OCR Text |
Show pfgyiM fcflug totem Vol-10- , No. 40 Wednesday, October 5 , 1988 50 cents a single copy " ;Debate airs initiatives merits9 faults x yMABC HADDOCK three tax limitation lni- - s Utah's tjves on this November's ballot about money or power, ! Lding on which side of the Jjeyouareon. At least that was the opinion of 1 men who debated the ini-Le- s this past week at the Utah Training School Auditorium, "larry Peterson, Utah Teacher of Year, spoke against the tax-sitin- g measures, telling a sparse "The initiatives are rfence, ioutmoney.-an-d arguing that the utswill go too far and eliminate important services, especially in Utah schools. Mills Crenshaw, a talk show host on a Salt Lake radio station and proponent of the tax initiatives countered with: "The problem has nothing to do with money. The is-sue is not money, it's power." Crenshaw claimed that the gov- ernment in Utah is controlled by special interest groups, and that high taxes are strangling Utah's economy. "What we need to solve the prob- lems with Utah's prosperity is more tax cuts," Crenshaw said. - X y V V ' .' v. ( A, f z :- - i A A. J I T - 1 fa ; , lit -- if V t The debate was sponsored by the American Fork Rotary Club, and drew an audience that was typified by Peterson's opening remarks. "I think no issue in the past few years has divided the people of Utah like the tax initiatives," the Ogden math teacher said. Peterson told the audience that Utah's taxing woes were com-pounded by a slow period in the state's economy and the tremen-dous growth rate in local school enrollment. "We put students in the school system at a fantastic rate," Peter-son said. "But that means we have more kids who use the services and fewer of those who pay for them. That's how we got here." Peterson said the tax cuts are unfair because they won't hit all counties or all groups equally, and explained that there is not a single state budget from which taxes will be cut. "Each taxing entity must take care of the tax cuts individually, and there are 500 taxing entities in the state," Peterson said. "The in-tent was to equalize taxes and the initiatives don't do that." But Crenshaw said that the taxes will simply cut a little less than 6 percent from the state's tax income a far cry from the amount of taxes cut by California's Proposi-tion 13 and that was using the state's estimated figure of $326 million. Crenshaw used the number, but claimed it was much higher than estimates by other groups. While he admitted that some groups would be hit harder than others by the initiatives, Crenshaw said none of the cuts would be as drastic as is being portrayed by opponents to the initiatives. If no cuts were made, he said, there would be no changes in Utah's spending policies. "At the most we need 24 school districts in Utah," Crenshaw said. "We don't need the State Office of Education. We.need local control of local schools. But they won't take any of these bold steps unless we pass the initiatives." And if the initiatives fail, "This wound will become a bleeding ar-tery. When things get tough for you, you have to budget your money. But when things got tough for the state, what did they do? They asked you for more money." The initiatives are a way to make sure that doesn't happen again. "Things aren't as good as every-one says they are," Peterson said, "nor are they as bad. We have 25,000 more students in our schools than in 1986, and they want to roll back property taxes to the 1979 levels. Ifyou want to maintain the services, how doyou finance the growth?" he asked. Peterson added that the initia-tives bypass the representative form of government in setting pol-icy. "We support the candidates we believe in," and then permit them to make the decisions of govern- - Larry Peterson, Utah Teacher of the Year, makes a point in question and answer portion of debate. "'It ! it M : ment. Peterson praised Utah's lawmakers as conscientious and not interested in personal gain. But Crenshaw said representa-tive government in the state has been non-existe- for the past two years. "The Utah Public Employees Association and the Utah Educa-tion Association are the only two major groups represented in the state of Utah," he said. "For two decades the people of this state have become sheep. These people are our servants, not our masters. "Government is a dragon," Crenshaw said. "You cannot slay a dragon because every time you stab it, it bleeds and each drop of blood becomes another bureaucrat who turns around and hires 1,000 people to work for him. "But you can muzzle the dragon, and you can control him." Cren-shaw said the tax initiatives, if approved, would do that. Peterson closed with a plea to trust in the political process. "We support the people we be-lieve in," he said. My plea to you is to believe in yourselves and to be-lieve that Utah is worth investing in." Mills Crenshaw, radio talk show host, listens to point made K ly opponent at debate ; Emergency preparedness is everyone's survival business emergency preparedness for the Pleasant Grove Fifth Ward. In it she lists some of the items you might want to put into your 72-ho-kit. Karen suggests that you use things you have around your home. There are not a lot of items which ,. will need to be specially purchased. Some of the things she really encourages people to have in their kit are aluminum foil, flashlight and batteries, pocket knife, zip lock baggies of various sizes, lots of large garbage bags, cooking pan with lid, plastic container or bucket and potty liners, newspapers, fish gee Emergency Page 3 ( Editors note: This is the third and final