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4th Quarter 2007 |
| Dear Fellow Citizens,
Dec 2007 It's the end of the year, 2007, and time is busily zipping along. It marks our midyear on our fiscal year. That means from a budgetary standpoint we should be at 50% of expenditures and revenue. I am happy to report that we are right on target to come in on budget for the year. We do have some concerns with the slowdown being evidenced in the national economy. We have been very conservative in our budgeting so hopefully we will weather any adverse effects to us as a city. The hot topics for the last quarter of the year were of course the elections to the city council. It was a busy election and we had some good participation. We are always proud of those citizens who will stand up and run for these, sometime thankless positions, which benefit us all so much. We had three positions open and 6 people ran for those open spots. Our successful elected will be Beth Koford, Brett Ferrin and LaFray Kelley. Our thanks go to Don Weston, Darwin Smith and Chad Costley for their service. Chad was my assistant Mayor and worked many hours with me for the city and it will be hard to replace his dedication. We have appointed Don Weston to head the newly formed Environmental Services Department. This includes the Sewer Treatment Facility and the Solid Waste Facility. He will manage the Sewer Treatment Facility and work closely with Chris Weicks who manages the Solid Waste Facility. One of my goals when I came into this position was to change the situation with the Cemetery. Holly Hale has been alone on the Cemetery Board for sometime and we were successful in getting some city representation on the board with Brent White as a councilman and Clark Jenkins as a new board member. We were able to work with the board to help them acquire the East property as previously mentioned and that will allow the City to own all of the property on Pioneer Rd on the south side of the City for a future park. We are excited for this and it will be a grand addition to our parks in the City and the most important benefit is to eliminate the plan for two Cemeteries and combine them into one at its present location. Again, thanks to Holly Hale and the East Family. We were finally able to complete our Parks, Trails and Open Space Master Plan. It was a massive effort that we could not have accomplished without the help of Brian Dorsey and Geoff Ellis. They were the masters behind the planning and their efforts allowed all of the work put in by the Planning Commission and the City council. You can get copies at the City offices. I am including two articles in my comments this quarter to explain our situation with taxes. My commitment coming into my term as Mayor was to keep taxes low and cut property taxes. It took some doing but success came this year as we did cut taxes and we were recognized by the Deseret News as one of the few cities in Utah who did. The articles will show we have always been conservative and need to be careful to maintain that attitude. We always have citizens approaching us wanting more things in the city which would drive up costs and in turn raise taxes, ie: swimming pools, rec centers, etc. Looking forward to a great year in 2008, Mayor, Jay Jenkins
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