carried over from relatively good times, to balance their bottom line. Now, that surplus is gone. And something has to be done, either raise taxes or cut spending. Neither solution is appealing to'politidansj, but there are no other alternatives. Although the commission does not directly approve budgets of independent districts, commissioners have a direct political stake in the upcoming hospital board deliberations, due to their intervention earlier this year in abolishing the existing board, firing foe company managing foe hospital, and appointing a new board of their own. The major stated reason for getting rid of Lutheran Health Services was financial: the company was spending too much. If the current hospital board can reduce foe facility's tax subsidy, commissioners will look like they knew what they were talking about Other budgets are also being assembled, including those for the Spanish Valley water districts, library, fire department, special service recreation and roads districts, and the schools. Specific budget hearings take place throughout this month, and are announced in the public notice section of foe Times Independent. Budget considerations will delay any action on adopting a new county master plan, but that document will continue to be studied by the county planning commission through the end of this year. Master plans supposedly guide the work of county commissioners, zoning and planning committees, and other local government bodies, but, at least here in Grand County, they have been routinely ignored in recent years. Now, conservative western legal advocacy groups believe they can use the county planning procedures to assert local control over federal lands, a sort of legal Sagebrush Rebellion through zoning regulations and codes. The Grand Country draft of a new plan is very preliminary, assembled by the county's office of economic and community development. It sketches out broad areas erf concern, from housing to agriculture to economic development. And it lays out many of the questions that have dominated politics here in recent times: what kind of subdivisions should be allowed, whether mobile homes should be restricted in Spanish Valley, if zoning restrictions should be changed, relaxed, or stiffened. But the politics of foe sagebrush rebellion are clearly enunciated in the sections having to do with public lands, including support for grazing and chaining, opposition to wilderness, and a call to privatize public lands. But more than anything else, the document openly asserts that counties, and not the federal government, should control activities on public lands. The draft is peppered with 2"the federal government shall..." and "the federal government shall not..." County Commissioner Manuel Tones stated at one meeting that the draft reflects the views of foe majority of county residents, and Commissioner David Knutson says a political document is needed. On the other side, those of a more environmental bent accuse foe document of looking to the past and ignoring foe real future. And the attitude of government land managers to the sentiment is good natured skepticism that federal law can be abrogated by a county commission vote. But legal or not, it promises to be an interesting ongoing discussion. Copies of foe master plan are available from foe county, but you can only borrow them. Officials say they don't have the money to supply residents with copies. The Moab Chamber of Commerce has signed on to foe campaign to help foe oil companies stop environmentalism. At their meeting in October, chamber board members voted to pass a resolution urging the federal government to "resist" with all its might attempts by environmental organizations to bring "vexatious" legal actions against oil companies. The resolution, exceedingly similar if not identical to one passed by the Grand County Commission, was intended to show companies such as Columbia, Chevron, Exxon, and others interested in southeast Utah that the local business community was behind them in their to-t- h elitist greenies, and their fellow struggle against obstructionist, the travelers, aquamarines. The only problem is, that's not the kind of help oil companies want. The petroleum industry is not the most beloved institution in the nation. Perceived fraudulent gas shortages, dangerous conditions at refineries, and oil spills that turn cute little baby sea lions into floating globules of tar have tended to blemish the corporate images of these business behemoths, and a bad image can lead to letters to the newspapers, protests, demonstrations, and even, under the most of extreme circumstances, government laws and regulations that make it Davey harder to keep up that profit margin. So oil companies, as part of bask business practice, took to good public relations to offset that contribute to They sponsor nature shows on public broadcasting. They inviU environmentalists and other potential organizations, they submit to hostile interviews, they facilities and operations. attractive most critics on tours of their cleanest, safest, as arrogantly demanding They DO NOT want to be seen as trying to push anyone around, dub, concessions and privileges. They would prefer to be known as Mends of the Users. course Of Land to of want drill Association for Western allies of the they not do that with can little realize very they oil here, it can make them megamillions. But they damage their enhancement of, corporate reputations. to, and possibly And here in Moab they have a golden opportunity: horizontal drilling, because the technique allows them to drill one or two wells and reach the same amount of oil as 10 or 20 wells using traditional, vertical drilling. They believe they can demonstrate in practice that slurping oil out of the ground doesn't have to lead to total ecological destruction of an area, that they can protect archological resources, they can return canyons and meadows to a condition just right far bighorns and bunnies and bambi's. save-the-whal- bird-watchi- es ng No CAWnd anti-federal- ist th anti-technolo- And they realize something else. An oil well that is surveyed, drilled, and put into production within foe legal rules and regulations of the federal government will produce virtually foe same profit (and the same tax revenues) as a well that violates the law. That's where the local environmentalists come in, specifically foe Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (there is reputedly a Moab chapter of the Sierra Club, but it never does anything.) SUWA would like to see the canyons left as they are, if not more stringently restricted. But the group realizes that if there is oil in the ground and it can be profitably extracted, it will be. So they now see their role as damage control, making sure foe oil companies and the federal government at least enforce existing environmental codes. Oil companies willing to follow the law. Environmentalists wanting foe law enforced. Government agencies charged with enforcing that law. Of course there will be wrangling for advantage, arguments, disputes, but the general preconditions exist for at least grudging cooperation. Ah, but the Chamber of Commerce. Its membership is shrinking, it lost its office, it couldn't sustain an economic development program, its staff is depleted. What other problems can they solve? This pesky environmentalism, of course. Ironically, the diamber action comes just at foe time that SUWA and the oil industry were able to work out a deal to foe satisfaction of each party. A geophysical company had been given a permit to conduct seismic work on land SUWA felt had significant archeological sites. HAVE A IW Chwstmac, 2 south 1st west (801) 259-666- 6 COLORADO Restaurant & Bar OUTSTANDING SOUTHWESTERN CUISINE AND MOABS MUSIC SPOT at IMS RlO |