MANTI — Manti City’s new city manager, Jason Brown, brings nearly a decade of municipal leadership experience and a background in engineering to the role. Brown relocated from Beaver to Manti just before Thanksgiving and began work with Manti City on Dec. 1. He served as Beaver City manager from April 2016 to July 2025…
EPHRAIM—Ephraim City is about to step into the circle of medium to large public power operations in Utah that have their own natural gas-fired power plants. Within a month or two, the city expects to complete an $8 million project to repurpose its 50-plus-year-old Power Department Building, colloquially referred to as the “powerhouse,” as a power…
MORONI—A Moroni city councilwoman is leading an effort to combine the one-time Mudd Boggs arena and nearby trap shooting range into an attractive recreation facility. “We want to make it something the community can enjoy that can also bring in revenue,” says Councilwoman Cherrie Green. She outlined some of her ideas in a city council…
JEROME, Idaho—Ridley’s Family Markets, a grocery chain headquartered in Jerome, Idaho, which owns about 30 supermarkets in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Wyoming, has announced plans to acquire Utah-based Terrel’s Markets in a deal expected to close around the first week of April 2026. Under the agreement, all six Terrel’s-owned markets, now located in Fillmore,…
A renewed oral history effort is collecting stories from residents across rural Utah and Nevada who lived through, or inherited memories from, the era of above-ground nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site between 1951 and 1962. The project, called “The Fallout of Fallout Oral History Project,” is led by Dr. Don Unger, a postdoctoral…
SALT LAKE CITY — A decades-long effort to unlock Sanpete County water rights tied to a reservoir site on Gooseberry Creek took a new turn this week after lawmakers revived a scaled-back version of a proposal that had stalled earlier in the session. Sen. Derrin Owens, R-Fountain Green, returned Senate Bill 209 to the Senate…
Drivers through central Utah should expect continued construction impacts along U.S. 6 and nearby corridors as the Utah Department of Transportation works on multiple, overlapping infrastructure projects that stretch through 2026 and beyond. For Sanpete County drivers, the project of greatest interest will occur at the U.S. 6 and U.S. 89 junction in Thistle. That…
SPRING CITY—Lawsuits pitting opponents of zoning changes in Spring City against the former Spring City Council are over.Within three weeks after the first Spring City Council meeting of the year on Jan. 8, one suit was settled out of court; the plaintiff in a second suit withdrew it; and a third action filed with the…
GUNNISON — Utah lawmakers are weighing a request for roughly $130 million in new funding to expand the Central Utah Correctional Facility (CUCF) in Gunnison, raising questions about prison growth just four years after the state opened a major new prison in Salt Lake City.Sponsored by Rep. Karianne Lisonbee, R-Clearfield, the request has been assigned…
SALT LAKE CITY—Sen. Derrin Owens and Rep. Troy Shelley, the Utah legislators representing Sanpete County, agree that “right sizing” state government, including requiring state colleges and agencies to cut lower-priority programs and reallocate the money to higher priorities, will possibly be the biggest focus of the 2026 Legislature.Meanwhile, in an interview Tuesday, Owens said the…
EPHRAIM—When the Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee analyst called the president of Snow College, Stacee McIff, on Jan. 22 to discuss a potential 5% budget reduction for higher education, the college began to prepare a proposal for what they would do if the reduction is approved.The potential cut would mark the third consecutive year of budget…
FAIRVIEW — A house fire destroyed the home of Jay and Jane Frandsen earlier this month, leaving the long-time Fairview residents with nothing and prompting a rapid community response to help them rebuild.The fire resulted in a total loss of the home, according to a fundraiser organized by Zak Nyberg, who said the couple was…
EPHRAIM — After more than an hour of public discussion focused on traffic safety, drainage history, and the future of a long-time Main Street movie theater, the Ephraim Planning and Zoning Commission voted unanimously Jan. 14 to approve the Southtowne Homes Subdivision, which would involve demolition of the Southtowne Theatre at 687 S. Main and…
EPHRAIM—After a half-day of brainstorming about long-term goals, about 15 city council members and department heads in Ephraim settled on three focus areas for the city over next three years.The emphases will be infrastructure development, updating the general land use plan and preparing an economic development plan.Staff in various departments are now coming up with…
A 20-year cooperative agreement signed last Thursday between Utah and the U.S. Forest Service represents the culmination of decades of effort to restore forests devastated by bark beetles, including the Manti-La Sal National Forest in Sanpete County.Gov. Spencer Cox and Tom Schultz, national chief of the Forest Service, signed the agreement at the State Capitol…