Gowans Outlines Priorities Ahead of Legislative Session
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FRONT PAGE A1 THURSDAY www.tooeletranscript.com TUESDAY Tooele VFW honors fallen veterans See B1 TOOELETRANSCRIPT BULLETIN January 15, 2008 SERVING TOOELE COUNTY SINCE 1894 VOL. 114 NO. 69 50¢ Gowans outlines priorities ahead of legislative session County’s only resident lawmaker to focus on school construction funding, health care and water rights, among other issues by Tim Gillie teacher, principal and administrator. He policy and funding issues, before making es, his opinion is well respected by his issue that Gowans sees as a priority in STAFF WRITER currently runs a farm on 180 acres in a successful 1992 run for the state house republican colleagues. He hopes to bring 2008. The costs of building and renovat- Vernon where he raises 100 head of a of representatives — a seat he has held that influence to bear in the upcoming ing schools are primarily paid by property Out of the six state legislators who rep- cattle, and maintains a home in Tooele. ever since. legislative session that begins next week taxes imposed by a school district. Since resent pieces of Tooele County, only Rep. He became involved in politics through Gowans is one of only 20 Democrats in Tuesday. property values and population growth Jim Gowans lives in the county. Gowans his career in education, where as a school the 75-seat state House of Representatives. “The 2008 Legislature will be best vary from district to district, the tax bur- retired in 1987 after 35 years working for administrator he spent considerable time As the ranking member two major com- remembered as the education session, if den of new or remodeled schools varies the Tooele County School District as a working with legislators on education mittees, education and natural resourc- we enact the governor’s proposed educa- considerably. tion budget,” said Gowans. Gowans said the need for equalization Gov. Huntsman has already tipped off is best seen in the recent decision to split legislators to his top three priorities: edu- the Jordan School District because the cation, clean air and health care reform. new district on the east bench has higher Gowans will weigh in on all three issues, property values than the remaining parts but he also has his own agenda involving of Jordan district on the west side. This local concerns including the battle for means it will take a higher property tax career and technical education in Tooele rate to raise the same amount of money in County, and a proposed state takeover of the Jordan District than in the new district. justice courts. Equalization would allow poorer districts In the area of education, Gowans said the to build new schools without raising prop- first order of business will be to fully fund erty taxes higher than other areas. Gowans the raise and bonuses that were promised believes equalization can be done without teachers last year. Additional raises for raising property taxes. teachers have been proposed by both the “Equalization will benefit the people of legislature and the governor — a move Tooele County because of the rapid growth Gowans supports. Much of the discussion in our schools,” said Gowans. “Tooele has surrounding those raises will focus on how lower property values and would receive they are to be given. The governor wants to some form of state assistance for buildings raise the per-pupil funding sent to school to keep up with our growth.” districts, but some legislators are wary of Gowans said Huntsman’s second pri- school districts not passing the money ority, clean air, is really a battle over the on to teachers. They want to fund a direct future of energy. raise like they did in 2007. Either way, “The governor has entered into allianc- Gowans said educators need the money es with other states, such as California, and the state needs higher teacher salaries which will require us to develop more to be more competitive in recruiting new renewable resources of energy, and I’m teachers. The average starting wage for not sure California will approve of every- teachers in Utah is around $32,000, while thing we want to do,” said Gowans. “In in Wyoming the average new teacher sal- the meantime, we are sitting on one of photography/ Maegan Burr ary is $48,000, according to Gowans. School building equalization is another SEE GOWANS PAGE A6 ➤ Rep. Jim Gowans (D) has been a member of the Legislature since 1991. He is the only representative of Tooele County who resides locally. Climbing health care DCD two-thirds of the way to closure premiums pinching Facility now expects to have remaining 4,100 tons of agent destroyed by 2013 by Sarah Miley EG&G Defense Materials, com- STAFF WRITER pleted the destruction of its entire private, public