River Heights hires city accountant

By Ben Walker

April 27, 2006 | RIVER HEIGHTS -- The City Council welcomed Jim Brackner as the city's accounting and financial officer Tuesday evening. Brackner's job, which is an appointed position, did not previously exist. He will be a city employee for one year as a sort of trial period.

"We'd like to have him stay for a lot longer than that and we hope that he can and we hope that he can extend that to 10 years," Mayor Todd Weston said.

Brackner taught for about eight years at Brigham Young University and earned a Ph.D. from the University of Alabama. He was a member of Utah State Univerity's faculty from 1981-2000.

One reason the city hired Brackner was to help with the yearly audit.

"I think we'll find Jim has more knowledge than the auditors do," Councilman Brent Greenhalgh said.

"I do know there's a lot more work here," Brackner said. "It's like an iceberg in what you see."

The council also discussed a sewer project near 800 South that engineers estimated would cost $150,000, but the city received only a $247,000 bid on the project.

"This has been the hardest thing to get contractors to bid on this thing," Greenhalgh said.

"We're trying to see if it's feasible to come behind the houses," Councilman Bill Baker said. "The problem is, it would cost us a fortune to go down the state highway."

Councilwoman Mary Barrus reported her work toward September's Apple Days events. She said there was a meeting held to discuss what kinds of activities would be involved. "We ranged from the spectrum of 'we don't need it anymore, cut it out,' to 'yes we do, we're looking forward to it," Barrus said.

Barrus said there was also talk of eliminating the Apple Days parade for which princesses have already been selected. "My feeling on that is, if we don't have a parade, why do we need the princesses? I'm leaning towards keeping the parade even though that's my least favorite part."

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