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Show Who's Really Running Highway 12? Do you remember back to 2001 when local meetings were held in connection with designating desig-nating Highway 12 as an Ail-American Ail-American Highway? At that time, we were told that the Utah Dept. of Transportation would be in control of the highway, just as Federal law states. County commissioners and others supporting sup-porting the tourist classification for Highway 12 also told us that the Federal government would have no say or control over it. Now,' I get email after email from Allysia Angus, who is a Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument land use. planner, on the All American Highway and its recent implementation. imple-mentation. In fact, I've overheard over-heard Ms. Angus in public restaurants instructing other GSENM' employees on how to enforce the road designation restrictions in the local towns. At Gov. Mike Leavitt's Rural Summit in August, I also heard Ms. Angus looking for funds to implement the local Ail-American Ail-American Highway program. It seems the Highway 12 committee is really led and organized by the Federal government's gov-ernment's GSENM employees. What's even more interesting is that Ms. Angus was a "state and local planning" member of Gov. Mike Leavitt's 1999 Office of Planning and Budget, long before the All American Highway status was presented to local residents. Of course, Ms. Angus was also shown as staff during 2001 and 2002 for our Five County Association of Governments as a Planning Consultant for Highway 12 in their Annual Reports. Local residents may remember her as a new GSENM intern during the summer of 2002 and hired as a permanent GSENM employee in the fall of 2002. Perhaps her Five County Association of Government position was actually funded by the GSENM with their federal funds directed through the county, coun-ty, giving the appearance of being a county employee, much like Shane Luck's salary which actually comes from the GSENM as he revealed to me in May 2003. It seems to me Ms. Angus has been groomed to organize the All American Highway program, pro-gram, even though from the git-go, git-go, local residents were told that they would lose no local control over the highway, that the State of Utah would control the Federal designation, and that the Federal government would not manage the State highway at all. Toni Thayer Escalante |