Editor: A letter to the Carbon County Commissioners,
Mr. Hopes, Jensen, Martinez;
I was walking out of BEAR [Business Expansion And Retention] the next day following Wed. Nov. 20th night’s open forum with Mr. Jensen. I am in agreement with him that a lot of what was said was irrelevant, and misinformed. To be blunt I am in admiration that you gentlemen showed a great deal of grace and aplomb.
I know that I couldn’t do that. This hearing could have easily gotten bogged down in explanation and argument and have gone on a whole lot longer than it did.
I was additionally appreciative that everyone was allowed their allotted two minutes to have their say. I remember years back similar public input being limited to two hours. At the appointed moment the gavel banged and everyone went home, some disgruntled having signed in to speak and not being able to complete or make their statement.
To reiterate what I spoke to Mr. Jensen coming out of the BEAR meeting the next morning:
“The sharp pencil exercise is now over. It is time to get out the axe. It is going to be bloody, and painful. Departments are going to have to be cut or suspended, equipment parked. Some are going to be really upset. Some people are going to lose their jobs. No matter what you do some people are not going to be happy.”
Mr. Jensen spoke of mandatory or required services, think sheriff’s office, the jail and the courts. What is left are the soft social services, consider the Carbon Rec. Dept., The Senior Citizen Center, The Bookmobile and the like.
It doesn’t matter what gets cut, as whatever goes, will have those users raise a cry and hue. The County Commission is in a tough position and a lot of people are going to be unhappy.
One detail that came out of the proposed massive tax hike two years back was the detail that historically the Carbon County Commissioners were paid a $500/month stipend plus some expense money particularly regarding out of town travel on county business. The then commissioner compensation and to my knowledge is still the rule of the day is that commissioners are paid very handsomely for what is supposed to be a part time job. More than I ever made as a full time coal miner. If I remember the total commissioner compensation package was in the neighborhood of $100,000 per year per commissioner.
Has the Carbon County Commission considered cutting, maybe 50 – 75% their compensation package. Share the wealth, in good times when the income is flush, share the pain when the income is down and cuts are mandatory.
Evolved thinking is that serious consideration has to be the demographics of the Carbon County taxpayers. How many are retired? How many are fixed income? What is the weighted average or bell curve of fixed incomes and value of their home ownerships? Consider superimposing these two statistical distributions on top of each other. Math whizzes might be able to add these two curves together to give a visual input as to whether the population can even afford any sort of tax increase. I would bet there are studies on specifically just this sort of thing.
Items that the current county commission cannot control, being from past commission decisions, cannot be held over today’s commission. Specifically the FEMA flood plain map that was adopted after massive flooding that occurred in the Eastern U.S. The ‘adjusted’ flood plain map effectively became another tax on anyone who lives near any water. This means Helper down through Spring Glen, Carbonville, parts of Price and some of Wellington. All of the homes in this corridor that are remotely close to the Price River are now paying FEMA Flood Plain insurance. This now required insurance is in addition to the existing mortgages. On fixed income this is critical. Recently there was discussion opened regarding the Flood Plain map how many people bothered to input their thoughts and feelings?
The pet concept given today was the pet concept from two years ago with Jake Mellor, Jae Potter and Casey Hopes: “If we want to maintain the same level of services today then we must raise taxes.” I am sorry but if the household income goes down…Carbon County revenue drops…then household spending MUST go down… Carbon County MUST cut, cut somewhere, cut everywhere.
County government must become more flexible and nimble. We must change our paradigms. Change the way we’ve been doing business. Just because the county received bookoo buckohs in the past as mineral lease, royalty moneys and spent like an inebriated naval personnel doesn’t dictate we need to continue to do the same. We don’t need to make up the short fall from out of the pockets of the citizenry in taxes.
Consider the dump operation: Previously the dump was a free to Carbon County citizenry. A five dollar per trip fee was instituted. Oh My! We survived! Now the dump more or less pays for itself. Interesting in Wednesday’s discussion was a citizen proposal to have the dump open on Sunday. I can see argument, pro and cons for this idea. I know that elsewhere dumps charge a flat fee, dollars per ton in your vehicle disposed of. Has the county government, county commission, consider privatizing the operation of the dump?
I remember years back talking to a scrap metal business man. He told me about offering to take over the manning of the dump if he could recover all the scrap metals and the like for salvage. This would make the dump operate at no staffing or labor expense. He would bring his large electromagnetic machinery onto the dump site and with what he gleaned would pay for his manpower. He was 100% confident that his proposal would work. He knew because he was paying as much as $1,000 to $2,500 per month to people who were salvaging metal from the dump at that point in time. He was flat out turned down.
