Murray city's looking good - for the seventh year in a row, Mayor Lynn Pett said in his annual State of the City address Tuesday.
Although the crowd was scant for the briefing during the regularly scheduled City Council meeting, the news was overwhelmingly positive for the 94-year-old central-valley community."The current state of Murray City is excellent," Pett said. "1995 has been a year of activity, achievement and accomplishment. It has been a year of challenge, but also one of challenges successfully met."
Pett noted the biggest challenge was handling growth inside and outside of Murray relating to transportation, public safety and utility problems. In 1995 - "another huge year for private development" - more than 200 commercial, industrial and residential permits were issued. The $40-million valuation was second only to last year's record $47 million in building permits, Pett said. "It is further anticipated that another $15 million in permits will be issued in early 1996."
Contributing to that growth were eight major office/institutional projects, which represented a half-million square feet of floor space. But while office/warehouse development space remained steady, new retail development went down substantially. Pett attributed that decrease to development between 5900 and 6400 South last year.
But although retail development was down in '95, gross sales totaled more than $1.16 billion in Murray last year. Pett said it was the second consecutive year the city had hit the billion-dollar mark. Gross sales for the first six months of the current fiscal year are expected to top the $1.25 billion mark, according to merchant tallies. Fiscal year 1995 was also Murray's best-ever for sales tax collections, taking in more than $13 million. The city was allowed to keep $9.95 million, while $3.2 million was distributed to other Utah cities by the state Tax Commission.
Pett "savored" a December Deseret News report on Murray's second-lowest property tax rate ($968 annually for a home worth $100,000), but best overall for tax relief. Murray was bested only by Bountiful on property tax, though - by only $4.10.
Pett revealed, however, that a January meeting with ASARCO, a refining company, revealed "groundwater contamination is more of a problem than had originally been anticipated." In the Jan. 16 meeting, ASARCO officials said "there appear to be some pockets or spots from which this contamination is emanating," Pett said. He noted, however, that the contamination is affecting only shallow aquifers, which are situated some 300 to 400 feet below drinking water aquifers. The plan is to sample more sites in the area to see if more contamination exists. Those areas would "likely be excavated and the materials taken to a proper disposal site," Pett said.
Still, the city completed work on a 2 million-gallon culinary water reservoir north of the city cemetery at Vine Street; wastewater crews cleaned all of the city's main sewer lines and completed television inspections of nearly half of them; began expansion and reconstruction of the power department's mall substation; and by the end of 1996, will have managed to rebuild all electrical substations in Murray in the last 10 years. Pett acknowledged these modernization projects were all accomplished without a general power rate increase. He added that neither residential power users nor commercial ones have experienced a general rate increase in the last 12 years.