Sullivan Virgin River Soccer Park

Recently we opened the Virgin River Sullivan Family Soccer park. This park is in its first stage and will continue to be expanded in the future with soccer fields, play grounds and more pavilions. This beautiful location for a park was made possible through the partnership with the Sullivan Family many years ago. We are grateful for their relationship and donation to the city. Many times we are asked how and why we build these many beautiful parks in our community, let me address each of those.

How do we build these parks? The seven parks and fisheries that have been opened up in the last five years have been paid from the new growth that has occurred in the city. It might not surprise you to know that Washington City is adding just under 1,000 residents per year to our community (even in spite of the downturn in the economy). These residents when they build their home pay an impact fee. This fee is used exclusively to provide the facilities that these new residents will use; such as parks, trails, water lines, new streets, etc. Without impact fees existing facilities would be inadequate for our population or the current residents would need to pay for these new facilities in their taxes. Washington City has been able to add all of these facilities without increasing the tax load on our residents.

Why do we build these parks? Washington City has a large number of young families as citizens. Our senior population is more active and we live in a climate where the outdoors can be enjoyed year-around. Parks and trails add to the quality for life of all of our citizens. We continually find that individuals and families are making decisions on where to live based upon the quality of life of an area. We believe this is one of the reasons we have shown greater growth in Washington City than in our surrounding communities; we truly are becoming the city of choice in our area. For me however the reason we build these parks was in a experience I had the other day. As I was driving down 300 East I passed a young boy about 9 or 10. He was riding his bike with a fishing pole and tackle box strapped to the back. He was smiles from ear-to-ear as he prepared for his days adventure of fishing at the newly built fishing pond. If you ever question "why" we build these facilities, drive over to any of our parks and watch our families celebrating birthdays, walking hand-in-hand with their kids around the trail or listening to the squeals and shouts of the soccer game going on, and you will know the answer.

Completion of Telegraph Street

Photo courtesy of lenhartimages.com

It seems like Telegraph Street has dominated my recent blog postings, but it has been such a significant project in our city that it has been worth noting. Well, those days are about to come to an end. The project is wrapping up. We will be holding a ribbon cutting for the opening of our new Telegraph Street as well as the restoration of the old bell tower on Monday, October 17, at 6 pm, in front of the old school (museum, 25 north Telegraph Street). This event will include comments by the Utah Department of Transportation representatives, a representative from our Historical Society, and from the Washington City Mayor, Ken Neilson. If all of that doesn’t sound exciting enough for you, then we are also offering hot dogs, hayrides, and the mayor and council will be taking a tour of Telegraph with a vintage car drive. This event will also include the introduction and ringing in of the restored bell tower at the old school. It will be the perfect night to reflect upon our past, as we listen to the chimes of the tower, and glance down the corridor of of our future, as we officially open Telegraph Street. You won’t want to miss it!

I also want to mention one other item associated with the street widening project. We have a very talented, local citizen who has taken it upon himself to document the work on Telegraph through pictures. Ron Lenhart Photography has done a great job of capturing the spirit of this project for us to always remember. You can find his work at lenhartimages.com. Thanks Ron for the pride you have in your community, as demonstrated by your very professional work.

I hope to see you all Monday as we ring in a "a whole new era...where it all began."

9/11

This might be a little different blog than normal, as I am not updating you on street improvements or other items happening in the city; but I do believe that this topic is as relevant to our community as any is. I hope we all took a few minutes yesterday to reflect upon and stand in memoria of the events that occurred ten years ago, on September 11, 2001. No doubt we all remember where we were and what we were doing. For me, it was living in another community. I was delivering my kids to school and in an uncharacteristic way, turned on the car radio that morning. Like many of you I was pretty well numb as the days events unfolded.

The memories of 9/11 are forever seared into our memories. From burning towers and collapsing structures, to the site of emergency personnel entering buildings and never returning. I remember the pictures of average citizen heroes reaching out to help people they didn’t even know. We were stunned at the gaping hole in the pentagon, moved by the crater in Pennsylvania and inspired by the cheering of the crowds as the emergency and heavy equipment rolled into New York. It was a time of varied emotions.

I never knew anyone personally who lost their life in those events that September, but in the last ten years it is hard to find anyone who has not been affected by that day. For me, it was watching a brother-in-law enter the war-zone in Afghanistan. He was later injured in a road-side bomb but was one of the fortunate ones who came home.

Those who perpetrated the attacks on that beautiful fall day wanted to break our spirit and destroy our way of life. They wanted to replace our sense of community and association with a state of chaos and disconnection. I think you will agree with me, that on the days following 9/11 just the opposite happened. We all pulled closer together, took more time to appreciate our relationships and drew strength from one another.

I love the concept of community. The idea where we collectively come together for the common good. Certainly one of the enduring messages we should take from 9/11 is how important it is to remain connected with one another and how important it is to strengthen the relationships we share with one another as a community, a state, and as a nation.

