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Show added benefit of reducing the amount of our accounts payable. This puts the City in a better financial position, which benefits the citizenry at large. We have made other efforts to be more accommodating with our customers, including the removal of the glass barrier window at the Treasurer's counter, and taking a more customer-oriented approach to many of our processes. Regarding the incident you referred to in your article concerning the unhappy citizen, I believe this was an isolated incident that does not accurately characterize the attitude of City officials. We do occasionally encounter situations in which diplomacy is difficult, but mostly we are fair, reasonable, and open. I encourage you to come to City Hall and chat. Dear Mr. Stiles: Thanks for Alexandra Woodruff's excellent article about Proposition 5. In fairness, Salt Lake County was not the only county to vote against it; the constitutional amendment also lost in Summit County by a vote of 3,649 to 3,971. And Congressman Merrill Cook, of whom Woodruff is apparently not a fan, took a courageous stand in favor of citizen initiatives by opposing Prop 5. Those of us who devoted more time and money than we could really afford to the fight against Prop 5 believed it would be an easy victory for common sense. We were wrong and not just because the Don Peay crowd raised $600,000--much of it from donations to taxexempt organizations like the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, by the way. The Prop 5 TV commercials shrewdly appealed to the large majority of Utahns who love wildlife and wildlands, but are simply fed up with the last 15 years of radical environmentalism in this state. The Utah Voting Rights Coalition's alliance of moderate conservationists and good government groups was referred to time and again in the media as “animal rights activists”, and this absurd label may have stuck because enviros in general have earned such a bad name for themselves. The victory of Prop 5 was essentially symbolic, since it fails to cover, for example, an initiative to change the makeup of the Wildlife Board and the RACs. Although the vote really didn't have much practical effect, wilderness and wildlife activists should know when they've been taught a lesson. The national environmenta! groups and their followers have forgotten about mainstream Utah, and Prop 5 was a We are all real human citizens. beings who believe that the mission of the City is to serve its In reference to code compliance issues, this is an area in which it can be difficult to be perceived as friendly, given that we are usually telling a property owner that he/she has violated a city code, which people rarely want to hear. For a first violation, we normally talk to the person about the violation and discuss ways to the property owner can remedy the problem. Then we allow a grace period. Typically, after the courtesy conversation and grace period, the property owner addresses the violation. If the initial conversation proves ineffective, or if a property owner has a history of violations, we send a letter describing the violation and the penalties associated with it. We are sometime unable to get in touch with the property owners on the phone or in person, so people occasionally get the written correspondence before we can make personal contact. We have actually revised our violation notices over the past few years in order to make them less confrontational. We are open to any specific suggestions for further improvements you may have. You also mentioned our street sweeping schedule. Our street sweeping staff are conscientious individuals. They sweep Main Street every Friday between 4:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m., when the number of cars parked on the street is lowest. As for residential areas of town, there are cars parked along the streets during all hours of the day, which is why you may see the street sweeper navigating around vehicles. Trying to sweep around cars is undoubtedly not ideal, but we do our best. I hope some of this information is helpful. I understand you have been added to our fax list for public announcements. If you ever have any questions or comments about city services or the goings-on in city government, please visit or give me a call. timely reminder. Thank you again for your comments. Sincerely, Richard M. Warnick Salt Lake City, Utah Sincerely, Donna J. Metzler Moab City Manager Dear Jim: I recently read your June-July Zephyr article about the City of Moab. I can appreciate your perspective. 1 wanted to provide some information and comment about some of the issues you raised in your article. The first issue concerns the state of our roads. Admittedly, the City is experiencing some growing pains that have taken their toll on our streets. During the past weeks, we have had the telephone company, the gas company, the irrigation company, city contractors and city crews all engaged in excavation projects at the same time. This is obviously not an ideal situation for vehicular travel and safety, and is not something that the City takes pride in. However, it is a situation that we have taken seriously and have tried to mitigate as rain storms, delayed construction schedules, broken water lines, and difficulty in obtaining contractors’ compliance with safety and resurfacing standards have compounded an already trying set of circumstances. Regarding street closures near businesses, the City does try to ensure minimal disruption to businesses when the City performs street excavation. Sometimes, such as in the case of recent lane closures on Center Street and 100 West, the irrigation company or other entity has responsibility for the project, and the City must attempt to accommodate the company's schedule. City staff have discussed the need to improve communication with companies that do work within the public right-of-way, in order to coordinate hedules, pli with safety and other standards, and to encourage notification of property owners as to closures and other disruptions. We are confident that we will get this situation under better control over the next few months. As an aside, the city staff appreciates your sand sweeping efforts. Sometimes it takes a citizen's helping hand or watchful eye for us to provide the level of service we would like. Another issue that you mentioned in your article was our final notice policy. I can understand how a normally conscientious customer might be surprised or offended by such Editor's Note: For a response to this letter, see page 4. Dear editor, Regarding the letter from Jim Westerman in the Feedback section of the April/May issue, Mr. Westerman is upset that the toll vehicles are taking on the area surrounding Moab. Basically it is the same argument about over-use that one hears about in all facets of living. Too many vehicles on the trail, too many cars on the highway, too many fishermen on the river, too many rafts on the water, too many strip malls. Too many people. A big clue to the problem is contained in Mr. Westerman’s second sentence. excited to share with my family the wonders of your beautiful region, as they had before visited.’ Well, there you go. Mr. Westerman was here eight years before, most by himself; now he returns with a family (let’s assume two kids, but who knows?) ‘I was _ never likely and ‘is upset that more people use the area. Hello. The clue phone is ringing and it’s for you People are everywhere and having families means more people. It cracks me up when someone complains about a new development of houses destroying the view, the environment, the prairie dogs. All I have to do is ask them: Do you have any kids? The answer is always in the affirmative. Okay then, you are still going to be alive and living in your house when they move out and look for somewhere to live. Well...yes that’s true. Okay then, please explain to me where you think they are going to want to build, shop, recreate, etc. without impacting the people that already there? ZPG has its merits. George Mynatt Berthoud, CO a note. If it helps to mollify your frustration with us, you may like to know that we do make several attempts to contact every person on the disconnect list by telephone to remind them to pay their bill, prior to actually disconnecting the service. Because of our aggressive effort to encourage customers to pay their bills before disconnect day, we have a very low disconnect rate. We also have a very flexible payment plan policy. Customers may make Here's another “Report from Escalante”. It should cheer you to know that not all the jackasses in Utah live in Moab. We've got a pretty fair share of them here too. payments on schedules convenient for them. Our aggressive collection policy also has the with Civil Rights)” movement, we have jack-booted (cowboy-booted?) thugs destroying HOWOPCY sty pay A WEYCuca, 80M 70 topm ! MEW! Witp1 EXCITING! ieee DININGIN Dear Jim, In the most recent version (I should say “perversion”) of the “Up with America (Down fake political ass-kissing: 984 Barret Ave. GEORGE W. BUSH pet says Lynn's is the best KENTUCKY222 darn cafe' in America ag Sia SS IN Tig PARUING ton ith all my money you'd think'd be above obsequious and smarmy behavior. But| can't help it. It runs in my family ZT 2 LOUISVILLE, 302.383.EGE$ " Still only 1331 from miles Moab" 3 RENTOOR) PPRERMSRee |AND GULCH DUT THE WILDEST WER SITE OM THE INTERNET. wwrw.lynnsparadisecate.com| THIRTY-EIGHT |