sectors stockpile of GB nerve agent in Just more than two-thirds of 2002, and VX nerve agent in June by Doug Radunich our own insurance pool where the the original chemical agents 2005. Mustard agent, four tons STAFF WRITER company pays for all health ben- stored at the Deseret Chemical of GA nerve agent, and 10 tons efits of all the employees, and we Depot have now been destroyed, of lewisite, a blister agent, are As health care costs continue to did it because we wanted to pro- putting the facility on track for left to be destroyed.Stockpiles climb, local businesses and county vide benefits for employees with- complete agent destruction in of chemical weapons are being government are feeling the pinch out having to face crippling costs.” 2013, according to Alaine Grieser, destroyed in Kentucky, Colorado, in premiums. And with no imme- Representatives from several spokeswoman for the Deseret Oregon, Arkansas, Alabama and diate reform in sight, everyone is other local businesses said they Chemical Depot. Indiana, in addition to the work being forced to solve the problem also experienced a jump in health Of the 13,617 original tons being done at DCD. in whatever individual way they insurance rates recently. However, of mustard and nerve agents at The TOCDF uses high-temper- can. the problem of rising health care DCD, there are 4,100 tons left to ature incineration technology for Ken Christensen, control- costs isn’t limited to the private be destroyed. The work began chemical disposal. ler for Christensen & Griffith sector. in 1996. “This year we destroyed Photo credit: EG&G Photo Construction, said he foresees his Health insurance rates for all Roughly 45 percent of the more agent here at the Deseret Operators Dean Nielson (left) and Glen Strickland place the first mustard company’s employee health insur- Tooele County employees went nation’s chemical weapons Chemical Depot than any of the agent-filled 155-millimeter projectile on a conveyer to start the demilitariza- ance rates rising in the spring again up 16 percent, beginning when have been stored at the Deseret other neutralization facilities or tion process at the Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in this 2007 file because of market forces driving the county’s 2008 budget was Chemical Depot. the other burn facilities did in a photo. The facility expects to finish its work by 2013. up the cost of health insurance. set on Jan. 1 of this year. County In 2007, approximately 3.5 one-year period,” said Grieser, “We’re still undecided on how Commissioner Jerry Hurst said a million pounds of mustard agent adding this is because the tech- she said. pounds, and 4 million pounds much rates will go up because growing and aging population with were destroyed at the Tooele nology at the facility has been More than one-third of the have already been destroyed. we won’t start the process until longer life expectancies was a con- Chemical Agent Disposal Facility. used for 10 years. total mustard agent has been The TOCDF began processing February or March, but we’re pro- tributing factor to the increased The facility, located at the Deseret “We should have it [the tech- destroyed at the facility. The jecting they will go up because health insurance rates. Chemical Depot and operated by nology] pretty well perfected,” original amount was 12 million SEE DCD PAGE A6 ➤ that’s what’s been happening with “The workforce is aging and everyone,” he said. “It’s rare if insur- people are living longer, and there ance rates don’t go up. Doctors are a large number of baby boom- charge more, hospitals become ers starting to get up there toward Sex abuser sent to prison more expensive and there’s more retirement age who need good litigation driving health care costs health care plans,” Hurst said. by Suzanne Ashe offense again. up.” “Drug costs also go up every year, as STAFF WRITER Defense attorney John Williams Utah Fabrication General well as hospital costs and doctor’s asked the court for probation Manager Mike Jarema said that fees, and you also have the cost of With tears streaming down his and treatment for his client, cit- much like other local companies malpractice suits. Things are rising face, 41-year-old John Westlake, of ing Westlake had been abused as a Utah Fabrication was also going to everywhere in the health care field, Tooele, was sentenced this morning child and later became an abuser. experience a rise in health insur- and the insurance companies look to two to 30 years in the Utah State Westlake also suffers from a learn- ance. However, he said that an at those costs and know they have Penitentiary for sexually abusing ing disability and was living off of insurance pool was started within to cover them somehow.” the 12-year-old daughter of his live- Social Security.