I would like to start this article by thanking all who ran for City Council. We had six great candidates and it was a close election. Congratulations to Kimberly, Mel and Will on their successful election to the council. We had a 25% turnout for the elec-tion.

Unfortunately, new council members coming in means old members going out. After 12 years on the council, Kent Hasting chose not to run again. He has been a strong asset to Alpine City and the Lone Peak Public Safety District. Jim Tracy also chose not to run again. He put in countless hours helping the community. I’m hoping that both will continue to serve in some form in the future. I am grateful to have worked along side of these fine gentlemen.

We recently made some changes to the way that we calculate funding for the fire/EMS portion of the Public Safety District. This new method will make the allocation even between the residents of Alpine, Highland and Cedar Hills. This change will lower our portion by $72,000. Welcome news!

I need to confess that the police were called on me on a Saturday afternoon. I was with a friend above the water tank in Lambert Park. I was well into the Forest Service property shooting handguns. Someone heard the shots and phoned it in. As I was outside the city limits, it was a legal place to be. You might hear me again. When I am up there, I make sure that I clean up all my brass and carry out my paper targets. I also hauled out someone else’s computer monitor that had been dumped, and a large piece of cardboard that someone had used for targets. I’ve never understand why someone would leave trash like that in such a beautiful area.