article in a se-ri- ei dealing with emergency I preparedness. !8y MARCELLA WALKER Karen Church likes to have a dinner once in a while. ThisPleasantGrovemotherand komemaker Is just as apt to serve ler family cattail soup, beaver teak, and com cob jelly as not, at --J me of these dinners. Infact, at one ofher dinners they lad guests from Florida. The jrintedmenu, which Karen always s at the - survival dinner, listed Je cattail soup. They apparently not have cattails, the plant J "Inch grows in marshy ground round here, in Florida. Thelady guest turned pale when cattail soup was served. She H tad a completely different idea of W the cattail soup had in it. 3 important thing from this jy is that Karen is giving her ly the opportunity to eat some 'Wthings they might have to eat yhadtoliveoffthelandasthe ""Wan emergency ofsome sort. Right now, she is planning an-other survival dinner and she is looking for some rattlesnake to serve but she can't find any. Karen has tried to get her family prepared for an emergency. She has a good 72-ho- kit, she has food storage, and she has taken a sur-vival class at BYU in which she learned even more than she had learned before. She stresses the fact that air and water and shelter are the three priority items in emergency pre-paredness. "Food comes way down the list of priorities," she said. "We can only live three minutes without air, we can only live three days without water, but we can live 30 days without food," she noted. Since we can live a long time without food, it is not a high prior-ity item. Air and water are high priority and so is shelter if the weather is a factor. Karen's family uses a lot of milk so she fills the gallon milk contain-ers with water. She keeps them rotated so that they do not deterio-rate nor take on so much plastic taste. She has tasted the water after a couple of years and it has not been bad. In addition, she urges everyone to become acquainted with the places water can be found. She said that the home water heater and toilet tank are good sources of water ifyou are at home. Away from home, look for places where trees grow, where cattails are growing, game trails lead to water often, etc. Karen told about a family she knows who eat from their 72- - hour kit during the LDS General Confer-ence twice a year. This way the children get used to eating what is in there, the family stays ac-quainted with their kit, and they can rotate and replace frequently those things that need to be changed. Karen also stressed that mental stability during an emergency is one of the most important things to remember. If a family is prepared, then they can be relaxed and they can help others relax, which is essential to survival. In preparing a 72-ho- kit, just as in home food storage, use com-mon sense. This message was not only stressed by Karen but also by Sheri Atwood, the Emergency Prepared-ness Director in Pleasant Grove. Sheri said that she is often asked to speak to Relief Society groups and others, and she always tells them to make a plan. She urges people to write every-thing down. Do not try to remem-ber. It is a well known fact that in an emergency we often cannot even remember our addresss, let alone other details. She advises everyone that ifyou have your own 72-ho- kit, you can have everything in it that you per-sonally think you will need. It will contain your own per-sonal things and will be familiar to you. When emergency rations are brought into a disaster and doled out, you will not get the things you want most, perhaps. So be sure your 72-ho- kit has what you and your family will like to use. Karen has prepared a booklet on Now is time to register to vote Utah County residents can register for the 1988 general ss election at the Utah County Elections Office Until Oct. 18 at 5 p.m. After that, potential voters can only register on three neighborhood registration days, Nov, 1-- prior to the Nov. 8 presidential election, according to Vera Gates, Utah County Elections Supervisor. t A person needs to if they meet the following criteria: They have moved from their previous voting district since they last voted. They have only registered once, and did not vote the first they registered. They have not voted for more than four years after establishing a voting record. Individual who voted in the last presidential election, or :: subsej uent elections, who live in the same voting district do :; " not need to To be eligible to register a person must be 18 years old by the day of the election, he a resident of Utah for 30 days prior to the election, and, if born outside the United States, must show proof of citizenship at the time of registration. Gates said final neighborhood registrations for the up-coming election will he held Nov. 1, 2 and 3 from 8 a.m. to 9 " p.m. The locations of those registrations will be published in a paper prior to that date. Mice seek help in ending bank scam Utah County law enforcement officers are ng the help of the public in stopping a bank fro thathas been goingon in the county during !,Pst six months. Win D. Durrant, American Fork Chief of lce. said officers are attempting to identify JVP'6 wno have been stealing checks j businesses. ne stolen checks are made out to someone hom ey have obtained correct bank ac- - nt numbers and addresses. The checks are ) ncasWatalocalbank. Police have a photograph of one of the sus-pects involved, Durrant said. She appears as blond and in her 20's. She has been identified in American Fork, Spanish Fork, Orem, and Springville as the person cashing the stolen checks, he said. She is believed to be working with