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Show Volume XVIII Issue III The Ogden Valley news Page July 15, 2010 Letters to the Editor Guest Commentaries Harper Rocky Mountain Chiropractic Says Thank You Residential Treatment Facilities – A planning direction Dear Ogden Valley, Thank you so much for your support while we had our office in the Ogden Valley. We are moving locations due to a change in our practice focus and protocols. You can now find us in Layton at 2363 N. Hill Field Road in Suite #7. Please give us a call at our regular phone number 801-745-0977 or stop by and say hello. The practice has changed its focus and is now seeing mostly chronic conditions like fibromyalgia, migraines, peripheral neuropathy, thyroid conditions (Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis), and dizziness. We will still see the regular chiropractic patient and get them treated with our new protocols. Thanks again for all of your support and prayers and we look forward to serving you in the future at our Layton office. Dr. Lew Harper, Dr. Lew and Gina Harper with Elaine Story on Liberty their last day. Wake up Ogden Valley! The latest scrap with Weber County should make the relationship we have with them crystal clear. They want our Valley to provide them with as much tax base as possible; thus, they will tell us what is right and what is fair—what to do with land use up here. They listen with great interest as we tell them we don’t want this troubled youth facility in this part of the Valley, and they nod and say they’ll get back to us when they decide what is right and fair. Blame yourselves. Short-sighted Eden residents voted against incorporation years ago, based on a fear of higher taxes. Then the County, with all the thanks they could muster, cranked up the taxes as high as they could possibly go. How’d that lower-taxes thing work out for ya? Blame yourselves. Taxation without representation. No real voices are coming from this Valley. No real power. But look just 2 degrees to the south and west over at the Incorporated Town of Huntsville. Do they look like they are hurting? Not at all. They’re not rolling in surpluses, but they get the job done with what they have. They take their own tax money and they control their own destiny. They don’t find themselves down in Ogden once a month, hat in hand, begging the County not to allow some land use change in their area just to generate more taxes from up in cash-cow Ogden Valley. Blame yourselves. You have had the option available all along Dorothy. The magic of incorporation. (Powder Mountain figured it out!) Take your destiny in your own hands. Pull your future up by your own bootstraps. Quit whining and click your heels together three times and say goodbye forever to Ogden-based planning and budgeting. Become an equal, a peer. Don’t remain a “weak nephew” that needs someone’s help through life. Take all that money you’re raising in these angry “Protect our Neighborhood” clutches and run a broad incorporation campaign. The big tax scare, the bugaboo that taxes will go up, is a lie. Look at Huntsville—doing just fine, thank you. It will require a few people to get involved on a volunteer basis so you don’t have to pay a bunch of full-time bureaucrats but there are plenty of people in the Valley with the skills to serve well in volunteer elected and appointed capacities. You have lots of “involved people,” but this will require a different kind of involvement. Not in a “suck up to the County Commission” kind of involvement, as the County Commission holds all the power up here. No, the involvement I’m talking about will be in an elected, official, responsible, accountable-to-themselves-and-their-neighbors kind of way; lots of hard work by some, and hours spent working on issues related to the Valley. One thing is clear--the County takes more in from Ogden Valley taxes than it returns in services and accountability. Take that money back and control your own destiny; you’ll get full control back in the process. Staying unincorporated made sense when the Valley was only a rural farm area, but it’s not only a rural farm area any more. We’ve become a very valuable part of Weber County. Incorporate every other unincorporated space in the Ogden Valley and begin to walk on your own two feet. Jeff Holt, Huntsville Huntsville Gains Traffic, Noise, and Garbage In reference to the June 8 guest comIt’s another example of Ogden Valley resimentary by Steve Werner (“Just Say No to dents having no representation for our tax dolNew Huntsville Tax”), it’s interesting that Mr. lars. Werner’s one-sided and ill-informed commenMr. Werner needs to understand the facts tary was located directly beneath an editorial as only a fourth generation native of Huntsville about the Powder Mountain fiasco (“Powder LETTERS cont. on page 8 Mountain Dealing”). Traffic Sun Ice, Snow, Salt Oil Seeping or Pooling Water SNOWBASIN OPEN HOUSE TO SEE THE PROPOSED RESORT MASTER PLAN Thursday, July 15 3:30 PM to 6:30 PM Earl’s Lodge Snowbasin Resort has submitted an application to rezone in accordance with the Ogden Valley Destination and Recreation Resort Ordinance. The public is invited to an open house at Earl’s Lodge in Snowbasin to see the proposed master plan and rezone application. Call 303.623.5186 for additional information. Petitioners for the proposed Green Valley Academy have worked with the County Planning Staff to propose a new use in the FV-3 zone which permits a group home for disabled youth. To accomplish that they propose to modify text of the current ordinance dealing with facilities for troubled youth. The new