| The Helper Parkway may soon be connected by another trail to the Spring Canyon system that was constructed by the county a couple of years ago. The plans and processes are presently in the works to get the project done this fall. |
The Helper City Council met in their regular meeting last Thursday evening at their new meeting place, the Helper Auditorium, and one of the main topics of discussion was the connecting of the Helper Parkway with the county’s trail system in Spring Canyon.
“Not long ago we finished the Spring Canyon trail system on the outskirts of Helper,” said Carbon County Commissioner Bill Krompel, who was at the meeting to talk with the city about the possible link up. “I know that some preliminary discussions had been underway about connecting the two trail systems and we at the county want to know if Helper City is still interested in doing this.”
The discussion turned to how the past council felt and all those present who were on the last council felt that everyone had been supportive. The talk turned to a route.
While some thought that the route had been planned already, the question of right of way on some properties that the route would cross came into question. Councilmen agreed that situation would have to rectified before any further work could be done on the project.
“When those problems are solved the county is ready to try and help to implement the project this fall,” said Krompel. “First, however, we need to put together a committee consisting individuals from both the county and Helper City to do so.”
The council decided to include three people on the committee and begin the planning process.
“We are obviously interested in this project, but we have very limited resources to help when it comes to manpower and equipment,” stated Mayor Joe Bonacci.
Helper has a grant they submitted in 2001 for the project and the money was awarded this year. The city will be doing follow up work on the easements in the next month and then there will be a meeting in August of the committee to begin to plan the project.
In other business the council did the following.
•They accepted $1000 for the Rio Theatre seat fund from Wells Fargo Bank. Leslie Tallerico, who has been active for years in the Helper project and many more in the community secured the money from the company she works for by winning an award for volunteer service work and getting the money which she prescribed should go to Helper projects.
“I was hoping for the $50,000 prize, but we got a $1000,” said Tallerico to the council. “I am certainly not complaining though.”
The mayor thanked Tallerico who manages the Helper office of Wells Fargo, and Marilyn Robinson the area president for the company.
“We will apply this to the seat fund,” he said referring to the current drive to get the seats installed in the theatre. “It looks like we will not quite have the building open for the Helper Arts Festival, but it will be usable for the Christmas Light Parade.”
•The council approved a lease agreement with Verizon Communications to place three antennas on their present tower to aid in local communications between police units and with the dispatch center in Price.
“This is an officer safety issue,” stated Police Chief George Zamantakis. “This will make it so our officers can communicate with no problems with dispatch.”
Verizon has agreed to put up a building to house the equipment for free and the state pays for all but $500 of the cost of installing the new relay equipment.
•The council also agreed to purchase a hub and some firewall software for the city’s computer systems for about $580. These items are being purchased to keep hackers from getting into the police and city utility systems and either getting unauthorized information or disrupting those systems.
• The council passed a resolution on hazard mitigation that was requested by the Utah Association of City and County Governments as well as the Federal Emergency Management Association. The resolution allows the city to ask for help in times of emergency from FEMA and could qualify the city for other kinds of aide in times of crisis.