Castle Country Radio was able to sit down with Mayor Lenise Peterman to talk about the happenings taking place in Helper. She came in to discuss the reading program at Sally Mauro Elementary, UDOT’s presentation on Highway 6, and upcoming grants.
The last Helper Happenings update mentioned that Sally Mauro Elementary was looking for community members to come assist second grade students with reading. Mayor Peterman was happy to report that help was given, “I’m so excited to say that we have had a tremendous turn out. That they’re actually going to filter volunteers to third and first graders. I still encourage people if you have time and interest and can do that, it just benefits all of our kids. But my appreciation and kudos to the community for stepping up, and really focusing on our kids and giving them that opportunity to improve, thank you so much.” There are still volunteer positions available if you would like to donate some time to assist with reading skills, just contact the elementary school.
UDOT recently held an open house to get feed back on Highway 6 corridor through Helper and what can be done to improve transportation. “I really appreciated the community turn-out. I think UDOT definitely heard some things, and took away some action items from that meeting. But I again would tell the community, we are so early on into this process, this is highly conceptual. If you weren’t at the meeting, they said a project wouldn’t really do any shovel dirt project probably for the next 8 to 12 years, so that’s how far we are in the pipeline with UDOT,” said Mayor Peterman. Her objective with UDOT is how do we keep our citizens safe as it gets busier in the Helper area. She hopes by forming a close relationship with UDOT officials it will help to make for safer passage through Helper over the next several years.
Its grant writing season and city officials are busily working on applying to several grants to assist that city and its community members. “So we’re in heavy duty grand season at the moment. We have submitted a couple on behave of the city for cemetery improvements, along with museum support, and we’re looking at some fire department, search and rescue equipment support. So super excited to get these penciled in and get them submitted and hopefully, we’ll have a lot of good news to share in the upcoming Spring months as far as awards are going,” said Mayor Peterman. The city is always looking forward to chasing this type of money as it poses no expense to the city or its citizens.
To stay informed on the happenings in Helper visit the city’s Facebook page.