Well Folks,

Another quarter is now behind us and we have seen a few changes but al in all, things have not changed much.

Several things we need to update you on are our continuing efforts to bring about some changes in regards to the old Plain City Elementary building. We are continuing to try to work with the Weber County School District to bring about some solutions but they continue to want much more money for the building than it is worth in reality. They are continuing to try to sell it to anyone willing to pay their inflated price. This has become quite a sore point with us and also most of the neighbors in the area. We will continue to work for a solution that will be palatable to all involved.

Our Recycling program is now moving along at a pretty good pace. Our last month's numbers were around 25 tons of recyclable material collected. That number is important because it represents the amount that would most likely be in the black garbage cans each month if it was not being recycled. That is a direct savings to our community and as everyone says, “Good for the Environment”. We hope to have the numbers continue to increase as time goes on. We have also seen quite an uptick in the numbers of citizens bring material down to our landfill and green waste facility. The amount of material has increased significantly and again, a large percentage of that material would otherwise be in the garbage cans and that is a direct savings to the city in lower fees being paid.

One of our initiatives in the city has been to increase the amount of pathways and sidewalks, especially in the high foot traffic areas. We are doing more of the asphalt paths on the side of the road and finding them much easier to maintain and keep snow off of. We just finished the path that extends from the convenience store down to the High School and are seeing heavy use on that stretch. We hope to have work start on the sidewalk which we are in partnership with the State on which will take care of the elementary kids on the south side of the new school along newly named Panther Way. We have run into many delays and are working hard to push this along.

With the slowdown in new building that we are now seeing, and I might add enjoying, we are experiencing a drop in fees paid to the city. This represents a challenge to us on the budget front. We will do our best to hold the line on spending rather than to follow other cities in the area that are raising taxes to cover the shortfall in revenues rather than just cut spending. It is always a fight for me as I have a couple of council members that really would like to see us raise our taxes. My promise has always been to keep taxes as low as possible and I will continue fighting for that.

The best news I can give you is that we are seeing continued success in our improvements down at our sewer treatment facility. Our results continue to improve and the improvements we have been making have really borne fruit. The numbers we report to the state been consistently been below the allowable maximum and we are still makings improvements that will also make it easier to continue this trend. Kudos go to Don Weston for his continuing efforts in managing our facilities down there.

Mayor Jay Jenkins