There are lots of exciting things taking place in Helper and Mayor Lenise Peterman was happy to take a moment from her busy schedule to speak about all the happenings taking place in her little city.
“Helper City has been engaged in a six-phase project to rehabilitate the Price River, a four-mile stretch that will create a recreational avenue as well as safe fish passage – so we’ve been at work for this for a number of years. Phase four is just being implemented, that’s down by the new RV park and then we are working on funding for Phase five so that will happen in 2020,” explained Mayor Peterman. The work on phase four comes at a great time as the brand-new Castle Gate RV Park and Campground is looking to open its doors to the public during Easter Weekend and can be found at 1020 Spring Glen Road.
It’s through various grants that the river restoration project has become a reality so it’s that time of year where the city is still applying for more grants to assist them in completing the six-phase river restoration project, plus fund other enhancements to the city. “So, for phase five we have this long-term sustaining sponsor of this project, The Water Restoration Initiative so they’ve gifted us $144,000.00 for phase five. That allows me to take those funds and make matches with other funding agents so we’ve actually submitted an application to the Outdoor Rec Division of the State of Utah for $95,000.00 and an additional $20,000.00 through a federal grant called the Five Start Water Grant,” stated Mayor Peterman. A grant was also applied to assist the Western Mining and Railroad Museum, as well as the Helper’s Arts, Film and Music Festival. The city is trying to maximize their ability to bring in outside funding to accomplish the various projects that otherwise as a small rural town would be unable to fund.
Aside from the river restoration project, the city has arranged a once in a lifetime experience to come into The Rio Theatre in April. “I was fortunate to be connected to a contact at the Utah Opera and I didn’t realize they have they great traveling program where they go out across the state and visit with schools introducing kids of all ages to opera and I thought what a great mechanism,” said Mayor Peterman. After weeks of dialogue the group is coming to Helper for an entire week, April 8 through the 12 where they will not only visit the schools in both Carbon and Emery counties but will also put on a performance at The Rio Theatre towards the end of their stay. Tickets for the performance on April 11 will be made available on April 1 at Helper City Hall.
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