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Show Cedar Approves $375,000 Revenue Bond Issue bv Vote Count of 896 to 795 Voters approved Cedar City's participation in the purchase of Southern Utah Power Company's holdings at a special bond election elec-tion Friday, and the Mayor and City Council took immediate steps to put the program into effect as soop as projier procedure proced-ure will permit. The question voted on in Friday's Fri-day's election was that of issuing issu-ing $375,(XX) In revenue bonds to be used for the purchase of the Southern Utah Power Company electrical distribution system within the limits of Cedar City, ;nd that of permiting Cedar City to participate in the purchase of company holdings by the Southwest South-west Utah Power Federation. Nearly 1700 votes were cast with S!H' voting in favor of the proposal pro-posal and 795 against. Following this vote the City Council passed an ordinance and adopted a resolution, setting the wheels in motion for the purchase pur-chase of the distribution system, and participation with the Federation. Feder-ation. Both are published in this issue of the Iron County Record. If the program is eventually put into effect a total of $375,000 in revenue bonds will be issued by the city. The purchase price ol the distribution system has been set at $337,000, and the remainder re-mainder of the funds raised through the bond Issue is to be used for extension and maintenance mainten-ance of the system. The program calls for the purchase pur-chase of the entire holdings of the Southern Utah Power Company, Com-pany, with the exception of the distribution system within Cedar City, by the Southwest Utah Power Federation. A loan to the Federation by the Rural Electrification Electri-fication Administration has also been approved to provide for the Intallation of additional generating gener-ating facilities, and for the extension ex-tension of power lines to the cooperatives co-operatives making up the Federation. Fed-eration. Cedar City will purchase the Cedar City distribution sys-tern, sys-tern, and then purchase power from the Federation for distribution distribu-tion to electric power users with-in with-in the city. Members of the Southwest Utah Power Federation, in addition addi-tion to Cedar City, are Escalante Valley Electric Cooperative, Dixie Cooperative, Utah -Arizona Coop- rative, and the Garkane Cooperative. Cooper-ative. The area served will cover seven southern Utah counties i.nd two northern Arizona counties. coun-ties. Cedar City is the only city ot any size included In the group. Kanab Is the next largest town to be served under the program. Further steps In putting the program in effect will be taken Saturday when members of the Federation board meet with engineers en-gineers from the intermountain west to discuss engineering problems prob-lems and select an engineer for the project, the meeting will be held in Cedar City at 1 p. m. Officers of the Federation In-elude In-elude Gronway R. Parry of Cedar City, president; L. C. Christensen, Newcastle, representing the Escalante Es-calante Valley Co-op Evan Woodbury, Wood-bury, Hurricane, Dixie Co op; Dr. George Aiken, Kanab, Utah-Ari-zona Co-op, and Reed Burr, Burr-ville, Burr-ville, Garkane Co-op. The entire project was dependent depend-ent upon Cedar City's participation participa-tion since it is recognized that without the concentrated power market of the city, the power development and distribution program for the rural areas would not be economically feasible. fea-sible. Thus the approval of the I rogram by Cedar City voters as a big step toward culmination of the program. However, approval of the bond issue does not necessarily guar- ' antee the undertaking of the program. A number of other steps must yet be taken. First, approval of the purchase of the power company holdings must be) ' fipproved by the Court handling the Washington Gas and Electric Elec-tric company receivership case. Next approval of the Security Exchange Ex-change Commission must be obtained. ob-tained. And finally, the bondholders bond-holders of the company, the rightful owners of the property, must approve the sale. This last may be an unsurmountable obstacle ob-stacle since holders of well over one-third of the bonds have repeatedly re-peatedly stated that they will not sell at the price offered by the Federation. However, Federation officials . are assuming that the court and SEC approval wil) be forthcom-'' ing and that the bondholders will approve the sale, and are rroceedlng as rapidly as possible possi-ble in order that everything will be in readiness when such approval ap-proval is given. Announcement has been made that over $9,000,000 have been made available to the Federation through an REA loan, and that a $6,500,000 development pro-gram pro-gram for the Installation of electric elec-tric generating facilities and extension ex-tension of lines would be undertaken. under-taken. This definitely does not mean that the entire sum will be spent immediately or that the complete overall program would be started as soon as final ap-' proval is given. Certainly the development program will cover only the facilities needed now, with sufficient margin allowed ', for reasonable development over ' x. period of years. |