I'm writing this from St. George, where I am attending the Utah League of Cities and Towns Mid Year Conference. I just got back from a Q&A session conducted by a League attorney, and attended by mayors and city councils from all over the state. After listening to some of the questions and concerns of other cities, I have an even greater appreciation for our city and our staff. They do so many things right. I'm so grateful for their dedication and hard work, their skills, their eagerness to learn and improve, and willingness to go the second mile. Many of our employees, including our department heads that do not get paid overtime, stay very late and come in early in order to keep up with their workloads. We very much appreciate them.

A recurring theme of these conferences is that we as city officials are here to serve you, not ourselves. When a resident makes an application or request of us, we need to always bear in mind our job is not to say "No" but rather to say "how." Although we do not possess a magic wand, it's important to me that every time a resident has an encounter with the city it is a positive experience. If you ever have a question, suggestion, or complaint, please let us at the city offices know. I've appreciated those of you have already alerted us to misunderstandings and problems. We depend on all of you to do that. We can't solve a problem if we don't know it exists.

After this evening's session of the conference concluded, I had an opportunity to meet with some of our local high school students, who performed at the Tabernacle here in St. George as part of their spring choir concert tour. We can be proud of our youth. They were on their best behavior and do us all credit. The adult chaperones also do us all credit. Next time you think your job is hard; imagine what it takes to sit on a bus for five days with 40+ teenagers.

I am confident the city is in good hands in my short absence. Our engineering and public works staff are continuing to work hard on our proposed and ongoing infrastructure projects. Some of you have asked me about the pressurized irrigation system. We had hoped to have started construction on the pond by now, but economic times are difficult. Both the city and many of our residents are facing challenging economic circumstances. Because this project will have such a significant impact on your checkbook, we've decided to slow things down a bit for the time being. We want to be sure we have all the information and are doing the right thing before we determine if now is still the right time to undertake such a large and costly project. We will be announcing another town meeting soon to give you more information and answer your questions about this and other projects.

As mayor, one of my largest responsibilities is to make certain our laws and ordinances are being enforced. While it seems zoning ordinances are the laws we love to hate the most, our residents recognize the value of those ordinances when it comes to protecting our quality of life. In the coming weeks and months, our zoning and inspection personnel will be taking a much more aggressive approach to enforcing those laws.

If any of you suspect you may not be in total compliance with
some aspect of our zoning, licensing, or regulatory ordinances, please contact us as soon as possible to find out what you need to do. If you need more time, information, guidance, or want to break a job down into manageable chunks, please ask how we can help you come in to compliance. We really are not interested in causing trouble for anyone. We want to stay on good terms with all of our residents, and realize that what is good for you is good for us. So if you believe you may have strayed outside the letter of the law, please come to us before we have to go to you.

Finally, because we suspect that most of you have other things to do on the first and third Wednesday's of the month, we are experimenting with recording our city council meetings and making them available to replay later online. We like to believe we are wildly entertaining, but we're not. Sitting through a four or five hour meeting may not be your idea of a good time, but someday there will be an agenda item that impacts you directly or that you are simply curious about. When this occurs and you are unable to attend in person, go to the Mapleton City website and click on the links to recent city council meetings. We hope many of you will find this convenient and useful.

Mayor Laurel Brady, 489-7516 (home) mayor@mapleton.org