Telegraph Road Update

I thought I would give you an update on how things are progressing along Telegraph. We are in our home-stretch and should be completed by mid October. Street lighting has been installed throughout the project. The planter boxes, which are the work of a local artist Mike Upwall, are being installed and planted. These planter boxes are a unique design feature which will not only house large, shade producing trees for our downtown but will provide sitting benches for those who desire. The sidewalks are being installed at the bridge deck and then they will begin to do the beautiful rock work on the parapet walls of the bridge. Turn lanes are being installed and they will be of a stamped, colored concrete. All intersections will have turning capability. One of the final items will be the staining of a portion of the all the sidewalks. I believe that you will really like the final product of this long-awaited project.

I hope you have paid attention to the installation of the old bell tower. We look forward to making the chimes a permanent part of the downtown when we officially open up the new Telegraph Street. We have had some interested businesses watching the development and making some inquiries about our downtown.

We believe that the downtown will be inviting to new businesses but still maintain that small community charm that makes Washington "feel like home."

Sustainable Community

In local government these days we use the word "Sustainability." The definition of this word can mean "conserving an ecological balance by avoiding depletion of natural resources." We believe that one of the most attractive qualities of Washington City, is its natural beauty, clean air, and good quality of life. It has been our desire to preserve these wonderful attributes even as we have grown. In fact, we believe that this is largely one of the reasons Washington City has been one of the top five fastest growing communities in the state.

The avoiding of depletion of natural resources is so important to us that we have one of the most stringent Hillside and Ridgeline building requirements, so as not to deplete the natural beauty of our bluffs and mesas. Our recently constructed buildings include the use of natural lighting and the burning of our own waste oil, generated by our vehicles, for heating. We are doing all that we can to reduce our carbon footprint and be good stewards with our natural resources.

CNG Pump at Washington City's Fueling Station.

A significant sustainability issue that Washington City has been working on for some time, is the conversion of our city vehicle fleet from oil dependent gasoline to more cleaner natural gas. We partnered up with Clean Cities Utah and secured grant funding to open a natural gas fueling station as well as convert a large number of our fleet over to gas. This conversion not only will preserve our clean air and help reduce our oil dependency but it has come with some substantial cost savings. To give you an example, after the first month with having only six vehicles converted to natural gas, the city has already saved over $800 from what would have been paid for gasoline or diesel fuel. This means that once this first round of fleet conversions have occurred, we should be regularly saving about $3,200 per month by using natural gas rather than fuel.

We look forward to continuing to make steps to preserve all the beauties that this area has to offer and to be a responsible government with our resources. If you have other ideas that the city can pursue, please let one of us know. After all this is our home as well and we love it!

The Old Bell Tower

It is pretty hard to miss all of the work that is happening on Telegraph Street. This street widening and beautification project is very large in scope and comes with it some sacrifice on the part of the local businesses and citizens. We are confidant however that your patience and understanding will pay off when it is completed. This project should improve visibility and exposure to our downtown businesses as well as make traveling easier for the general public. Thanks for your patience!

Through all of the dust and traffic cones you may not have noticed however a new addition to our downtown. This new addition is actually the restoring of an "old friend" to the downtown. This old friend is the bell tower on the old school. This new tower is built to the specifications of its predecessor. As part of this project, we will be adding a carillon system to this tower. This bell system will be used to ring out the hours and special occasions throughout our downtown area.

The old bell tower was part of the history of our community. There is some uncertainty as to what happened to this tower but by using old photographs we were able to build a replica that matches closely to the original. This restoration project was discussed a number of years ago by Mayor Terrill Clove and has been supported by the City Council and Washington City Historical Society. The carillon system will be completed in the next few weeks and we look forward to sounding these bells when the Telegraph Street project is completed, sometime in October.

I am confident that this restoration project will only enhance the other improvements that will be done to the downtown area of Telegraph Street. I believe that these enhancements will make our downtown a place that will attract business, pedestrians, and families within our community. We want our downtown to be a gathering place, a town square if you will. The restoration of the old school tower and bell shows that we can remember and maintain our past, while accommodating for today and planning for the future.

Washington City Strategic Plan

There are a variety of plans that a city needs to have in order to function. We are required by law to have a General Plan, which guides us in our growth and development. We have plans that are developed to help us plan and install needed improvements in the city, i.e. water lines, sewer lines, power lines, roads and storm water facilities. We can have so many plans that unless we have an over-riding strategy to coordinate these they can become disjointed and confusing.

This past week, the City Council approved the the Washington City Strategic Plan for the next five years. This plan is a revision of the original plan that was created in 2008. The original plan was meant to communicate to our staff, elected officials, and citizens the mission statement, vision statement, and values that we adhere to. The plan was organized in four areas of interest: quality of life, quality of service, managed growth, and economic development. Specific goals and strategies were then developed for each area of interest. Over the past three years we have accomplished a majority of these goals and felt it necessary to revisit this strategic plan.

Over the past several months a committee has reviewed future needs, concerns by our citizens, and goals established by city departments. They then revised this plan to carry us into the next five years. Our areas of interest have changed to include: embrace economic growth, ensure financial integrity, enhance public service, elevate citizen experience, and enrich cultural awareness. With specific goals for each of these areas.

I hope you will take some time to review this new Strategic Plan, to offer us advice on how to best accomplish the goals, and join with us in reaching these goals. We believe, as Councilman Bill Hudson acknowledged upon approval of this plan, “...if we could accomplish all this in the next five years we’d definitely be better off as a city.”


Click Here to download and view these plans.