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Show Questioned Legality Sale Of Altonah School is Protested A written protest by Reverend Rever-end Charles Ray, former pastor of the Roosevelt Baptist church, who is now resident pastor at Dragerton, to the governor of the state on the sale of the Altonah Al-tonah school building to the officials of-ficials of the L.D.S. ward in that community, brought together togeth-er Tuesday the state superintendent superin-tendent of public instruction, Dr. Allen B a tern an, Supt. Dean Christensen of the Duchesne county board of education, ward officials, Altonah American Legion Le-gion officers and Rev. Ray, m a meeting to iron out the difficulties. difficul-ties. In his protest. Rev. Ray questioned ques-tioned the sale of the property I without it being advertised. His letter of protest was turned over to the attorney general for an ' opinion, and the Tuesday meeting meet-ing was the result. . The investigation that followed follow-ed Mr. Ray's letter revealed that in Utah it is not necessary to advertise such property for sale, I but before it can be legally sold it must have a two-thirds majority ma-jority of the vote of the school board. The Duchesne board was in error to the extent that 3 members voted to sell to the L.D.S. church and two favored selling to the Altonah American Legion. Superintendent Christensen was contacted Wednesday for a statement and clarification of the sale, and submitted a letter he had written to Dr. Bateman on April 15, in which ne explained ex-plained how the board had decided de-cided at their June 1, 1950 meet ing to sell the building. Also that a committee consisting of Pres. J. Edgar Holder and E. L. Murphy, was appointed to seek out prospective buyers. They re-I re-I ported back on June 15. that the Altonah ward bishopric was interested in-terested in buying the building. No action was taken at that time. On Dec. 7, 1950, the American Legion post met with the board and inquired about buying the school. The board suggested that the two groups, the church and the Legion, get together and i decide between them who should j buy the building, with the un- derstanding that the other group be permitted to use the building, j which was a 4-room affair with a hall separating two rooms from the other two. At the January 7, 1951 meeting, meet-ing, both groups again met with the board and asked them to determine de-termine who should acquire the building and that the other would abide by their decision. A vote was taken with three voting to sell to the church, and apparently "all concerned were happy at the arrangement." Supt. Christensen stated that since the board was in error on the Jan. 7 vote, they would re-open re-open the matter at their next meeting and decide who will be awarded the building, or what they will do with it. "Everyone concerned left the Tuesday meeting with a clearer and better understanding of this p r o b 1 e m," Supt. Christensen said,, in commenting about the conference. |