I watched where the Carbon County Commission opened bids for scrap metal purchase. One bid was contingent on market pricing. One was fixed at $50/ton. The commission contracted with the $50/ton fixed rate. Shortly after, the market price for scrap, mild steel went to $200/ton and then after a period went down. In retrospect the market pricing contingency contract would have made Carbon County a huge amount of money. Instead the $50 per ton contract made that scrap metal contractor a huge profit.
Departments like the dump function are always open for improvement. Some suggestions are ill informed and more than a bit bogus. Some suggestions are literally gold or money in the bank. I don’t care how good you think a department is working there is always room for improvement. Sometime you have to wade through a lot of dross to get to the nuggets, the innovated cost saving ideas.
My son and I are investigating a composting business proposal. We will need things like leaves, branches and organic stuff like that. Our needs are space; water, possibly a scale, some material handling equipment. How much of what goes into the land fill, the dump, are these sorts of materials?
The county has water trucks, loaders, tractors and the last I heard a crusher. This can be used for comminution of woody products. What I am sure the county does not have is a compost turner. This can be acquired commercially or manufactured here in Carbon County. There has been an express need for compost here in Carbon County and the surrounding area. This past January when we were seed starting no one here retails seed start mix at that point in time. Later in April, many local venders bring this in, but too late for starting early things like brassicas, cauliflower, cabbages and the like. Seed start mix is nothing more than a fine ground compost plus added micro nutrients; think humic shale – colloidal minerals here locally – Emery County.
Anything that can be repurposed and not go into land fill extends the life of the land fill. It is this sort of thinking; change of paradigm that our local county government must become nimble and flexible a possible county government – private enterprise, both gaining.
Road Department. It took three years for Carbon County to fix or clean the culvert under the Spring Glen Rd next to my house. There has been two occasions, possibly more, that I am aware of that Carbon County transported equipment to this location and didn’t do this work. A contractor was working from the referenced culvert West toward the Price River for over a week. They were able to get a good close look at this problem with the equipment, a skid steer loader working the bottom of the wash. I asked them about cleaning the culvert and was told this was out of the scope of their contract. I know because I have been involved in operating equipment, backhoes, dump trucks and the like what is involved in getting people and equipment mobilized to get to a job and then moved to the next job. One gentleman Wed. night spoke about having his property flood for several years until he contacted the then Commissioner, John Jones who was able to get the culvert cleaned in short order. That is what I mean by being flexible and nimble. Being able to respond rather than spending years trying to avoid the problems.
Can the county road department operate more efficiently? I would think so. There are several roads in Carbon County that are UDOT. These roads typically get snow removal. There was a bit of discussion concerning snow removal in the unincorporated areas around of Scofield. One home owners association suggested that the taxes that their 40 plus homes pay could go toward a snow plow and they would provide a driver from among their association. This is a prime example of private – public cooperation to get something done, in this case snow removal. Snow plows come in various sizes. A used four wheel drive, one ton SRW pickup with a small sander and equipped with a snow plow blade would not require a CDL to operate. This would be under the 26,001 lb. GVW threshold requiring a CDL.
The county is looking to raise taxes. I know because I had an off grid second home for a period before it was sold that these properties pay an exorbitant amount of taxes, just exactly what do these property owners get for their taxes?
There was discussion in the paper concerning the maintenance of the road from US 191 across Emma Park to US 6. This was further discussed in regards to acquiring this road from the state for income as the proposed rail road from the Uintah Basin would use this road’s right of way and then be paying taxes to the county for the operation of the trains passing over this proposed rail way. Our family lived in Emma Park for over a decade. We used this road innumerable times. Historically because the majority of this road was in Carbon County they would not fill the pot holes. Some years Utah County would fill their pots holes and then it might be several more years before Carbon County would fill the potholes on their county portion. If you drove at speed 50-60 MPH you were at risk in hitting a serious, big pot hole and damaging your vehicles suspension or tires.
If the road surface were to be rotomilled to a gravel road then there would still be maintenance as heavy truck traffic would continue to use this as a cutoff. Heavy truck traffic on a gravel road at speeds of 45 – 55 mph literally throws the gravel off the road surface. In short order the road becomes wash boarded. If this is continuous, the wash boarding slows all travel. Unfortunately this doesn’t occur continuously but is sporadic. A truck at speed coming upon wash board road surface can become out of control and wreck. I could see a huge liability on the part of the county if they pursue the rotomill down to gravel road surface proposal. One of the issues back when I was irregularly traveling this road is the abbreviated shoulders and travel lane widths. This road is not up to modern, safe, state road standards.
For the past several years I have seen RFP’s for road asphalt oil, and surfacing materials. I could see these projects – proposed road work suspended until the county budget situation improves.
