At the October Huntington City Council meeting, a presentation by Daniel Pacheco, a United States census specialist, about the 2010 census and a presentation by Jacob Sharp, head of Castle Valley Special Service District, about the upcoming vote on the bond vote highlighted the council meeting.
Pacheco is visiting every town, city and county in the state of Utah to try and get people and local government excited about the 2010 census. Pacheco stressed that it is their job to count people, not to ask if they are legal or not.
The federal government uses the census to apportion the 435 congress seats throughout the country. They also use the census to allocate more than $400 billion to states and communities each and every year.
Each city or entity is being asked to encourage all citizens to reply to the census questionnaire next spring. In the year 2000, only 68 percent of Utahns sent their questionnaire back in.
Sharp, representing the special service district, led a discussion on the proposed 2009 bond election and tax election that will be on the Nov. 3 ballot. The first question is to allow and authorize the district to issue and sell $12,500,000 in general obligation bonds that allow the district to continue doing as they have done in the past which is to install new curb and gutter, roads, culinary water lines, secondary water lines and sewer systems.
The second question is to authorize the extension of the annual levy of .001 for operation and maintenance of the district assets. Since 1977, this has raised $42 million through taxes and then the district has received grants totaling $26 million. Since 2001, the district got $12 million through bonding of which the industrial base paid 83 percent of the total. The district also received $6,770,000 in grants. Out of a total of $18,770,000 spent by the district, residents were taxed only $2,040,000. That is a good deal.
The district currently has requests in from the cities to spend over $55 million over the next 10 years. Although they cannot do it all in this amount of time, they can do a lot with a yes vote. With a no vote, they will do none of it.
In other business, Fast Pass contributed another $10,000 to the city for the way they were treated this past summer when they brought their fancy cars to town and were hosted to lunch. The city is still able to install more sidewalks this season because the grant received is going much further than originally thought. Another 15 to 18 blocks may be done.
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