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Show Utilities Issue Undecided Between Library, Sr. Cits By TOM BUSSELBERG FARMINGTON Just as it gets difficult when two families fami-lies try to live under one roof, the senior citizens and library, in Clearfield sometimes have problems getting along. IT'S A relatively quiet dispute dis-pute that still has to be, resolved re-solved over sharing utility bill costs with several meetings already held and more to come, both Alice Johnson, Council on Aging director, and Jeanne Layton, library director, direc-tor, agreed in separate interviews inter-views last week. The question revolves around how much the senior facility should pay of the utility bills. It utilizes about 25 percent per-cent of the North Branch library lib-rary building for the Heritage Senior Citizen Center. BUT MS. Layton says she believes they may use more electricity than space would suggest because of the kilns that need to be fired up to a high temperature, requiring a lot of power. The senior center has been paying $447 a month after some adjustments made last year but she feels that should possibly be higher. "I really think it (utility bills) will exceed $2,000 this summer" and that doesn't include in-clude heat, she says, noting May's Utah Power and Light bill was above $1,300. In February, Feb-ruary, the Mountain Fuel bill came to $524 and power$ 1 ,375 but she says summer's need for air conditioning consumes the most power. BUT MS. Johnson emphasizes empha-sizes she doesn't feel the senior center uses much energy ener-gy as some may believe. She says the kilns aren't fired up that often, especially in the summer. A check of the kilowatt kilo-watt hours used when the library lib-rary opened in 1975 and used the facility alone, and 1980-81 shows only a 14 percent increase, in-crease, she adds. "The senior center doesn't have that much power (available) (avail-able) to use" but with the power pow-er bill about doubled in those seven years, "they (library) see the bill spiralling,' and that creates concern. RECALLING the history of the library's construction, she notes it was built to house the senior center after sufficient funds for a separate facility weren't available with the library lib-rary cost double the Bountiful ; library although on the same plan. County library funds and revenue sharing monies financed fi-nanced the North Branch construction. con-struction. She says both Ms. Layton and Aging asked for separate meters but nothing was done. "There's a lot of friction in the use of utilities." she adds. ANOTHER MEETING will be held when Wilford Hales returns. re-turns. He's a retired electrical engineer who currently acts as a consultant and is affilicated with the senior citizens. He has conducted a study with County Com. Glen Saunders also checking further with UP&L officials. He sits on the library board. Since the library board asked for a change in the pay- , ment structure, and other related re-lated building matters, the senior citizens have cleaned the restrooms, are doing their own maintenance, including purchase of light globes and Ms. Layton says she's received re-ceived no complaints from patrons pat-rons with the change. IT LOOKS as though some adjustment has to be made in payment of the city bill, however. Although the seniors agreed to pay three-fourths because be-cause they create more due to their daily lunches, etc., the library apparently hasn't been contributing. |
