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Volume 118, No. 50 December 9, 2020 Single Copy Price

COMMUNITY CHRISTMAS TREE • Richard and Donni Pay string the lights on the community Christ-mas tree prior to families decorating it with their special ornaments. Photo courtesy of Emily Durffee

Christmas in the County kicks off with community tree decorating

By Myrna Trauntvein

TN Correspondent

The Community Christmas Tree was put in place and dec-orated on December 4 as part of the Juab County “Christmas in the County” celebration. “Juab County—thank you,” said Clinton Painter, Juab County Commission chairman. “You showed up and helped us to decorate the Community Christmas Tree.” He said that he loved see-ing the families come out to-gether, the friends who made or bought ornaments and businesses that brought orna-ments. “Some were so unique and I loved hearing if the ornament was special and it was great meeting a new couple that just moved to the county,” said Painter. “This is what the com-munity tree was about, all of us that have different personali-ties, different tastes, different backgrounds coming together and making something beauti-ful that we all can enjoy.” He said that he hoped that as people drive past the county building during the month of December they will see “OUR tree” and all feel a part of it. As part of the Christmas in the County, on Merry Main Street people will find panels for the story “’Twas the night before Christmas in Juab

County.” There are 14 panels to be read. Page 1 starts in front of Cache Valley Bank and Nephi Western Federal Credit Union. The elf clues can be found at https://www.facebook.com/Juab-County-Christmas-in-the-County-106372561273348. Finally, the Christmas in the County light display, live nativity and food trucks, will be ready for the public on Fri-day December 18, 2020 at 6:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the Juab County Fairgrounds. Letters to Santa may be dropped off at the light display on December 18 from 6:30 to 10 p.m. Merry Main Street prize winners for best decorated business for first place of $250, second place of $150 and third place of $100 will be an-nounced on December 18.

Council pledges to move quickly on request for more offi cers on drug task force

By Myrna Trauntvein

TN Correspondent

At the work session held by Nephi City Council November 11, the West Central Strike Force requested that the city hire more

law enforcement to help with the scourge of drug use. Nephi City Chief of Police Mi-chael Morgan, Juab County Sher-iff Douglas Anderson, and Millard County Sheriff Richard Jacobsen presented a request for an addi-tional officer from the Nephi City Police Department exclusively de-

voted to the Drug Task Force that serves Millard and Juab County. “Chief of Police Michael Mor-gan requested from the council some additional officers and office help to aide in the workload of the department,” said Kent Jones, council member. He said that request should not be put on the back burner but should be addressed as the coun-cil considers what to include in the upcoming budget. “We have gone 30 years in Ne-phi City without a tax raise,” said Jones. “The city gets just 7 per-cent of the tax collected which is not a lot of money.” Jones said that one thing he had noted was the total drug cas-es within the strike force bound-aries for 2019 was 145 cases. Nephi had 83 drug cases last year and 2020 may outdo those statistics. Fillmore had 21 drug cases, Delta four, Levan 6, Mona 3, Eu-reka 3, Leamington 2, Scipio 2, Juab County 6, Interstate 15 8, Wendover 1, Flowell 1, Oak City 1, Millard County 2. “A recent evaluation of drug activity was conducted by the Strike Force between January 1 and September 30, 2020 in order to illustrate the impact on our community with respect to the amount of prevented uses that are accomplished by the inves-tigative and enforcement efforts of the West Central Task Force,” states the report presented to the council. “During this investigative pe-riod, there were 232.2 grams of unlawful controlled substances seized in Nephi, and 98,8 grams seized effecting a total of 1,144 prevented drug uses in Nephi and 648 prevented uses in other strike force boundaries outside of Nephi,” it continued. “The to-tal quantity of drugs seized car-ry a street distribution value of $8,106. In addition to the seized drugs, the strike force accom-plished a seizure of illicit drug money totaling $188,900.” “We spend money on water projects, we spend money on rec-

