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Show PAGE 2 THE ZEPHYROCTOBER 1992 page two Jim Stiles A full page advertisement in the a few weeks ago stole some of the thunder from this month's issue of the Zephyr, and I couldn't be happier. The ad, paid for by a group called "Gtizens for fiscal responsibility bare the headline in bold 72 point type: The Ouray to Cisco Highway: Boon or Boondoggle? It contained a wealth of information about the proposed Book Cliffs highway and challenged many of fee myths and fables that the Spedal Service Road Districts of Grand and Uintah Counties have perpetrated on fee public over fee last three years. In the 15 years I have lived in Moab, I've seen many a scam paraded past the citizens of this community. We've endured our share of bizarre schemes like nuclear repositories and toxic waste incinerators and Kokopelli theaters feat have come and..ventuallyJefL In the "Dumb Idea" department, I think we could give those "cold fusion" guys a run for their money. But I have never seen such a ridiculous, and exorbitantly expensive project shoved down the such throat with with and such a narrow view of what can be defined as In public's arrogance the public good." Imagine this if you will. Two guys are fired by their employer and given a few weeks notice. But they still have the company credit card. In the time they have left, they use that card to set themselves up in a new business of their own. And when they leave their old jobs, they somehow manage to take fee credit card wife them and live quite comfortably off it in their new Times-Independe- nt en outdoor educaUprogramtotwouldtadude overnight yean. been trying to put together But they cant even come cioee estimate they need $20,000 year. field trips Into the parits. They a month. to that figure. The road district spends that much in Environmental Impact Statement a awaited Now the BLM has finally released its long federal of a highway, and which, in turn, document that essentially opposes the construction the public wife slick is eliminates UDOT participation. In response, the road district blitzing Omni which produces hired even Productions, has It advertisements promoting fee project. of fee the virtues highway, at a cost Moab's Channel 6 News, to produce a video promoting of the ads suggested feat most of thrust The newspaper of $15,000. (ultimately to us, fee citizens) school at our horn?, instead of of most graduates high fee new road could somehow keep about? The Book Cliffs Road will lands.1 What are they talking seeking employment in faraway about it , provide another route out of town, and that's Suzanne member Mayberry and Administrator Walker about I was approached by board after some thought, turned them down. Instead, I offered running these ads in the Zephyr and, fee road board free space and the opportunity to present their position on fee Book Cliffs down an ad before; I even ran an ad from the Western highway in this issue. I have never turned Land Users once, and had no problem wife it They knew where I stood on issues like wilderness and I knew what their position was. But this is different. The road district is using public monies to promote a project feat is controversial and political, and it has elected to bypass public ; participation. It is simply wrong. our the in to manner in continue which it has The road district is likely to money spend Commissioners Knutson and Torres support (naturally ) grown accustomed until at least 1994. fee abolish Special Service District Unless the optional form of fee road, and only they can life into county government, we can almost government passes and maybe breathes some new be guaranteed to see another half million dollars or more go down that Book Cliffs' drain. and the Book Cliffs Starting on page 8, fee Zephyr reviews the history of fee road district in and looks the ahead to where we project Road (again), interviews some of fee major players could go from here. self-servi- ng ' office. To some feat's about what happened here when Jimmie Walker and Dutch Zimmerman were defeated in the commissioners' race in 1988. In case you've forgotten, as lame duck commissioners, they established the special service district, appointed Dutch to the board (along with commissioner David Knutson's father, Ollie). Hie new board then hired defeated commissioner Walker to be the district's paid administrator. While the service district operates independently of county government, its funds, in the form of mineral lease revenues, are to be used for the benefit of the citizens who live within that district. It was the decision of Knutson, Walker, Zimmerman, and Robert Shumway that what this county really needed, without ever consulting the public or allowing its participation in the project, was a major highway over the Bode Cliffs to Vernal, at a cost feat most people believe will exceed $100,000,000. That's one..Jiundred ..million.. .dollars. It was determined, almost at the outset, that the monies from the mineral lease revenues could be used for a variety of services that a poor, rural community like Grand County needs. It could, in turn, free up general fund revenues for education in Grand County. And who can argue that education is pitifully underfunded in this county? State Representative and candidate for the State Senate, David Adams, recently described fee condition of education here as "embarrassing." Just as embarrassing is the fact that we continue to allow the road district to pour more money down this bottomless rat hole. Can you even imagine what this county could have done with the million dollars the district has squandered so far? We could have used that money to operate the dump, and the city