Helper city reviews arts’ festival profits

By Sun Advocate

Presented in August, the 2002 Helper Art Festival made an unofficial profit of $6459.59.
The figure was given to the Helper City Council last Thursday by Mark Stuckenschneider, the event chairman.
“We made about 150 percent of what we made last year,” stated Stuckenschneider.
The total income from the festival was $30,002.81 and the committee had expenditures of $22, 543.
“There are still some invoices coming in so nothing is totally set in terms of numbers, but this is close to what we made,” the committee chair told the council.
Stuckenschneider pointed out that the event set up a website at helperartfestival.com for people to contact vendors in case they want to buy something they saw, but didn’t at the time.
The committee also ran local ads in the newspaper and radio ads to get more Carbon-Emery County vendors to participate in the event.
Stuckenschneider reported that 29 vendors have already signed up for next year’s show.
In an unrelated action, the council agreed to raise the rate that City Sanitation can charge Helper customers by 5 cents a month.
The officials based the action on a contract increase the council reviews regularly.
In the past, the council has debated such increases because of problems with service or other situations companies contracted with caused for the public.
“They seem to handle the complaints well,” stated Councilman Robert Welch, referring to the company’s record in working with the public. “For that reason the city gets very few from residents about the service.”
Addressing an unrelated agenda item, the council members decided to have Helper Attorney Gene Strate draft up an ordinance regulating fees the city charges for documents people want to obtain.
“I’d like everyone to think about how much we should charge for copying, staff time and other costs,” expressed Strate. “Most of the time, requests are small. But we recently had one that was quite large. We also need to determine which types of documents need to be put in a protected class.”
Strate was referring to a request from an individual cited for a minor violation who used the right to know act to request dozens of documents. The documents included everything from information about each of the city council members to where Strate had received his education.
In addition, the council approved the bylaws for the Helper Railroad and Mining Museum board with some amendments at the public meeting on Sept. 27.
The officials listened to verbal reports from council members concerning city department.
Kim Spradling reported working with Lynda Varner from the Carbon County Housing Authority, the agency that controls the Golden Rule Mission in Helper. Spradling said Varner is going to apply for grant money to do some work on the mission.
Tony Gonzalez discussed the grant the city received to work on the Spring Canyon Trail extension. The project will eventually hook the trail up with the Helper Parkway.
Gonzalez indicated that he was curious about the liability people who grant easements to the city for the parkway may face should someone get hurt on the trail that is on their property.
Gonzalez also pointed out that the city will soon be getting a road ranger (a small ATV type vehicle) that will be used for spraying weeds along the cities roads.
It was pointed out that in the winter that same machine can be used for plowing snow along the parkway and sidewalks.
Councilman Welch brought up the fact that the city has found a new water source for it’s system.
There is a spring located in the Fish Creek area that belongs to Helper that the city has not been utilizing.
“We are setting things up so we can start putting this water in our lines,” he told the council. “This doesn’t eliminate the need for water conservation, but if it works out we may be able to revisit the higher water rates we enacted earlier this year.”
There is no definite timetable for when the water in question will come on line.
Mayor Joe Bonacci brought up the problems that the city encountered during the rainstorms a couple of weeks ago.
“With the covering of the canals on the east side of town there is nowhere for the water to go when it rains and comes off the canyons above town,” the mayor told the council. “Luckily ,the railroad bed held and water was diverted so we avoided some of the flooding, but I worry that in a worse instance we could have real problems.”
Discussion ensued about what could be done. So far, the city has been able to deal with it by cutting some extra ditches but a heavy storm or a heavy winter could create problems.
The mayor said he would contact the county to see what Carbon officials may suggest and what they can do to help alleviate the situation.
Jim Robinson indicated that a number of citizens are protesting the U.S. Highway 6 overpass because of the damage it might cause to the historic Bruno Farm site.
“This city is not going to take a position on this issue,” stated the mayor. “I wish the citizens well on their endeavors, but we are not going to join sides on this.”