http://www.sltrib.com/2004/apr/04052004/utah/utah.aspBy Mark Havnes
The Salt Lake Tribune
MOUNT PLEASANT -- Every day from their dream home in the hills of central Utah, James and Terrie Nichol see spectacular views of the narrow Sanpete Valley and the distant San Pitch Mountains.
Now, they fear their tranquility is in trouble, threatened by plans to build a residential youth treatment center on 500 acres next to their 6-acre spread.
"We love the pristine beauty of the area and are afraid -- if the project is built -- it will all be destroyed," said Terrie Nichol in the living room of their log home. "We are also concerned about our safety."
"The impact on the mountain will be horrendous," Almond said. "I moved here to get away from the lights, and now I may have to look at this on the mountain lit up like a prison."
Residents also fret about potential water contamination, especially waste from the horses.
"That's 120 horses and their manure," James Nichol noted.
Gordon Birch, who would be the chief operating officer of the treatment facility, tried to swat away those concerns by insisting that the manure will be trucked away weekly.
"We don't want the smell and flies either," he said.
Birch said the residents' safety jitters are overblown as well.
"We are not going to be working with hard-core criminals, gangbangers or sex offenders," he said. "That is an important distinction. The kids we deal with are those with poor relations with their peers and parents or have apathy and depression issues. We just want to be good neighbors and in a couple of years I think everything will be fine."
Especially, Birch said, once community members see the benefits the center will bring. For example, the facility plans to hire 130 workers who would earn about $40,000 a year.
"We'll be like one huge family buying groceries, fuel and services," Birch said.
And if the county's conditional-use permit forbids the foundation from ever housing court-ordered clients, he said the facility would comply.
As for the Cedar City killing, Birch called it "horrific" but stressed it would be unfair to compare his operation with that one. "We're not in the same box," he said. "Thousands of similar programs are run successfully around the country."
Birch said the foundation zeroed in on the Sanpete County site because the center's employees would benefit from the area's high schools and nearby Snow College along with its relative proximity to the Wasatch Front and Salt Lake City International Airport.
