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Show N Vo1-1- 0 No 5 1 it, Wednesday, December 21, 1988 50 cents a single copy Ifjndon City signs settlement i!fbr $85,000 over canal break v Lkalyn secretan fIjndon City has been involved 'i'L negotiations with the ins-ures company for the Provo River Association in regard to the Jution of claims arising from S Lanal break on May 23, 1988. Resolution authorizing Lindon U -- h. release and settle claims of v& City against the Provo t LrWater Users Association was fdopted at the City Council mee-ting held Dec. 14. ifs Lindon City received $85 000 in a settlement payment for occurred to the damages city with the break in the canal. Mayor McMillan issued a re- lease document in behalf of Provo River Water Users upon the receipt of the settlement. The settlement is final and if any consequences arise in the fu-ture from the May occurrence the canal is not liable. The agreement was reached fol lowing a series of executive meet-ings between the council and the insurance company. In other council business, Dar-rel- l Frampton requested a letter from the city indicating support for the golf course in the hollow. The Council looks favorably upon the golf course and indicated a jogging path will border the facility. The Lindon City Office will be closed on Dec. 26 and 27. City employees usually have Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off, with the holiday on Saturday and Sun-day the holiday time will be ex-tended on Monday and Tuesday. The dates for City Council and Planning meeting for 1989 were reviewed and they will continue on the designated times as in the past. A county field trip to observe future sites for the Solid Waste District was discussed with go and observe the proposed areas. U v " ( : - V . J . t t " .v; if - v r r - . i--: x . -- : , , . v , i r -- - ..' . .;( ; - jL , . 1 -- yk, if ; v A-- --5 1 i w 1 -- i , r ; I . v-- - W; rj4." , 1 :'v;;r ..... f a ' - Christmas traditions... Four-year-ol- d Whitney Beth Nelson helps her grand-mother, Beth Peterson, place ornaments on the Peter-son's Christmas tree. This tree, all done in red and white, is the focal point of the Peterson family room. Beth decorates her tree a little difference each year, using a variety of color schemes. ibldest ward will find new home Fortunately, the changes did not affect the leadership of the wards very much. Pres. Thacker said that John Shoell, second coun-selor in the Second Ward, will now be in the Fifteenth Ward and the Relief Society president in the Second Ward will now be a member of the Eleventh Ward. Until the new church building is' completed and the ward meeting places are changed, the wards will remain on the same meeting sched-ule that they have been on this year, Pres. Thacker explained. Pres. Thacker said he realized it is difficult for people to be moved to another ward or another building after being in the same ward and building for many years. He noted that most of the people have taken the news of the an-nounced changes in stride. He added with a chuckle that one lady told him th at she was m ad at him for making these changes. He said that he told her, "Well, get in line." The landmark Pleasant Grove b.: Third Ward building, one of the W eldest LDS Church buildings in pleasant Grove, located at 195 N. (00 East, will no longer house the k ThirdWard. to; In changes announced Sunday by Timpanogos Stake President Lyle Thacker the members of the pleasant Grove Third Ward, one of II the oldest wards in Pleasant Grove, y f begin attendingtheir meetings in the Timpanogos Stake Center. ii Pres. Thacker said that as soon ( lithe new church building is 600 West, which should be iround the first of February, the meeting place changes will take effect. However, the ward boundary Realignment changes will take ef-- icton Jan. 1, he said. Families who jw; have been placed in a different ward should begin attending that ward on Jan. 1. Thenewbuilding, which is near-- j I fag completion, will house the Pleasant Grove Fourth and Fif-teenth Wards. The Pleasant Grove Second and Third Wards will meet in the Tim-panogos Stake Center at 800 N. 100 West. The Pleasant Grove Eleventh and Sixteenth Wards will meet in the same building they have been meeting in, at 195 N. 400 East. Pres. Thacker said this will make each building in the stake with two wards meeting in it. In the realignment, the stake leaders moved about 18 families from the Second Ward to the Fif-teenth Ward. They moved three families from the Fifteenth Ward to the Fourth Ward. Pres. Thacker said that five families were moved from the Third Ward to the Eleventh Ward and about 20 families were moved from the Second Ward to the Elev-enth Ward. Extra issue forHoliday An extra issue of this newspaper will be published and delivered Saturday, Dec. 24, Watch for Christmas greetings and after-Christma- s bar-gains. Deadline for this special Christmas issue will be Thursday at 5 p.m. Since our offices will be closed Monday, Dec 2G, the following issue will be published on Thursday, Dec. 29, with a deadline of Tuesday, Dec. 27. 