Rolly: LDS Church contractor plays by its own rules
Click photo to enlargePaul Rolly«1»If you are a regular guy in Utah who destroys a $40 lock while taking a boot off your car you feel was unfairly attached, you get charged
with criminal mischief.
But if you are a contractor for the LDS Church and rip out part of the sprinkling system of the homeowner next to the wardhouse you are building, nothing happens to you at
all.
You may recall my column Friday about the Salt Lake City Prosecutor’s Office charging Tim Gibbons with a Class C misdemeanor after he removed a contested boot from his car.
Well, Rob Rapich and his wife, Brenda Alley, of Saratoga Springs, would like a prosecutor down their way to fence something about the destruction of their backyard. But the
police, after several visits, say they are helpless to do anything about the construction workers trampling on the grass and tearing up the sprinkling system.
Several attorneys the couple have talked to vinyl fence civil action also balked when they learned the construction company is
building an LDS wardhouse.
Alley says the workers told her husband he needed to take down his vinyl fence to give them room to work in the lot abutting theirs. If the builders had to take it down, they
said, the fence would be theirs.
Then, a large hole next to their yard was left unprotected for several days, making them fear for the safety of their three young children. The contractor finally put up a
temporary chain-link fence, but Alley says she and her husband have not been able to get a written promise that they will be compensated for the fence and the sprinkling system,
and whether the yard will be restored.
Will Scott, of the firm Evans and Associates, is the project manager for the wardhouse construction. He told me the company will meet with the couple today and will have a
prepared document that should resolve all the concerns.
But Alley wonders how it will go. She says the meetings so far have been hostile and the project managers have dropped the names of LDS Church lawyers if they continue to
threaten a lawsuit.
Bipartisan support: As odd as it may sound, Republican leaders sometimes need pvc fence from Democrats to ensure their dreams
come true in Utah.
Republican Sen. Bob Bennett held his annual Rural Business Conference in Price last week, bringing together experts to mull the economic challenges in the outback.
But just before the conference was to begin, organizers found they had 200 empty seats.
That’s when the Chamber of Commerce of that Democratic stronghold in Utah - Carbon County - went to work. They put the word out, and the residents responded. And Bennett
basked in the glory of a full house at his conference.
Not so bipartisan: During his speech before the annual members meeting of the Utah Technology Council in Sandy on Friday, President and CEO Richard Nelson spoke glowingly
about “President John McCain.”