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Show City will miss its Mark lVturi" this scenario. You ;irv a nowspapor n-porU-r and there is a not kv of a serious accident and you should go take pictures of it for the newspaper. Hut you are without a ear this day and have no way to get to the accident. In desperat ion you call the city recorder who willingly takes time from his busy schedule to drive you to the accident to get the pictures. Or picture this occurance. You are writing a story about the city budget. All of the different funds, all of the different budgets, all of the different figures are confusing and you want to lx sure everything is correct in your article. What do you do? You call the city recorder who patiently takes whatever time is necessary to explain everything to you. You need to refer back to an incident that happened at city council meeting two years ago. You do not have time to go back through all those minutes so you call the city recorder who recalls the incident and quickly relates the facts to you. The list could go on and on and we still would not get to the end of the things that City Recorder Mark Johnson has done to assist you over the years. Mark goes the extra mile with everyone. He answeres questions, he makes inspections, he cuts branches off of alow hanging tree when a citizen complains, he soothes ruffled feathers and keeps an entire .rity council on its toes. There is probably, and honestly, riot another single individual who knows as much about the ins and outs of Pleasant Grove as does Mark. Serving 14 years as city recorder and Administrative Assistant to the City Council has done that to him. The gals in the city offices laugh as they note that almost anyone who comes in with a question wants to talk it over with Mark even though some of the others know the answer as well as Mark. Mark is a trustworthy and honest person. People can sense that and know they will not go far wrong taking his advice. Mark is also a jack of all trades. He is not only a BYU graduate with a degree in accounting but he is also the building inspector when necessary. He is the expert on the law when the city attorney is not available. He is a mediator in personnel disputes. He is a computer programmer. He is a counselor to those needing advice. He is a secretary and after some practice you can almost read his handwriting. He is a civic worker. He is a church man. He is the father of eight children. He is Eileen's ! husband. j He will work all night to have some task finished on time no matter how many interruptions he may have in the meantime. ! He is a volunteer fireman. He takes school children on tours of the fixe station and stays and works late to make up for the time he missed while doing so. : He coaches a little league team and pitches for a team in the city fastpitch Softball league. Some days Mark runs as fast as he can go and if you want to talk to him you have to run as fast as he does. Now if all this seems to portray a super human being you may be right. Everyone may have kind of taken Mark and his willingness to help for granted and everyone probably thought Mark would always be there when we needed him. Now Mark is leaving Pleasant Grove to take a job with, hopefully, much less headaches, much less stress, many less hours of overtime, and many less deadlines. He and his family are moving to Mesa, Arizona this weekend. Mark will probably have to work all night Friday night to be sure he has left the city in the best of shape. That is typical of Mark Do the job even better than is expected and leave no stone unturned. Someone said that if Mark left the city would probably fall apart. That won't quite happen, but it will not be the same. Mark has left his "mark" on the city and no one will ever really forget. This is his home, his place of birth. We hope he will return some day with his family. Until then we wish him God speed in all of his new adventures. But, Mark, we will miss you and thanks from the bottom of j our hearts. |