1 Storage tank removed jfrom behind City Hall ,( Two 1,000 gallon underground gasoline tanks were removed from kehind the old Pleasant Grove City j Hall on Friday. Therecent sale ofthe former city hall to an individual for use as a Mretail establishment necessitated e removal of the tanks. Winn Pierce of American Fork ) "hiredbythecitytodothework. I Winn, who does this kind of I wrk all over Utah, but primarily Salt Lake City, was able to pump sidremove the tanks without inci-ien- t. The tanks had to be carefully Wnoved and checked to be sure y, Jhat no gasoline had seeped out the ground surrounding them. .Fire Chief Calvin Mills was on hand ring the excavation and removal process to ascertain that "gasoline had been seeping into Aground. j first the tanks were drained of all possible gasoline through pumping. Dry ice had to be placed in the tanks to neutralize any gasoline that was remaining. The tanks were then hauled away and the earth replaced to fill the hole. The gasoline tanks had been used to fill city vehicles with fuel up until the city put the old city hall up for sale which was about one year ago. The EPA requires that the tanks be removed and inspected or that they be filled with cement. The city chose to remove the tanks and pumps from the prop-erty. Fire Chief Mills said that it appeared that the tanks were in good shape and he could find no evidence of any seepage at all from the tanks. ; t ' ! ; l I . ' 4 i " : : - :i . " - , i , .i ' W'xjJ nn Pierce removes 1.000 gallon gas tanks rom b hm Snt Grove's old city hall. The buildmg has .ecent.y Sold. f AG-end- investigation offLehi sex abuse charges By MARC HADDOCK Utah Attorney General David Wilkinson is closing his office's formal investigation of child sexual abuse which centered around a Lehi neighborhood. A news release issued last Thursday by Wilkinson's office said the investigation won't be re-opened unless there is new evi-dence discovered in the case. But the news release provides a controversial closing to the allega-tions which implicated several Lehi residents and attracted state-wide attention with the trial of Allan B. Hadfield the only person tried in the case. "The fact that no other charges will be filed based on the current state of evidence we have discov-ered should not be interpreted as a finding that nothing ever occurred as alleged by the children," said RobertN. Parrish, Assistant Attor-ney General. "There were children in the neighborhood with demonstrable physical evidence of sexual abuse, which could not be explained in any other reasonable way," Parrish said. "The troubling issue for the Attorney General's Office was not in determiningthat sexual abuseof some children had occurred, but rather in proving beyond any rea-sonable doubt who committed the abuse." Allegations of child sexual abuse on a massive scale surfaced more than three years ago when children reported they had been sexual abused by older children in their neighborhood. According to testimony in Hadfield's trial in 1987, children in the neighborhood then began mak ing broad allegations of child sex-ual abuse by dozens of adult neigh-bors. The Utah County Attorney's office investigated the case for a year before dropping the investiga-tion because of lack of evidence. That's when Wilkinson's office took up the case, and investigated almost two more years before level-ing any charges seven counts of child sex abuse-relate- d crimes against Hadfield. Hadfield was convicted on all counts in December 1987, and placed on probation by District Judge Cullen Y. Christensen in a controversial ruling by the judge "" The fact that no other charges will be filed ... should not be interpreted as a find-ing that nothing ever occurred as alleged by the children.' Robert N. Parrish stating that Hadfield met the re-quirements for the state's "incest exception" to a mandatory sen-tence. Hadfield, who has served six months in jail and is under-goin- g court-ordere- d treatment for child sex abusers, maintains his inno-cence. But the charges against Had-field didn't focus on a neighborhood child sex abuse ring mentioned in the trial, but on specific incidence between Hadfield and his children who were key witnesses at the trial. The investigation had a devas tating effect on the neighborhood. Children were taken away from their parents by the Division of Family Services, and then re-turned after no evidence of child sexual abuse was found. Two divorces have been attrib-uted to the case -- - including Allan Hadfield's. Several of Hadfield's neighbors, who felt they had been accused without being formally charged, appeared on a Channel 4 television news special to refute the accusa-tions. In Thursday's news release, As-sociate Deputy Attorney General Paul M. Warner said the statement that 30 to 40 adults had been ac-cused in the case was wrongly at-tributed to the Attorney General's office - and saidtheyhadnotfound enough evidence to prove any type of organized child sex abuse was going on in Lehi. "What we are saying today is that we cannot prove there was a ring of adults abusing children in Lehi," Warner said, "ifwe had been able to prove that beyond a reason-able doubt, we would have charged more people." But the news release said no more charges were filed because, despite the lengthy investigation, "none of the allegations could be sufficiently corroborated to meet thehigh standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt." Parrish added: "Due to the many complexities of this investi-gation, including the facts that many of the children who originally disclosed abuse were not allowed to talk to us, that if physical evidence ever did exist it was gone long be-fore our office became involved in the investigation, and the very high level of public disbelief created by some of the people who felt they were 'accused' in the case; we pro-ceeded very carefully and held our-selves to a higher standard of proof." Parrish also said some children who had initially presented strong testimony about the abuse had later withdrawn their testimony. Throughout the investigation and trial, allegations were made accusing Dr. Barbara Snow, a so-cial worker who specializes in child sex abuse cases, of undue influence in the child's testimony. Parrish countered those accusa-tions by saying: "There was never any cause to believe that the chil-dren had been 'brainwashed' or 'What we are saying today is that we can-not prove there was a ring of adults abusing children in Lehi.' Paul M. Warner coached into believing they were abused when they were not, de-spite the apparently popular no-tion of the uninformed to the con-trary." Associate Deputy Attorney General Warner said that if new evidence comes out in the future and within the statute of limita-tions, further charges might be forthcoming. But for the time being, he said, all leads had been exhausted. Policy would limit teacher contact Alpine School District officials are consider-ing passage of a policy which would limit the contact district teachers and administrators could have within students outside of school facilities and school hours. The policy, entitled "Scope of Employment" was introduced at the December meeting of the board of education held Dec. 13 at district offi-cers in American Fork. The board will acton the policy at a later date. Dr. Steven Baugh, District Superintendent, said the policy "is a reflection of the times we live in. It is designed to protect both employees of the district and (district) students from misconduct or allegations of misconduct. It's timely and appropriate." Under the proposed policy, instruction, coun-seling, and administrative tasks relating to students which require the presence of stu dents, are to be accomplished on school prem-ises within the scope of the normal time of activities. In addition, principals would be required to give prior approval if it is necessary for a district employee to meet with a student or students outside the regular school day. The proposed policy goes on to say district personnel "shall not authorize students from the attendance area in which the employee is employed to visit the employee's home for in-struction, counseling, or administrative tasks." After school social activities and extracur-ricular activities which involve contact with school personnel would also have to receive prior approval of the principal. The policy draft goes on that "district employ-ees shall avoid traveling alor e with an individ ual student;" and says district employees "shall avoid being alone at any time with an individual unless it is necessary in the performance of professional duties within the scope of employ-ment"suc- h as counseling, administrative tasks, diso'ilining, instruction, etc. Dr. Baugh said district administrators are "putting it (guidelines) in writing to make it more clear. It should serve as a reminder to our faculty." An elementary teacher was fired from the district last May and was later charged with showing an illustrated text on human sexuality to two of her students while at a party heinheld in her home. She has since signed a diversion agreement in Orem's 4th Circuit Court in which charges against her will be dropped after 18 months if she complies with tei ids of th agreement. |