No. We can’t cut the Sheriff’s Department out, but can changes be made? I think so. From what I gleaned on Wed. the Sheriff’s Dept. and budget are one of the largest single departments that the citizenry pays for. I remember sitting in one of the few commission meeting I attended where bids for a new Sheriff’s Dept. vehicle were being opened. The purpose of this vehicle was specifically for transport of convicted to the point of the mountain, Utah State Prison-Draper. REALLY and just exactly does this vehicle do the rest of the time when not doing this duty? Does it sit? I understand that the Fed. Gov. especially with Pres. Trump is very pro law enforcement. I know that there have been a lot of grants for equipment and the like in past years. Who is the grant writer? How many grants are currently being applied for? Do the budget proposals discuss this sort of thing? For example some years back I was surprised that the East Carbon City Police Dept. proposed purchasing two, Hummer II for patrol cars. These were at that time 60-70 thousand dollars a pop. It turned out that these were grant money paid for and spec’d out as being substantially more fuel efficient and cheaper to operate.
Consider hot seating patrol cars. Sheriff Dept. rolling equipment is a huge budget item. We are a small county with a critical budget. Hot seating is an officer coming on duty comes to the Sheriff’s Dept. in his private vehicle. He/she then gets into a patrol car that is being vacated by the previous shift person finishing his shift. The seat never gets cold as the patrol is continually in use from one shift to the next. Not just sitting in someone’s drive while that patrol unit’s assigned operator – Sheriff’s Deputy is off shift or off for the weekend.
Interesting, and this is dear to my heart, is that when the commission became aware that a particular, sole public defender was opting to not resign and it became revealed that he was sorely over worked that it took the signing of not one but four separate attorneys to take over the public defender case load. In addition now a fifth and an off again on again sixth attorney are also actively being recruited, for public defender services, all of these being paid out of the >$1.1M [that is Million dollar] Carbon County Attorney’s Office.
There was a past discussion in the paper that the commission was considering applying to the Utah Indigent Defense Commission for a grant to help pay for public defender services. Later it was revealed that the commission declined a grant as one of the conditions for this grant would be that the public defenders would have to become organized and a single person would be in charge of the Carbon County Public Defenders, much like what is done in Utah Co. and elsewhere. Because of this accountability the commission declined these moneys. This was short sighted.
No. We can’t cut the Sheriff’s Dept. out, but we can change the way we do criminal justice.
One area that I became painfully aware of was what I called my “Dog Dilemma”. A dog barked at a bicycle going by my house. I was charged with two Class B misdemeanors. The penalty for which is up to six months in Carbon County Jail plus up to $1,950 each. Because this was before the Carbon Justice Court I stated to the Sheriff’s Deputy citing me that this was problematic. The reason was that I had filed a complaint against the judge on that bench from back when he was a private attorney.
This Carbon Justice Court judge recognized my name and on first appearance recused himself. This required bringing up a “conflict” judge from Emery County Justice Court. Because this terrible, horrible, crime – a dog barking, under the Carbon County Animal Control Ordinance, the ONLY penalty is a Class B Misdemeanor. Because incarceration is at risk an attorney is nominally required, a public defender or private attorney. Because this is a Class B Misdemeanor the defendant can ask for a jury trial. Guess who pays for the public defender? Guess who pays for the mailing, organizing and compensation of the jurors?
In my case the Carbon County Attorney’s Office waived incarceration. This meant that if I wanted an attorney I would have to pay for it. When I asked for a jury trial the Carbon County Attorney’s Office reduced the charge from a Class B Misdemeanor to an Infraction, just like a speeding ticket.
My “Dog Dilemma” took multiple court appearances and approximately 20 hours of court – judicial time. Plus maybe 30-50 hours of Carbon County Attorney’s prosecution time to get to trial. This estimate would include response to various motions and preparation together with service of subpoenas.
I received 10 hours community service for the dog barking. I arranged to serve this time at the Lost and Found Ministry in Helper. They were extremely appreciative of me and my expertise in helping with their Stokermatic boiler system.
I was surprised to learn through this experience that not even the Sheriff’s Office can print out the Animal Control Ordinance. I thought that rather alarming as the Sheriff’s Dept. is in charge of enforcing this ordinance. If the Sheriff’s Office cannot print the ordinance the implication is that they collectively don’t know what they are enforcing? Not even the Animal Control Dept. out on Airport Rd. could print out the Animal Control Ordinance. If Animal Control can’t print out their ordinance then exactly what are they enforcing? Feelings? Emotions? I don’t like your dog. Here is a Class B Misdemeanor??? You can go to jail for six months and pay a huge fine.
I said then, I say now if the citizenry doesn’t know the rules because Carbon County and this means the commission refuse to update and publish their ordinance(s) then the interpretation and application become fungible.