council and the county commissioners could have found something else to argue among themselves about We could have expanded the scope of the county's recycling efforts, which could, in turn have effectively reduced the cost of operating the landfill Recently, I learned that the school district the Park Service and the Canyonlands Held Institute have, for . . A couple weeks ago, I wandered over to my favorite little town in New Mexico, whose name I won't reveal for fear that the literally dozens of people who read this paper will descend upon . fee village in monstrous hordes and ruin it. I was standing in front of fee country store wife my friend Pat Cooke and her 15 year old dog Sue, when two of her pals stopped by for a chat. Their names were Phillip and Armando and they had driven up from the south to visit Both gentlemen were in their 80s or early 70s and Phillip had recently been discharged from the hospital after suffering a serious stroke. For six months he had been unable to speak and some worried that he would never recover. It was apparent, however, that Phillip had indeed recovered, and was making up for lost time. While he shamelessly flirted wife both Pat and the dog, his older brother Armando told me his life story. I swear this is what he fold me. The r ' conversation went something like this... "My brother and I are Basque, you know. We came from the Pyrenees before fee second world war," Armando explained. "Really," I said. "What did you do when you came over here?" "Well" he replied, "I went to work for fee OSS." I knew what the OSS was...the Office of Strategic Services, the military intelligence agency during World War IL I know my WWII history pretty well and since I also believe that in my last life I may have been fee pilot of a 4 Liberator in Europe feat was shot down over Belgium in August 1944, 1 could converse fairly intelligently wife him on the subject. "The OSS?" I said. "Did you ever meet fee director. Bill Donovan?" "'Wild Bill' Donovan? Of course...I met wife him several times in the President's office." "The President's office? Which president do you mean?" "Why President Roosevelt's office. You see, Franklin Roosevelt was president during the- -" "I know he was president during the war, I interrupted. "You actually met President Roosevelt?" "Yes, of course. He was a great man. Donovan was too...and tough. No man was tougher than Donovan." "WeU," I asked somewhat hesitantly, not knowing whether to believe a word of this, "what did you do for fee OSS?" - B-2- . was an agent," he explained casually. "You were a spy?" Armando shrugged. "I guess you could say that" I looked at Armando. He barely stood five and a half feet tall. Stocky and balding wife bushy white sideburns, I wondered if this man could really have pal'd around wife fee likes of FDR and "Wild Bill" I decided that I believed every word he was saying. "So where were you a spy?" "Those were incredible times. Truly the future of our world was at stake. My partner and I were in pursuit of two German agents who were trying to get diamonds from South Africa to Germany via South America. The Germans needed the diamonds to make diamond bits.. it's the only way you can machine parts for weaponry and the like. Do you follow me?" "I I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion. Thomas Jefferson THE CANYON COUNTRY ZEPHYR I P.O. Box 32 7 Moab, Utah 84532 (801) 259-77- 73 Jim Stiles, publisher political specialist & features - Ken Davey contributing writers Jack Campbell Jane & Jones Cherie Gilmore TiScott Groene rv i , J .r, . ' i historical photos Herb Ringer roving reporter Robert Fulghum . r ? , poetry Hank Lemon. f". V- copyright l ' - S r all rights reserved v' layouts Colleen Wimmer ; food editor ' , Willie Flocko . -- 1992 THE CANYON COUNTRY ZEPHYR '; nodded. "We caught up wife them in Brazil near Angel Falls. Armando put his ball cap on and pulled the brim down low over his eyes and looked up at fee sky. "It's going to be another hot day. Too damn hot for September," he observed keenly. ' "Yes it is, I said, "but what happened next?" ' "What do you mean?" "The diamonds." ' "Oh yes...OK. We had caught up wife them in Brazil when they discovered we were following feem-Th' J killed my partner." : ey "Oh no...so they got away?" "No," he replied grimly. "I killed both of them.". . , . He waited for a moment;, then he continued.,!! killed one of them instantly, and I thought fee other was dead too. But I turned my back on him and he shot me wife a small gun feat he had concealed. So I finished him off. I was seriously wounded, but, I survived.". obviously, I didn t. know what to think. Just minutes before, Pat and I had been chatting about the weather and the remarkable good health of Sue fee Deg. Now my new friend Armando had led me info fee dark and violent world of the OSS and fee incredible role he played in it If I could ; believe him.: ' "Did you recover fee diamonds? I asked j 7 finally. Arid then I threw fee Germans into fee Amazon and fed them to the I pirranahs." "Oh," was all I could manage to say. j And can you believe this? The British had a force down there, and when j they learned what I had done, they arrested me for desecrating a dead person. Fortunately, Donovan came to my defense and got me off. Besides, I was able to prove that foey wqre Nazi agents." r V' , "How did you do that?" I was afraid to ask. . ; j "AM German had a small number! tattoo under their arm pit wife a swastika and a serial spies - - J : : The Canyon Country Zephyr is a monthly newspaper, published eleven times a year at Moab, Utah. The opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of its ven-- ? dors, advertisers, or even at times of its publisher . ' : ' |