A Visit With The Mayor

I was led into a room with an oversized table, and chairs with name tags, for the Mayor and his council. "My job," Mayor Glenn Dalling told me, "is to oversee their conversations, and have a final word or two." Black and white pictures scattered the walls, one taken of the City from a helicopter during the Teton Damn Flood of 1976. The building we were in looked nearly covered with the muddy water.
"My family was trapped inside the city limits, and I was out," he said. Mr. Dalling was a Bishop over an LDS ward in the area at the time. When he arrived from an assignment to the flooded city he was refused by police authority, who’d stopped incoming and outgoing traffic. Luckily his family survived, and in fact, the flood killed no person immediately. The 11 deaths happened in the aftermath, during the rescue efforts and the waiting it out.
I was able to speak one on one with the Sugar City Mayor, Mr. Glenn Dalling. I recognized him from the Rexburg Temple, where he is a regular volunteer.
He was born and raised in the small, quiet town, and he's left only to serve a mission for the LDS church, to South Dakota for two years, and to the old Rick's College. He also worked as faculty for Rick's for a number of years. He has been Mayor now for just over 9 years.
He is the father of 8 kids, most of them living within 30 minutes of sugar city. And there are 54 grandchildren, 54 of them, scattered about the United States.
When I met him, I walked into the city offices a little after closing time. He was with the secretary as they locked up and readied to leave. He said "thank you for the sugar cookies" as she left and I stayed.
"How can I help you?" He asked. He showed me around, first to his office, where we sat and talked. The only more-modern-than-cassettes thing about the office was a security camera installed only weeks earlier.
There are four school in the city, he said, and the population is taken from Sugar and 12 miles in all directions. The High School competes like any other, for various sporting activities, for music and for theatre.
Old Newspaper headlines from the old city paper laid on his desk. They were blown up and laminated for an upcoming event. "They tell our story," He said, pointing to the headlines. "We had a sugar cane factory," he said, "that's why the name."
A bacteria appeared in the small town, making sugar cane farming impossible, forcing residents to find another means for having means, potato farming.
"Today," he said, "industry is from residents working outside, at BYU-Idaho and other places, and from individual and family businesses, then farming. We're growing.”
In fact, a couple of areas of construction will triple the physical size of Sugar City, to be finished in the next 5 and 6 years.
He sat with his legs crossed and his arm rested on his desk, full of papers and a bag of sugar cookies from the secretary. There was an older computer on his desk and a window that allowed me to see the beautiful concrete wall just outside the building.
I said "bye, thanks." I should have said, "see you at the temple."

Sugar City is "Capital for a Day"

Local Boy Scouts braved the cold morning and placed over 100 flags on Main Street in Sugar City Friday, October 31, before Governor Otter of Idaho and his agency officials drove in at 9 am. 

The event is called "Capital For a Day," part of a project started by the previous governor, who thought it was smart to get out among the people, find out what they think, and what their challenges are. 

On Friday Governor Otter drove in with 21 of his cabinet members. They filed in and sat on the stage at desks,  each with his own microphone. 

The Sugar-Salem superintendent gave Governor Otter a gift (an embroidered blanket) and offered a prayer. The audience, including middle school and high school students, and residents from southern Idaho and a few from farther out, stood and recited the pledge of allegiance. A high school choir of about 5 girls and 5 boys walked down the aisle to the front and sang the "Star Bangled Banner." 

The Governor then stood and spoke for 15 minutes. His message was, "you are the government and this is your day." He told a story about Benjamin Franklin, and prayer. According to the Governor, Benjamin Franklin once spoke up in a meeting with other founding fathers, quoting Matthew in the Bible, saying, "If a sparrow cannot fall without [God's] knowing, how can a nation be built up without him?" Prayers were offered in meetings from then on. Governor Otter has started his meetings with a prayer since a personal experience with that story. The Governor is Catholic. 

After his remarks, the 21 cabinet members stood one by one and introduced their department and offered their contact information. 

The event was very open and sincere. The Governor and his agency officials presented themselves in a gentle and open way. The event continued with questions and answers concerning the top issues of the area, was interrupted with a lunch and visit with each other, and then continued with another question and answer period. 

Sugar City has 1500 residents. Two developments will triple it's size. Maybe, in the not so distant future, Sugar City won't qualify (because it won't be small enough), to be proclaimed the "Capital for a Day."

October Police Ride

I arrived and waited outside until Private first Class Hirschi arrived in his K-9 Ford SUV. He invited me inside to the station from the back. I walked in and he sat at a desk near the back entrance and got on the telephone.
I walked around the desk and looked at the large posters near the desks at different pictures of gang signs, photographed as tattoos on the gang member’s bodies. I walked down the hall to the back wall to see the small holding cell, a white and plastic or plexiglass-looking case with scuff marks and carvings on the inside. Closer to the holding cell was an alcohol test area with tubes and digital readings, etc. I saw the area where mug shots were taken, and the instructions for taking them taped to the wall nearby.
Officer Hirschi continued his telephone call about some unwanted photos on Facebook, part of a recent court case that involved a split-up family and fighting for custody of their kids. Someone is angry that pictures of their kids with their ex-wife’s kids are up on Facebook. Another officer and his wife were called in, obviously off duty, to ask questions about the phone call and Facebook pictures. I read the notifications, or police reports posted with tacks on the nearby board. They were notifications of recent warnings or call-ins to the station or nearby stations for residents in the Rexburg area. One particular recent post warned officers against a man and his friend angered at the arrest of a relative, and who was ready with weapons to retaliate against officers; this was back in May.
After the man and his wife left the station, or as they were leaving, the officer and I left. He removed things from the front seat, probably things for his dog.
The dog had been trained and it will be his until the dog retires. His name is Nitro, a bomb sniffing dog. Just three weeks earlier he was in Idaho sniffing around a school after a bomb threat.
The officer pulled over two cars, both young adults, probably BYU-Idaho students. The first failed to signal at a turn and had a broken headlight, which the student tried to explain as an electric problem that occurred once every week or so. The second pull over was also due to lighting problems. In the car there were normal car things, and then a rifle, without the clip (which was close-by), and a camera that always recorded. There was a monitor to show the recording with controls to stop or pause it. It would turn on automatically with the siren, and the recorder would record a minute before the siren to catch the offense or crime on tape. The officer was equipped with a microphone which made it possible to hear the conversations with those pulled over.
He is not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the majority growing up. He grew up here with five other non-member friends. He is married with two children, an almost 8 year old daughter, and an almost 5 year old son.
His shift is now the 4pm to 2 am shift, which he strongly dislikes, soon to change to 7pm to 9am. He also leaves frequently in his off hours due to the demands of his membership of the Rexburg, Idaho SWAT team. After two years as an officer, after years in juvenile delinquent centers, he applied, tried out for and made the swat team. They recently almost caught a lady who had stolen her own child (breaking custody laws), but returned him.
He is also on call as the cop with the Canine, he and the dog are on call. He carries a handgun and a tazer gun.
He is a little over 6 foot, in shape, 200 pounds or so, maybe less, 185. The station is set up with a Chief, a Captain, 3 Lieutenants, 4 Sergeants, then there should be a Corporal, but there isn’t, a couple Private First Class Officers, and then standard Officers. Soon the division will host 20 officers, 4 extra recently pulled from the BYU-Idaho division, who will soon have a private security organization, with Rexburg patrolling the area.