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Show against the agency in charge because he could not have "fun". Poisoning springs in Horseshoe Canyon is a serious charge. knowledge of this, now or in the past. No one] talked to has any This is one example of careless and reckless statements contained in this article. Clearly Severance wants to have his fun at the expense of the natural resources. Sure it would be great if there were no restrictions. However, this is not 1967 and there are a few more hundred million people in the world now. We should be thankful someone is willing to protect the land while allowing people to use it. If Severance wants fun, let him drive Editor's note: The Zephyr recently received this from Moab poet laureate Jose’ Knighton. It deserves re-printing here...JS. up to Lagoon. The article in question is not informative. It is an unreasoned tantrum against an agency doing its job. Severance should put the blame for differences in his experiences in the 1960’s and now on population growth, demographic changes, technology that allows great numbers of people to travel to remote locations, and a lack of knowledge and respect for things natural and wild. Sonnet At Walden’s Shore The editor maybe needs to check the facts before including such an article in his paper. for Jane Shurtleff Larry Thomas Mere flesh and blood’s no match for ancient stone. Blood dissipates and monuments remain. Though Ed Abbey's a decade gone to bone and dust, his voice still rings out true and plain and defiant in dirty Earth’s defense, but also against enshrinement of myths. The thoughts of daring men become nonsense when raw words harden into monoliths. Neither Thoreau’s nor Muir’s bearded icon is true to their lives or their passion’s drive. Moab UT 84532 Dear Jim I read the response from Moab's City Manager, Donna J. Metzler, regarding your criticisms of The Moab City staff and administration. First of all I don't have a personal grudge with The Moab City Manager or City Council. I don't have any personal grudge with utility contractors or utility companies. For over 8 years I was Superintendent of Maintenance and utility that served 45,000 residents. Our utilities taps, and 16000 sewer taps. I put together and including 33 crew employees plus office staff. I Shoving Delicate Arch, wishing it gone, is how I recall Ed. If still alive, Operations of a water and waste water had over 2000 fire hydrants, 16000 water managed a $4,000,000.00 annual budget feel adequately qualified to critique city priorities and excuses given in the city manager’s response to your editorial comments. Particularly the “plea” for understanding why the public at large and local businesses are not the city's first priority. If you read the letter carefully that is what it expects and implies. First of all Donna's letter states that the city must accommodate the various entities in he‘d pose and piss in Walden’s fluid shrine, praise mortal blood, dilute the fake divine. Jose Knighton the performance of their respective maintenance functions or improvements projects. The right to operate any enterprise[public or private] inside and underneath public owned rights of way should be regulated on the premise that cities are charted by people who Dear Jim, I'm sure the other trustees of BCHPA will join me in thanking you for running the Cottonwood Canyon and other land trust pleas in the Zephyr. We appreciate the publicity. We get results. We keep on working. It took about 50 years to convince people that a “conservation easement” is not a Marxist device, another 500 years to educate everyone else about the merits of NOT developing Bluff's best places (farm, river corridor, and canyon; Anasazi Great House and Pioneer Cemetery) and, once they understood, at least twice that long to make them realize that preserving private property for agriculture, open spaces, and designated public access is not a free ride. So that leaves at least 250 more years to raise the money for go easements, which is due 250 years before’that.... in other words, soon. We just received a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation for preliminary studies of the Bluff trail system, a very cool plan to reconnect the town to its river. The focus is on habitat restoration on the San Juan through town and a low-key interpretative guide. For a small town, we have an extraordinary land trust. We have the fundraising ferocity of a pack or piranhas. But, oh, how we need to raise the balance. Your support really helps. Thank you Thank you. Ellen Meloy Trustee, BCHPA Historical Preservation Association Bluff City, Utah Moab is not a “company town” Contractors and city department heads did not “charter” the city and should not be first in the line of accommodations made. I know about safety and overtime issues. The city likes to trot these excuses out when asked why they do things the way they do. These excuses have been mitigated for years by safety technology and work hours regulations that allow work hour modification to. avoid overtime impacts. Elsewhere in America the accommodation, indeed the protection of the public are part of life when you dig up streets, interrupt essential services, or disrupt peoples lives and businesses. Why should it be different in Moab? Cities are chartered to give citizens and businesses among other things control over what happens to their infrastructure, i.e. maintenance of roads, water lines, sewer lines, etc. Business people and their customers depend on clear public access during business hours. Whether you walk, ride a bike or drive an automobile you depend on safe roads and streets while traveling in the community. When city infrastructure is temporarily modified, or temporarily damaged, the citizens © are put at greater risk. The longer the “modification,” such as an excavation, lane closure or detour exists, the higher the risk of an auto, bike or pedestrian “accident”. Even more serious is the effect street excavation can have on emergency services. In some cases the city has allowed streets to be closed down to less than two full lanes for hours, even days with no or to few flagmen to direct traffic during work progress and no where near enough night time warnings. This was done recently at H.M.K. Donna Dear Jim: It must be easy to be a critic. Throw stones in any direction without regard for the truth or reason. They may take no responsibility for misrepresenting the facts and substitute their own ideas for the truth. Government agencies need reasonable and objective critics to keep them in line. The ranting of Owen Severance does not fit into either category. To evaluate the points he makes in his writing "Over My Dead Body” I talked to the Canyonlands National Park Chief Ranger and a ranger to be no validity in Severance’s accusations. In fact, 1 to rangers in the Maze who explained the rationale for Ironically Severance did not question the reasoning. unite to provide public health, safety, and other domestic and economic amenities. in the Maze District. There seems was amazed to find he had talked closures, trail rerouting etc. He used the occasion for a diatribe And now a few words from John... My fellow citizens, for the last several months, we mentioned Center Street. Business owners were fold that there was a project starting in two days. One week went by and nothing happened. Ten days went by, still no work started. One morning, many days after the initial contact, Center St. was blocked at both ends between Main and 100 West. No traffic was allowed access and yet no one at city hall thought to re-notify owners. And no one asked when it would be less disruptive to have their business access blocked, since the season for business was starting by that time. A very similar thing happened [same project] on 100 West. Donna's letter admitted this particular project was not a city service or utility problem. It was a private contractor doing work for a local company. This is not a criticism of the employees or either of the companies. Both company's employees were polite and accommodating in our dealings with them. I believe both companies followed all the rules they were told to. The project took more than five weeks. There were unpaved excavations that by my PRINTS here at Footprints, in conjunction with the publisher of the Zephyr, have been trying to come up with an extremely clever spoof...a play-on-words if you will... of the upcoming Y2K 'event.' We consider ourselves to be extremely clever and perceptive individuals and felt sure we'd have an absolutely side-splitting Y2K parody for this issue. Nothing. Not even a hint of brilliance. So we are appealing to you, the vast world-wide Zephyr readership. We have ONE last shot at this in the Dec/Jan issue. If you can come up with something that really cranks our chain, we'll print your Y2K Gem AND buy you a complimentary bowl of beer cheese soup at the Moab Brewery. THANK YOU. WHAT DO WE DO? We write custom software for the big people and the little...OK...We take that real big file cabinet full of paper and put it all into your computer. 121 E. 100 S. #108 Moab, UT 84532 435.259.4384 800.635.5280 |