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Show THE ZEPHYR/SPECIAL ELECTION ISSUE..FEBRUARY 1993 PAGE 11 (/s Bill: Somewhere in the U.S. every day a hospital fails and most of them are in little rural communities like Moab. And that’s because with the expense of hospitals these days, it’s very difficult for us to have one. So it’s not enough for a candidate to say, we want a good hospital. We have to make choices of things we really want, and the things we know we can’t afford to have. The health services district is right now working up a menu of options, things that we could conceivably afford. I don’t think it’s the place for the candidates to say "these are the specifics of the plan," that’s for the people on the board. But what the council should do is take that list of affordable options for the hospital to the people, and ask, which of these do we want? And come up with a community supported model for the hospital. And then, in order to get the most health care for our money, we've got to run the thing like a real tight, lean business, or it’s going to fail. That means getting the best people we can with a clear, community-based directive of what kind of a hospital it should be. And then letting the politicians get out of the way, and let that hospital do its job. Once we start them in the direction we want it to go, every time we meddle with them, we’re losing health care and spending it on fooling around. Zephyr: On tourism, what are the benefits and drawbacks of tourism, and what can the county do, through its promotion, to improve it? Bill: The benefits are that there’s a real feeling of vitality in the community. There are a lot of interesting new people here, there are cultural opportunities that have come with those tourists. There’s a feeling of excitement and interest here. There’s more money for a lot of people. But we've seen lots of towns go through this. And if you think hard, you can’t think of a single example of a place that’s a role model for us, where we say, "they got industrial tourism, and we like what they did with it." Every place you think of is sort of a horror show for us. So we clearly need to avoid having tourism become a major extractive industry here. That means we don’t build giant strips of motels, and suddenly go, now we need to expand our sewage treatment plant, but we wanted the motels to come in so badly we didn’t get them to put up any money, so now we raise taxes. We need to begin working with the BLM to figure out a better way to deal with the impacts of dispersed recreation on this countryside. Everybody who lives here values the country around here to some degree, and a lot of people value it a whole bunch. We’re in danger of having it messed up in a way that no amount of mining or prospecting or cattle grazing ever did to the country. We need to start working with the BLM, the state land board, the Forest Service, to figure out how we're going to cope with the impacts. Because just putting up toilets all along the River Road is not an answer. Bobbie: Tourism has helped our tax base, with the new motels. And it does employ a lot of young people in the summertime who come home from college, they have summer jobs at least, but we need something besides summer jobs, we need industry of some kind so we could have permanent jobs. I live out in the valley, and the tourists don’t bother me out there. Zephyr: Every campaign run in Grand County and Moab City, all the candidates say we have to diversify the economy, we've got to bring in jobs. Is there anything that can be done? Bobbie: I don’t know what can be done. Over the 20 years I was in office I sent letter upon letter, every clue we got that someone might want to bring in a business, we followed up on. After Bette Stanton came in she did more letter writing than I did. We followed up on everything we ever heard, they wined and dined them, but nothing every came from it. Bill: This is a hard place to do economic development. But if we realize we are in a pretty nice time period in Grand County—there’s money here. We're not all rich but this may be the time we will all look at as the golden period here in Moab. If we’re not in too big a rush we can realize that we're in the luxurious position of doing things that improve our lives here. Improving our schools, protecting our water supply, maybe setting aside open space, things that make the community more attracting, it’s the most realistic thing we can do for economic development. What we really want is people who fall in love with this place, who have a job and a business they can bring here. By working on our way of life, we can attract those people. Bobbie: We havea lot to offer. We have a railroad, we have a highway. We don’t have enough housing. Zephyr: Is there anything the county council can do about alleviating the shortage of affordable housing? Bill: We've reactivated the housing authority, and | think the message that we can get from looking at the other towns that have gone through a big tourism boom is that affordable housing for people who live there is a crucial issue. We should start