Month: February 2018

Roosevelt City Manager Ryan Snow provided a review of 2017 in the Roosevelt City Bulletin. The following are among the highlights: The Roosevelt City Chip and Seal project covered 12 miles of the 40 miles of roads within Roosevelt and the budget is outlined to have all the roads repaired and resurfaced by 2022. Significant improvements were made to the city’s water and sewer infrastructure, utilizing funding that was 90 percent grants. Governor Gary Herbert visited Roosevelt last summer to declare Roosevelt a “Business Friendly City,” an honor which has only been given to 30 cities in the state. Roosevelt City launched a new website last year maintained with up to date information. They also increased transparency by providing live video feed of all public meetings on a YouTube channel. The city council did a thorough review of city laws to ensure that Roosevelt is compliant with state and federal laws. And the city retired more than $1 million dollars in debt, reducing the amount of interest the city was paying. With a successful 2017 in the books, City Manager Snow says the city is “optimistic about what 2018 will bring for our city and residents.”  

A bill, sponsored by Senator Kevin Van Tassell, that would increase authority of the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining is slowly working its way up the legislative ladder. SB191: State Regulation of Oil and Gas was approved by the Senate’s Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday and is now placed on the Senate’s 2nd reading calendar. “The idea behind this bill,” explains Senator Van Tassell, “is that the Oil, Gas, and Mining board will set the policy and control the oil and gas. In the state, we end up with conflicts between surface rights and other property but minerals are the dominant asset so if in some areas a city says they want to ban fracking, for example, this says that the state oil and gas governing agency gets to regulate those.” The bill was worked on by many in both Duchesne and Uintah Counties, says Van Tassell, and received the support of Commissioners wanting to see it passed. SB191 will now work its way up the board but there are plenty of bills waiting to be heard so, in the words of Senator Van Tassell, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.  

2017 was an excellent year for the Uintah County Heritage Museum. An annual report was made during the Museum Advisory Board meeting last week stating that last year was the second largest year for cumulative visitation. The Museum gathers its data using a guest registry and was recorded as bringing in 14,578 visitors.

Ashley Regional Medical Center has received yet another accolade. The hospital has been named one of the Top 100 Rural & Community Hospitals in the United States by the Chartis Center for Rural Health. This list is based on the iVantage Health Analytics’ Hospital Strength Index that measures facilities across eight pillars of hospital strength.