It would be a whole bunch more cost effective to have the animal control ordinance rewritten to first offense to simply cite the offending responsible with an Infraction. If the defendant didn’t like the Infraction then he can go to the Justice Court and discuss this with the judge. No lawyer. No public defenders. No juries. No tying up the judicial system with repeat returns and appearances.
I had a friend, Billy D., who asked to borrow my live trap as he was having a serious problem with wild, feral cats underneath his double wide mobile home. He later told me that he had taken the first cat to Animal Control for disposal. They told him that they would not take the cat as my trap that he was using was “too big”. Huh! I asked him how he handled the feral cats he was trapping and all he would say was he took care of them….
More recently our family had a much loved dog that need put to sleep. He was very old, in pain due to teeth, gum issues. I suggested taking him to Animal Control. I was told there that they “could not put our dog down because they would lose their license?” Huh!
Carbon County got CIB money for the construction of the Animal Control facility. Usually this is conjunction with loans how much is the county paying for this animal palace boondoggle? There were several comments on Wed. night’s public hearing concerning privatizing animal control.
It would streamline county operations a bit to have the animal control staff sell dog licenses rather than have people go to the clerk and recorder to show their vaccination receipts and get their dog’s tags. There is usually staff at animal control and this would free up staff, possible a position in the clerk and recorder’s office.
I recently learned of a rather novel means to streamline criminal justice. This is beginning to be done in Utah Co. The program is called a diversion. There is an article in a recent past UPAN [Utah Prisoner’s Advocate Network] newsletter that introduces and discusses this concept. What is involved is that when a person is cited for a crime the paperwork goes to the Utah County Attorney’s office. If the citation is for example simple possession of marijuana then a staff person contacts the defendant and offers a diversion. In the diversion agreement the person/defendant would not be formally charged and then having a criminal record going forward. The person/defendant would pay a fine, go on informal or formal probation, community service etc. just like he would as if he would have been formally charged, gone to trial or court and be given the same or similar penalties for the citation.
This is from a county with over 400 Sheriff’s Officers. Where this is coming from is from the Utah County Attorney. I was surprised to learn that like a public defender or a private attorney should not handle over 150 cases per year a prosecutor likewise should not handle over 150 cases a year. By staff, not a prosecutor contacting and negotiating a diversion this is projected to free up high dollar prosecutors and judicial time – more cost effective criminal justice over all.
I can easily envision this program being stepped. What I mean is one offense, you get a diversion, if there is (are) additional crime(s) by that person then the diversion can be nullified or set aside and that crime brought back and prosecuted. Collectively this program would be somewhat of a trial and error, learn as you go but I am sure that the Utah County Attorney would provide their expertise and experience to Carbon County.
One thing that I was disappointed in at the Wed. public input meeting was that there were no plans for follow up chat room or further discussion. Hypothetically there may be some going on that I am not aware of.
Larry Jensen and Casey Hopes both approached different meetings that I am aware of and stated that the Carbon County budget process was in trouble. I appreciate this. Now the rubber is on the road or the axe is going to fall [cliché city]. I proposed something like this to CCRP Chairman Birch. Carbon County has just gone through an exercise where ballots were mailed out to every resident in the county regarding the now narrowly passed School Bond Election.
I propose that each resident in the county receive a simple synopsis of what was stated at the start of last Wed.’s public meeting. Lay out the options. Bluntly discuss what each department does and the dollars budgeted for that area. Ask where cuts [axing] need to occur? What departments need to be mothballed for a time? What does each resident want cut? Maintaining the status quo or maintaining existing levels of services cannot continue.
How a question is worded and how it is asked is crucial. I have participated in enough polls to recognize a “push poll”. Key is who is paying for the telephone push polls? In this case the “push poll” is going to be paid for by the county commission. The tabulation would be done by the clerk auditor’s office with maybe some temps to help out.
This “push poll” would be, what do you – the citizenry want cut? What would you want to say to the commissioners? Put this in writing. This polling can be done rather quickly. A few days to organize the questioning. A few days to print. Mail out. 10 – 14 days to get the returns. About 5-10 days to tabulate the results and review the comments. This would need postage and return response envelope postage paid. Postal bulk rates for government business should apply.
An article in the paper afterward should describe the results.
This would take a whole lot of pressure off you commissioners individually and more realistically gather the will of the people.
I couldn’t say this in two minutes and I appreciate your time reading through this. I anticipate at least an acknowledgement that you each have read through this.
Jim Darter, Spring Glen, Utah.
P.S. I would be willing to volunteer my time to help write the budget cutting survey and work on this survey proposal. I am sure that there are others in the community who would also contribute their time.