use includes establishing the maximum number of residents as 36 (leaving the troubled youth maximum at 8), provisions for 24 hour supervision, and admitting only residents without a criminal record or an abusive primary diagnosis. The Planning Commission has been asked to decide whether these changes when applied to the FV-3 zone would be the basis for permitting this use. Twice now the Planning Commission has tabled this modification seeking more information, and time to define a more generally applicable set of changes. They also accepted more public input. In the Planning Commission work meeting held July 6th the Commissioners responded to specific questions which sought clarification of the proposed changes to the existing troubled youth law. Perhaps the most significant clarifications were that for a facility housing 50 or fewer residents: (1) a lot size of at least 20 acres would be required; the structures of an academy would be set back 300 feet from the front of the property and would not be closer than 200 feet to any other adjoining property line. This means a lot would be required to have more than 500 feet depth and 400 feet width without consideration for the space to build the buildings. For facilities of more than 50 residents a lot size of 40 acres would be required, (2) the use would be permitted in the FV-3, the AV-3, and the F-5, F-10, and F-40 zones (basically everywhere except commercial and shoreline zones), and (3) like facilities would be separated by at least 1 mile. A different approach to this problem would bring much more value with little more effort. Troubled youth and residential academies are only two of the facility types in this class. Draper city defined the class to include: 1. Alzheimer’s Facilities; 2. Assisted Living Facilities; 3. Congregate Housing Facilities; 4. Hospices; 5. Medical Services, Limited; 6. Nursing Care Facilities; 7. Transitional Care Developments; or 8. Other similar land uses that are constructed and used primarily for long term or permanent residence by the elderly and persons with a disability. By defining an overlay zone which would be superimposed on portions of our current zones we could plan for the entire class of uses now, instead of dealing with them as the applications come to the planning department. Additionally several of these type facilities would fit nicely in a more commercial environment. I have written this recommendation to the Planning Commission and staff and suggest the economy of this approach is worth the small amount of extra effort now. Respectfully, Steve Clarke, sdclarke@oValley.net Rebuttal Regarding the UEG (Utahns for Ethical Government) Ms. Warburton has decided she knows best how to deal with the unethical behavior by some of our elected legislators in Utah. Specifically, her plan is to do nothing and leave any remedial action on unethical behavior for the Utah legislature to police itself. Ms. Warburton in her attack on the UEG petition clearly indicates that, like so many of the legislature members that oppose this petition, she does not understand the desire of most Utah citizens to reform a system that encourages payoffs from lobbyists and favors big business and developers. Mrs. Warburton’s “position paper” has been refuted point-by-point in other forums, yet she continues to spout these untruths, half-truths, and outright misreadings of the petition as if she actually believes she is still correct. First of all, Ms. Warburton is a political activist who fully supports the existing Real Estate/Developer backed legislators that have lost touch with the people of Utah. She supports those legislators and candidates that per- sonify the no limit growth and political favors that have resulted in the degradation of our open spaces and our unique Utah lifestyle. We must all ask ourselves, what is it that Ms. Warburton and many of our elected legislators fear regarding the Ethics Petition? If we can improve our legislative process by removing the unwanted lobbyists’ influence and payoff politics, won’t that be a benefit to all? Anyone that feels fear from ethics reform can attack a petition and try to discredit it. They are missing the point. There is a rising wave of active citizens in Utah that are fed up with “pay as you go legislation” and unethical behavior from many of our elected officials. Our Utah legislators have already demonstrated their disdain for meaningful ethics reform. If the UEG petition is successful in gaining the necessary signatures to be on the ballot then the citizens of Utah will decide if they want strong ethics reform. It may also force the Utah legislature to pass meaningful ethics reform COMMENTARY cont. on page 8 -PUBLIC NOTICENotice is hereby given that the Huntsville City Council and Weber County Commission will hold a public meeting Thursday July 29, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. The meeting will be held at the Huntsville Library, 131 South 7400 East Huntsville, Utah. Said meeting will be for Sunrise Engineering, Inc. and the Utah Division of Water Quality to outline the proceedings of a Study (Capital Facilities Plan) to be conducted to determine the feasibility of sewering Huntsville and the surrounding County area. This meeting is to inform citizens of the proposed study contents, the timeline for completing the study, the purpose for the study, and to answer as many questions as possible. A second public meeting will be held later in the draft study phase to present preliminary findings of the study and to gather public comment. Interested parties are invited to attend. Gail Ahlstrom Town Clerk |