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Mayor’s Message August 2013 Summertime is in full bloom in Murray City! A walk through Murray Park shows the signs of it all around. The pavilions are full of parties and reunions. Happy shouts and splashes echo from people enjoying the Aquatics Center. Families spread blankets for picnics under the shade of the trees. A walk through Constitution Circle to the Rose Garden takes me back to 2006, the year it was remodeled. Do you remember how it was overgrown and difficult to maneuver around? Thanks to the vision of Dick Stauffer, a former City Council Member, it was reconstructed to provide a beautiful entry to Murray Park. The Rose Garden still contains a wide variety of roses, but now you can walk around them and enjoy them all. Many people have been involved through the years to help provide vision and improvement to the City. Change is sometimes a challenge for people, but I love to see things be made better by the talents of others. 2006 was year when many projects and initiatives were being completed. The Cottonwood Street overpass was open as a new north/south access through the City. That took the combined effort from our City, the State and the Federal Government to make it come to fruition. We continue to work on funding mechanisms through many entities to complete the road north to 4500. We celebrated the centennial of Murray Fire Department in 2006 and presented a new master plan to better cover the entire City with emergency services. It included building 2 new stations to reach every corner of the City efficiently. The first station was constructed on Vine Street and completed by 2007 to serve residents in the southeast corner of the City. Murray City Power began taking power resources from a landfill gas facility located at the Salt Lake County Landfill in 2006. This new resource showed the commitment of the City to producing environmentally sensitive power and diversified our generation capabilities. In 2007 a three year project was completed, upgrading the entire power system to 138kv, to continue providing the reliable service that is Murray Power’s trademark. Intermountain Medical Center took center stage in 2007 as they began opening the new hospitals, one by one. By October of that year, the 5 major hospitals were all operational. The Cottonwood Hospital was closed during this same time and torn down soon after, although The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital (TOSH) has since been expanded and remodeled on that site. Intermountain Medical Center changed the focus of the center of Murray to a wonderful place of healing. I love being in different locations around the valley and spotting it as the new landmark for the City. It is a great example of positive change! So, continue to enjoy the summer sun and appreciate the changes we have seen here in Murray City. That is exactly what I’ll be doing.