Spring City passes 2019-20 budget; Sorensen announces Cynthia DeGrey is candidate for mayor

By James Tilson

Associate Editor

6-13-2019

SPRING CITY—At last week’s Spring City Council meeting, the council approved next year’s budget, and Mayor Neil Sorensen, who is not seeking reelection, announced that a former city council member would be running for mayor. The council held a public hearing on next year’s budget and made final adjustments to last year’s budget before the start of the regular city council meeting. Several people attended the public hearing, although not many spoke up.

Budget documents showed that the city expected to make $12,000 revenue from fighting fires during the last budget year. Due to unexpected opportunities, Spring City’s fire department was able to net revenues of $130,040. A reporter asked if the city expected to the level of revenues again.

Mayor Neil Sorensen explained the unusually wet weather this spring would create a significant possibility of wildfire. He said the weather would promote growth of grasses in the higher elevations. Lightning strikes could ignite the grasses this summer, sending Spring City’s fire department to out on wildfire duties again.

A follow-up question was whether the fire department was still looking for a “fire boss” in order to go to more wildfires. Councilman Cody Harmer answered that the council would not hire a fire boss this year, but the city had alternative arrangements for to enable its fire truck to go out while still covering any fires in the city. Harmer said Spring City would “aggressively” seek revenue opportunities for their crew.

The only other questions during the public hearing dealt with the city’s funding of celebratory events. Without any other comment, the council ended the hearing, and then approved the budgets without change.

During the regular meeting, Councilman Joe McGriff brought up the subject of city celebrations again. McGriff told the audience he had been working with city event planner Yvonne Wright to plan a “big event” for the city’s July 24th celebration. They had done this at least in part because of several comments regarding the need for more children’s activities during the celebration.

Cynthia DeGrey and Elizabeth Allred also spoke to the need for more children’s activities. DeGrey said she had spoken about this issue in the past and was now working to compile a list of volunteers to help with children’s activities.

Allred volunteered her services as well, saying she wanted “stand behind” her earlier statements and she wanted to “make the celebration something that would draw people from across the state.”

During the meeting, Sorensen said he was pleased to announce DeGrey had also filed to run for mayor of Spring City. (Cami Holloway has also filed to run for mayor). Sorensen stated he was glad someone else had filed to run, as he was not going to be running for mayor after his term ended.

DeGrey is retired after a 39 year career in administration at the Central Utah Counseling Center in Ephraim. She had previously served on Spring City’s Council, DeGrey stated she has “no agenda, no axes to grind,” meaning she had no complaint with the current administration. She decided to run because “I’ve been a Spring City resident all my life, and I love Spring City. I care about it a lot, and I want to take this opportunity to help improve things.”