reation, of course that helps curb drug use for kids, but were need to spend money for the strike force,” said Jones. Because of his experience in law enforcement, he said, he might have a keener eye for what was going on but he had seen drugs exchanging hands and thought most of the council had also. While he was fishing at Bur-raston Ponds he saw a drug pur-chase. Then again, he followed a local person who had been in-volved in a drug deal. “We need the strike force,” he said. “We keep annexing and bringing more people here.” He said if the city did not fight the drug problem then the city would end up with a population of the “cream of the crud” not the cream of the crop. He said that the council need-ed to get the information out to the public and, in his opinion, the city was seeing some heavy duty drugs being exchanged in Nephi. “We do need to discuss this,” said Nathan Memmott, council member. Mayor Glade Nielson said that the city needed to make certain that the topic was moved to the front burner and that it was ad-dressed soon. “What are we talking about?” asked Donald Ball. “Are they talking about a new jail, more of-ficers?” Lisa Brough, city recorder/fi-nance director, said that the coun-cil could devote one work session to a discussion of the strike force and what the council could do to help. In school populations, accord-ing to recent research by the U.S. Bureau of Criminal Justice Sta-tistics, research shows that 83.9 percent of high school seniors reported that they could obtain marijuana easily, 47.9 percent could get amphetamines, 42.4 percent could get cocaine, 38.8

Parks and recreation areas are underserved on south side of Nephi

By Myrna Trauntvein

TN Correspondent

The south side of Nephi is underserved when it comes to parks and recreation areas—such as neighborhood parks and ball parks—and plans should include making that area of town more equal to other areas of the city. Craig Oswald, recreation di-rector, Gerratt Bethers, parks superintendent, and Travis Worwood, assistant to the city administrator/city treasurer, discussed important elements of the December 2020 Nephi City Parks, Trails and Rec-reation Master Plan during work session following council meeting on Tuesday. “It now aligns with the city general plan,” said Oswald. “The Chapter 1 goals and ob-jectives now support the goals and objectives of the general plan.” The Nephi City Recreation Facilities Master Plan stems from the community’s desire to enjoy enhanced outdoor rec-reational opportunities. “The plan and maps are in-tended to provide a proactive road map which will make the use of recreation facili-ties, parks and trails an inte-gral part of daily life in Nephi

City,” said Oswald. He said that they, along with the council, had talked about impact fees being charged to have funds for park develop-ment. Nephi City is projected to reach a population of 7,700 by 2030 and 13,000 by 2060. “We will assume an annual growth rate of 2.7 percent go-ing forward to align with the Nephi City Culinary Water project projections,” he said. “In the previous plan,” Os-wald said, “Chapter 2 had been ballooned out and we simpli-fied it but Chapter 3 was huge for us.” Once, the National Recre-ation and Park Association (NRPA) recommended ratios of 6 acres per 1,000 population for parks/facilities and open space and .25 miles of trail per 1,000 population. Now they recommend a detailed analy-sis of the community to deter-mine its needs. “We have a good relation-ship with Juab County, the local school district and local churches,” said Oswald. “We have shared several recre-ational facilities and that is a benefit to the city in the way of reduced land costs, better de-velopment options and lower maintenance costs.” Nephi currently has 31.2

acres of park space and sever-al special-use facilities such as basketball courts, swimming pool, golf course. The golf-course is not counted as a park but as a special-use facility. The city has 4.91 acres of park land and .50 miles of trail per 1,000 residents. “The gun range will not be considered a park,” said Os-wald, “and the Jones Well property has been removed as a park because of liability.” On the parks list, as mini parks, are the Rose Gar-den, Old Mill Park and Nebo Heights Park. Listed as neigh-borhood parks are Canyon View Park, Town Square Park, Nephi Pioneer Park/Swim-ming Pool and Orgill Park. The Nebo View Baseball Park/complex is considered a community park and consists of 10.6 acres. “The south and west areas of town are lacking in facili-ties,” said Oswald. “One hun-dred percent of the existing parks and 81 percent of the population are on the east side of Main Street.” Seth Atkinson, city admin-istrator, said that the city was being divided into quadrants

See Recreation on page 2 See Task Force on page 4