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1 week ago | 
moabtimes.com | Doug McMurdo
Despite expressing heartburn over nearly $500,000 to pay for traffic and pedestrian controls and a $18,000 water fountain, the Moab City Council voted unanimously on May 27 to award a $2.54 million contract to Kilgore Companies, better known as LeGrand Johnson in southeastern Utah, for the 100 East and Uranium Avenue road improvement project.
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1 week ago | 
moabtimes.com | Doug McMurdo
The Moab Police Department has been recognized for excellence in policy management and training by Lexipol, “the leading provider of solutions that empower performance excellence in public safety,” according to Police Chief Lex Bell.
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2 weeks ago | 
moabtimes.com | Doug McMurdo
Gov. Spencer Cox, state lawmakers and city and county officials joined dozens of locals and visitors at the long-anticipated ribbon cutting at Utahraptor State Park on Friday, May 23. “This is the first project in state history to take 100 million years to complete,” said Cox after thanking lawmakers and the “visionary leadership” that took place. “It takes everyone coming together to make this happen.”Cox said taxpayer dollars were used to fund the roughly $26 million park.
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2 weeks ago | 
moabtimes.com | Doug McMurdo
The Moab City Council at the May 13 meeting ratified a letter to Sen. John Curtis supporting the city’s application for funding to replace the Mill Creek bridge on 300 South, one of the more trouble-prone spots during flood events. “Moab’s critical infrastructure is under increasing threat from severe flooding,” reads the letter signed by Mayor Joette Langianese. “Two creeks, Mill and Pack Creek, run through the city with their headwaters in the adjacent La Sal Mountains.
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2 weeks ago | 
moabtimes.com | Doug McMurdo
The Moab City Council on May 13 voted 5-0 to adopt a new pay plan for all city employees through a proposed ordinance. Those employees will receive a 3.5% cost of living adjustment, 3% for 2025-2026 and 0.5% to “make up” for recent years in which COLA was less than inflation called for. Perhaps more important, the city transitioned from a salary range system to a step-and-grade compensation structure, according to City Manager Michael Black.
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2 weeks ago | 
moabtimes.com | Doug McMurdo
The Moab City Council on May 13 passed a tentative budget for Fiscal Year 2025-2026 that has one guiding principle: Maintain a flat revenue and spending profile with revenues expected to grow only by 1%. “The first goal for me was to understand the budget,” said Moab City Manager Michael Black, who took over budget preparation duties this year while in the past the city had a finance director in that position.
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3 weeks ago | 
moabtimes.com | Doug McMurdo
In this edition of The Times-Independent you’ll read what Helen M. Knight Elementary School kindergarten students want to be when they grow up. It’s an annual tradition carried out by the school and this newspaper and it’s something I look forward to reading at the end of every academic year. A few made me smile. Like the student who wants to be a police officer so they can arrest “mean people.”If being mean were a crime, perhaps President Trump is right in wanting to reopen Alcatraz.
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3 weeks ago | 
moabtimes.com | Doug McMurdo
The savory aroma of Robin Eno’s three-meat stew, pasta with red sauce and steaming fruit dessert wafted across the Moab Free Health Clinic parking lot Thursday, May 8. Eno, owner of Rolling Stone Soup Kitchen, LLC, was there to feed members of Moab’s homeless population and BYU nursing students who were in town. This is something she does wherever she goes — which could be anywhere as she pulls a Casita travel-trailer with her Ford Ranger pickup.
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3 weeks ago | 
moabtimes.com | Doug McMurdo
A dry, warmer-than-normal April rapidly deteriorated the snowpack in Utah, leaving every watershed in the state with the exception of the Bear watershed in northern Utah below normal at the water year’s halfway point. In southeastern Utah and the Escalante-Paria basin, there were “almost no measurable snow at our snotel sites.” Indeed, both southeastern and southwestern Utah have been “record dry” since April 23 and April 18, respectively.
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1 month ago | 
moabtimes.com | Doug McMurdo
The Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency’s recent move to dismantle AmeriCorps has had a particularly detrimental effect on Moab-area nonprofits, as well as the City of Moab, who had to let go of an AmeriCorps VISTA employee in the city’s Strategic Initiatives and Sustainability department. The notice to those affected came just before 5 p.m. April 25.
