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Show Controversial TV BUI Inked By Gov. Clyde Leaves Iron County Holding the Bag One of the most controversial and highly publicized items of business of the current session of the Utah State Legislature was put into law last week when Governor George D. Clyde signed a bill authorizing governmental bodies from county level on down, to maintain and operate television transmission and relay facilities. The original bill was sponsor-ed sponsor-ed in the senate by Senator C. R. Hunter of Iron County and Senator Carlyle Gror.nlng of Bea. ver County. First of Its Kind As far as can be determined It Is the first bill of its nature tc be passed In any of the states The bill received considerable notoriety no-toriety from all parts of the coun. try, and was closely followed bj groups in a number of small communities in the nation whe do not now have television. The bill actually amended see tions 11-2-1, 11-2-2, and 11-2-6 Utah Code annotated 1953, relat lng to playgrounds and othei recreation facilities. The amend ment added to that section o; the state statutes the right foi 'city, town, school district oi j county governments to maintair and operate translator type tele-1 vision transmission and relay facilities. fa-cilities. Following the original writing of the bill the specific method of transmission, that of translator type systems, was added to conform con-form with legal, authorized practices prac-tices in the television field. However, the bill did not au- (Continued on Back Page) TELEVISION LEGISLATION (Continued from Pag On) I thorlze any of the governing bo. ' dies to extend the tax levy to Uow for this new type of opera-; opera-; lion. The bill simply stated that I money derived from taxes levied ; lor recreation .could be used for! the purpose of supplying tele- vision. I ; The change in the law alo J added the following phrase: And ' In areas so remote from regular 4 ..' transmission points of the large television stations that television V reception is impossible without K.kS special equipment, said author- j If i Ities, may equip and maintain v'-i translator type transmissions for ' C; the purpose of supplying non- V.V t commercial television to the peo- I . . With the passing of the bill l the Iron County Commissioners : ';" - and city council have the right ' t Invest money in such a project ' for this area. However, neither of these organizations has discuss-ed discuss-ed the possibility of entering Into In-to such a program at the present time. It Is understood. Channel 5 Carried As the result of the signing Into law of the television act, John Rowberry and his associates who have been supplying a signal. sig-nal. Channel 5 out of Salt Lake City, into the area for a considerable consid-erable length of time, have Issued Is-sued a statement regarding their standing on the subject. Rowberry explained that his group had merely undertaken the project of proving that a signal sig-nal of sufficient strength for transmission Into Iron County was available. j As to future developments on the signal that is now being sent into Cedar City Rowberry Indicated that his group would ! not attempt to make any lm- ' provements on the present Installation. In-stallation. "We will endeavor to keep the signal going," he said, "but will not attempt to Improve or perfect the signal until such time as the county and city councils coun-cils or residents determine a future fu-ture policy." At the present time the county recreation money collected by taxes Is distributed to the cities ci-ties for use in their respective recreation programs. In a recent re-cent meeting of the Cedar City 1 recreation committee of the Coordinating Coor-dinating Council, application outlining out-lining the use of the recreation money in Cedar City was i'.m-Ized. i'.m-Ized. The use of a portion if hi money for the purpose of effecting effect-ing a television transmission system sys-tem was tabled. The committee felt that the amount of money received was barely enough to carry out the recreation program that has already been establish, ed and in operation at the present pres-ent time. |