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Mayors devise a plan for Jordan asset split

Funny quote:

West transition team chairman Ralph Haws agrees. "To announce the plan to the public before we review it is inappropriate," he said.

considering Mr Haws and the RDTT have repeatedly used the media to review their thoughts/positions rather than submit then to the NDTT first....

Nice that a group from both sides is actually looking to move things forward rather than holding out a hope for a reversion that simply won't/can't happen.

Hopefully the Mayors can prevail upon both transition teams to accept their proposal and get that obstacle out of the way.

I congratulate the mayors from both the east side and west side for their leadership in finding a proposed compromise. I remain concerned that Mr. Haws, and two of his allies, wil continue to attempt to obstruct a resoltuion to the issue. Prior to this compromise proposed by the mayors, 9 of the 12 asset transition team members had reached an agreement (east and west). The three members who opposed the compromise were encouraged by Senator Waddoups and Senator Chris Buttars to continue to fan the flames of obstruction. Comments by Senator Waddoups and Senator Buttars, reflect a total lack of understanding of the facts and a commitment to making it up as they go. It took leadership to sit down and hammer out an agreement that may not please all parties. That leadership came from the mayors of the cities involved.

I congratulate Mr. Haws and the west-side team for standing up for west-side students and taxpayers. Had the first proposals been approved, those of us on the west would have been left with a financial burden it would take an entire generation to overcome.

I cannot comprehend how the east-side team members departed so dramatically from their own feasibility study. The study cleary said the east would wind up paying the west somewhere in the neighborhood of $13 million to cover the costs of administration buildings which are located mostly on the east. So, their first proposal out of the gate was to demand $112 million from the west to make all their schools like new--and the west can build their own administration buildings. When the west team proposed going back to the east's original (feasibility study) plan as a starting point, the east team refused to even consider it.

The eastside did not demand $112 from the west. That is the number four individuals--two from the west and two from the east--suggested in the first proposal put together by the negotiating team to offset the asset imbalance between the two sides. Perhaps you should ask Mr. Horst and Mr. Nielsen why they agreed to that suggestion. Did the two eastside negotiators torture them? Did they coerce them in anyway? Why did Mr. Horst and Mr. Nielsen agree to yet another proposal by the negotiation team that proposed another payment to offset the asset imbalance? Could it be because they actually looked at the financials and realized there was an imbalance that needed fixed in order to be fair and equitable?

The feasibility study was published in May 2007. $196 million in assets were added to the JSD financials in September 2007. The feasibility study did not include almost $200 million that the asset teams are dealing with. While all of those new assets went west and were committed to building projects, it doesn't change the fact they are assets and the statute does state that ALL assets are to be included in the division process.

It's incredible how much more of Jordan District's assets lie west of the Jordan River. Since the feasibility study, the district has purchased several tracts of land, brand new schools including a $70 million high school have been or will be built, the new Valley High is state of the art and was just moved from east to west, the Kauri Sue Hamilton School will be built in the next couple of years. There has been no similar investment in the east. Instead, schools have been closed and facilities remain in need of renovation and repair. The asset teams' work finally pointed out that lopsided investment in assets and the inequity of what has been going on. The teams also showed that these are assets that taxpayers on both sides of the district purchased. Now that the district is dividing, one side should be reimbursed for their share of those assets, and again since most of the assets were purchased west of the Jordan River, a reimbursement should rightly be made to the east.

These folks should take a hint from the War Games movie. The only way to win is not to play the game.

This has been a mess from the outset.

BTW. Are these the same Salt Lake County Mayors, who while prioritizing transportation projects for the Wasatch Front Regional Council decided that a light rail extension to West Valley City was more important than the Western valley freeway?
That TRAX extension was predicted, in its Final Environmental Study Report--in Chapter 3-- to have 0.00% impact on car travel; it was only projected with a total long term cost of $700,000,000 by WFRC and UTA experts. What a super-rational, cost-effective deal this is.

The same level of rationality is now being applied to this District Split problem. Brilliant!

To "The only way to Win", sorry, but you're wrong.

To follow your logic to "keep everything the same" then the United States should be no more than the original 13 colonies (if they should have been formed at all). There would be no reason for any innovation, improvement, or progress in any way shape and form.

Somewhat aking to an ostrich putting their head in the sand and claiming "no one can see me".