another older female suspect, believed to be in her early 40's, and a male subject who police do not have a description of. Durrant said the suspects walk into local businesses where they steal checks out of busi ness checkbooks, or steal purses from automo-biles. They then use identification from the victims in order to cash the checks. Durrant said police need the assistance of the public to identify these individuals. People with information may call the American Fork Police Department (756-601- and leave an anony-mous message about the suspect or suspects or can talk to any detective. "With the public's assistance, we can make an arrest and stop the theft ofhundreds ofpublic dollars," he said. Students urge okay ofAIDS education policy A student representatives to Pine School District Board of catln told board members and W '"tendance at the Tues- - V j"001 ward meeting th at they Cls ing about AIDS in S despite a handful of par-- d sTnj Who PPsed the re" siiidi-- cation plicy which itio i! J?ihe Caching of infor-- i on AIDS in the schools in lstricts. uuEducation policy was H 1)6 on the 0ct- - f v 11 ipw or ard vote, but board V ay de'ayed in light of HsaTdnC6rnS' Supt SteVe" k ."'ton. student repre- - iSch board from rem i ' told tnose in atten- - kk Cr r mandate from the AITjq education to teach thjn ln e schools is a posi- - l a"d parents should not Merits P information from Jnumber of the students 'tAmS . because inform ation aiSriotavailablereadily. I can't find anything about it at school," he said. "It's a major health concern, and it's a major concern for students. There are rumors and hearsay that we don't have enough to balance. "A great number of the students are con-cerned because infor-mation about AIDS is not available readily. I can't find anything about it at school." Walton Student When an issue is that critical, we need to have something done about it." . Walton told parents the issue is a "major element of our world one that you didn't have to deal with." . He said he realized it is a sensi-tive issue, but it's one students feel should be dealt with. When a parent in the audience asked the other representative students their feelings on the issue, all said they felt information should be taught in the schools because it isn't always taught at home. One then asked if the parents had asked their children what they thought about the policy. Most of the parents present did not agree with the students, in-stead expressing not only concern with the curriculum content but said they didn't feel teachers will stay within the bounds of what the policy dictates they can teach about sex and AIDS. Another parent opposed teach-ing the subject in the classroom, saying it should not be a part of the public schools. "This is something the parents should be doing, and if they can't, we need to help our parents so they can," another parent said. Diane Robison, a parent, asked if the district could guarantee all of the district's teachers would follow the curriculum as it is outlined. Baugh replied there couldn't be a 100 percent guarantee. "I suppose we have the same guarantee we have in other class-room situations just a very ca-pable, responsible classroom teacher who has training. We need to trust that they will keep their answers (to the students ques-tions) brief, appropriate and suited to the age. They recognize that we're supplementing and comple-menting the home and not taking the place of the home." One suggestion was that in-stead of having a sex education curriculum, boys and girls meet in separate assemblies. Board member Linda Campbell, herself a health education instruc-tor in another district, said this wouldn't work because you couldn't give all the information needed in one assembly. One parent asked why Alpine School District is acting on the policy when other districts in the state seem not to be. Baugh said under state man-date, all districts have to teach the curriculum and, if they haven't already, will be moving toward implementation of it. The AIDS curriculum is to be taught in the context of the Respon-sible Healthy Lifestyle Curriculum adopted by the state. The curriculum is developed in a form appropriate to age in grades Parents may review the cur-riculum, and may elect to have their children removed from units "This is something the parents should be doing, and if they can't, we need to help our parents so they can." A parent of the instructional program on the subject. Written parental consent is required before a student can attend classes concerning the sub-ject. Parents are encouraged to at-tend the meeting and participate in the classes. In the secondary schools, the curriculum is to be taught in classes such as biology, human biology, health, home economics, health occupations, physiology, parenting, and vocational agricul-ture. One parent suggested that all teachers be trained in the subject so they could answer questions students might asked. Baugh said this was an excellent suggestion and would be consid-ered. Board members stressed goal of the district is to "complement and supplement those standards estab-lished in the home as they relate to the family life and sex education of their children, including the prin-ciple of morality." The curriculum, according to the proposed policy, will emphasize the aspects of growth and develop-ment of humans as they relate to knowledge and appreciation of family relationships, scientific physiological information and the helping youth to acquire a back-ground of ideals, standards and attitudes which will be of value in their present and later life. |