This is my favorite month of the year. September brings cooler temperatures, high school football, playoff run baseball and of course Swiss Days. The Swiss Days Committee has prepared another fun-filled program for this month’s celebration of our community heritage. There is a schedule of the planned events and entertainment in this newsletter. The venues offer a family friendly environment with something for every age group. From the kid’s games, to traditional heritage displays, to modern entertainment, great food, the best parade in Southern Utah along a beautiful route, to the 5k run, to the craft vendors, to the car show; whatever your interest is, there is an event just for you. The City Council has ordered extra candy this year for the parade, so be sure to give them a wave. They work hard to deliver high quality public services for you the residents.

You’ll probably agree with me, it has been a very hot summer and air conditioners have been working over-time. As a result, residents are getting their highest utility bills of the year and a few will consider calling someone to vent. There are a few things you should understand before you do. First, the residents of Santa Clara own the power system. The utility is governed and managed locally by the City Council as a non-profit organization. Decisions regarding rates, system reliability and expansion are made in public meetings by the City Council you elected as residents. They are your neighbors, they pay the same rates as you. There is not a highly paid CEO, no for-profit investors, no dividends. Second, Santa Clara residents enjoy an extremely reliable power system and power rates are lower than the investor owned utility serving our neighbors in Ivins who have no say in their power utility management. Third, as residents we benefit from a dedicated and tal-ented staff who operate and maintain the utility in an efficient and cost-effective manner. They live in our com-munity, share our values and care about your family’s comfort, safety and security. I appreciate the good work they do 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Bottom line, you get billed for what you use.

The City’s goal to provide a public shooting range in the South Hills is proceeding through the planning and approval process with our friends at the BLM and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Over the last year, the Washington County Commission has spent nearly $35,000 working with the BLM to find a safe location and design a shooting range to allow gun enthusiasts to continue this long-standing tradition in the South Hills while providing a safer experience for mountain biking, hiking and OHV users. The county’s consultant has located a great site in the southwest corner of the City away from the popular public multi-use trails, but from what I’ve been told, a little too close to a few endangered plants and the potential path of an occasional de-sert tortoise (even though the soils are not conducive for the endangered plants). While the professional staff at the BLM appear to support the county’s proposal, the potential threat of litigation by a few vocal environ-mentalists backed by a powerful non-profit environmental watchdog group is delaying the approval process. I guess construction of a shooting range and access road are just too big a risk for the endangered species in the minds of some individuals. The risks of a hiker or mountain biker getting shot must not be as important. I sincerely hope the Washington County Commission and the BLM continue their efforts to make a designated shooting range in the South Hills a reality. Stay tuned for more details on this in the future. This is a huge public safety issue for the community and the fight to establish a shooting range isn’t over by any means.

Have a great September Santa Clara and try to stay safe, especially if you venture into the South Hills.

Mayor Rick Rosenberg (rickr@racivil.com or mayor@sccity.org)