on an aggressive campaign to make some affordable housing. That should be a pretty high priority thing. Bobbie: I understand they have that low income housing board set up, andI think the council should back it all the way, and keep pushing, and see what we can do about getting some low income housing. We really do need it here. There’s no place to rent, no place to live. Zephyr: What should Grand County be lobbying for in Salt Lake City? Bobbie: I don’t like lobbying. Bill: I think it would be nice to go upstate and bring the message that there’s a county in southern Utah that is accepting the changes, but wants to be able to get support to create a new way of dealing with the destination resort status that Moab is achieving. I don’t think there’s a good model of a community that’s dealt with it properly, and it would be fascinating if we could have the state resources to help us in finding a new way through this maze, so we don’t find out in ten years that none of the people who live here now are still able to afford to live here. Bobbie: I’m always fearful of the state telling us what to do. PACK CREEK RANCH La Sal Mtn. Loop Rd. DON’T FORGET TO VOTE ON FEBRUARY 9TH Bill: I was just saying I wouldn’t mind having their input. Bobbie: Yeah, I know, they’re free with their input all the time. But I think we’ve got to think more for ourselves, and decide for ourselves what we want down here, because every time the state gets a little fingerhold, then they think we're going to have too much of their advice, and they’re going to take us over. I think we can do it by ourselves, without the state’s help. Over the years we've paid lobbyists, but I’ve always been against it. Zephyr: What can the county council do for local education? Bobbie: I don’t think that the county council has anything to say over these schools right now. If we could bring a junior college or something like that in, good. But it is a school board problem, and if there was anything we could do, I don’t know what it would be. We should work with the school board, if they need anything at all, but I think it is a.school board problem. They are elected officials and they would have to approve. Bill: One of the problems that the schools are dealing with is that, like everywhere else in the country, kids arrive at school with so much baggage that the teacher has to start out as a social worker, and by the time they get through the social work the day is over, and they haven’t gotten to the subject matter. Creating a climate, a feeling in the community that education is really valuable—I think we have a legacy here of really wanting our schools to fail in a way, because children who didn’t get real educated didn’t go away to college, and they didn’t get highfalutin’ ideas. They stayed at home, they got a job at the mine or the mill. Those jobs aren’t available anymore. Now, if we want our kids to be around here, we have to place a real high value on education, so they can figure out how to create niches for themselves. People can come to Moab and make a job. Our kids could stay here, if they had the skills to do that. The big thing the council could do is make it clear that the schools are a top priority item, and_ that could be done through perhaps contributing to the schools’ building fund, so the pressure could go off of them. They’re about to have to start sending money upstate for capital improvements, the same way we've had to send it up for the equalization formula. There are ways that the council could help the schools financially, and change the climate so there is a higher priority put on education here. Bobbie: The county doesn’t have any money, it’s in the hole financially now. Where are they going to get money to help the schools with a building fund? Bill: That’s one of those alternative uses for the Book Cliffs Road money that I would like to explore. I agree with you Bobbie, it’s not as though we have money to throw around. But in that process I talked about before of rather than just adding to or subtracting from last year’s categories, if we were to do a radical re-thinking of where we are trying to go with this county, we may well end up saying, well, there’s more money here for education than there is for patching holes in the road. Bobbie: Most of your patching hole money comes from B-road money, and you can’t give that to the schools. Bill: That's also the biggest item in the general fund, too. Zephyr: In about a sentence, what is your top priority for the next two years? Bobbie: The first thing is to get organized and get each different council member appointed to different boards and what have you, and which departments they would oversee. Bill: I think that we need to get a handle quickly on what is going on at the courthouse, because I feel we have an artery open there, and we need to find out exactly what we are committed to, how much money we're going to spend, and what we’re going to get for it. Whead ELEC TALC a Box 1423 © Moab, UT 84532 (801) 259-7090 VOTE 40 % OFF SELECTED T-SHIRTS WHILE THEY LAST. AND DON’T FORGET TO VOTE 50 South Main St. 259-4070 or 259-5733 |