The Daily Spectrum from Saint George, Utah • Page A3

FROM THE FRONT PAGE Sunday, June 16, 2013 A3 THE SPECTRUM DAILY NEWS After speaking with the commission, Harvey said the buyer is considering renovating the building instead of tearing it down if he does purchase the property. St. George is the home to 11 nationally registered landmark sites and 51 historic sites, including the Seegmiller home, dating as far back as the early 1860s, when missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also referred to as "Dixie Pioneers," settled in the area. "Compared to a lot of surrounding cities and the state, St. George still has quite a few historic structures left," Campbell said.

Landmark requirements According to St. George city code 10-21-2(B), any building, structure or site may be designated as a city landmark site if it is located within the city, is a minimum of 50 years old and it "retains its historic integrity in that there are no major alterations or additions that have obscured or destroyed the significant historic features." In addition, a structure can be listed as a city landmark site if it is currently listed in the National Register of Historic Places; is associated with "events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of the history of the city, state or is associated with a person significant to the city, state or nation's history; embodies a distinctive or unique architectural style; and has or may likely yield information important to history. "A lot of our landmark properties have significant architecture that's unique to a time period in the city where they only produced that type of building," Harvey said. "The Charles Seegmiller house was built in a very significant time in the city; they didn't build that building before fund dedicated to historic landmark maintenance, Mortensen said he couldn't provide a figure on how much is spent each year on maintaining these buildings. Historical significance Harvey said the historic landmarks give St.

George its identity, and once historic structures are torn down, the city not only loses its identity, but can never have that historic structure back. "A number of years ago down on Tabernacle (Street) and Main (Street) where the Wells Fargo Bank is, there was the old Arrowhead Hotel," Harvey said. "It was the only three-story structure at the time. The (new) property owner came in, they tore out the building and they built a bank in its place." Harvey said several historic homes formerly located on St. George Boulevard, such as the Erastus Snow Big House, were torn down and replaced by modern buildings.

The Big House, which was located on the southeast corner of Main Street and St. George Boulevard, was constructed in 1867. Now it is a parking lot. "There is an interest in the city getting some of our historic buildings on our landmark property site because it gives the city a little bit of protection in the fact that we know we have some say of what's going on in that building, not necessarily the uses, but that building is going to stay there," Harvey said. "I just cringe when I think about some of the properties in the city where there were homes that could have been renovated and re-purposed and they didn't." To find out information about historic landmarks and sites in the Washington County area both currently standing and those that have been demolished visit the Washington County Historical Society's website, www.wchsutah.org.

Price Continued from A1 The city's interest in preserving landmark sites is pursued via a variety of departments and commissions. Thus, when a discussion recently arose concerning the possible demolishing of a city landmark by a prospective buyer, the St. George Historic Preservation Commission stepped in to suggest ways to alter and repur-pose the existing building instead. The commission, made up of seven members, helps determine if a building is eligible to be a landmark site. It also preserves landmark sites and historic buildings by making recommendations on what could be done to a structure to fit the owner's needs rather than demolishing it, said Kim Campbell, the commission's chairman and principal architect at Campbell Associates Architects.

The commission was approached by a potential buyer of the Seegmiller home, a privately owned property at 214 E. Tabernacle St. that is up for sale, St. George City Planner Craig Harvey said. The nearly-100-year-old home is listed as a commercial property with a current market value of $192,000, according to the Assessor's Office.

"(The buyer) was thinking of demolishing it and putting in a bigger building so they could pull the building more toward the street so it would get more parking in the back," Harvey said. "If you go and demolish a building, you have to meet the current parking standards, (Americans with Disabilities Act) standards, and all these other standards. (Campbell) said he would walk through with (the buyer) and give an opinion on how (the buyer) could repurpose the building and make it a better structure." because they didn't have the materials for it, and they didn't build it after because I guess people didn't like it." Harvey said the type of materials used to construct the house were "very significant." "They used a concrete-style block made to look like adobe, and they only produced that type of block during a five-year or 10-year window," Harvey said. Another home that meets the qualifications is Brigham Young's winter home, 67 W. 200 North, built from 1869 to 1871, according to the "Landmark Historic Sites 2nd Edition," by the city of St.

George Community Development Department. City-owned landmark sites Although most of the city landmark sites are privately owned, Harvey said there are six properties the city owns outright: the St. George Opera House and Social Hall, 212 N. Main the St. George Community Arts building (formerly the Dixie Academy building), 86 S.

Main the Washington County Old Pioneer Courthouse, 97 E. St. George the Benjamin F. Pendleton House, 60 N. 100 West the James Andrus Home, 164 W.

100 South and The Electric Theater, 68 E. Tabernacle St. The city also owns the Dixie Sunbowl, 150 S. 400 East, but it is not listed as a historic landmark or site. Harvey said the six properties have been purchased with money from the city's general fund as well as through federal community development grants.

"The Opera House and Social Hall were saved by the city," Harvey said. "The company that owned it, I believe, was going to tear it down. The city purchased them and we rehabilitated them; if somebody else owned them, they probably wouldn't be there right now." Mortensen said oftentimes the city will purchase historical landmark properties with money from the sale of another city-owned property. "Some of these projects have been purchased with the economic development fund or the capital project fund, but we typically use the proceeds from (a) sale to purchase property," Mortensen said. The city council and mayor consider the purchases of these properties to preserve their historic value as well as encourage economic development.

"History has been important to our current (city) council and past councils," Mortensen said. "It also creates spaces for economic development downtown to hold events to encourage people to come downtown." Kent Perkins, the St. George Leisure Services director, said it is still unclear exactly how the Electric Theater will be used. "The thing we're working on right now is for the architect and engineer to produce a set of drawings that allows us to stabilize the old adobe theater," Perkins said. "We don't know what its future is going to be and who is going to use it.

By the time the project is actually finished, then it may very well be going to bid to go out and be used as habitable and useable space." At this time, there are no updates available on what will be done with the Sunbowl, Mortensen said. The facility has been a point of contention in recent years, with some arguing that the land could be better utilized, while others say it is a historic piece of the city that needs to be preserved. Maintenance and restoration of the buildings also comes out of a general city fund, but the city has received grants for some of the restoration work. Because there is not a specific Prism Continued from A1 the information belonged to foreigners or Americans. So much data was changing hands that one former Microsoft employee recalls that the engineers were anxious about whether the company should cooperate.

Inside Microsoft, some called it "Hoovering" not after the vacuum cleaner, but after J. Edgar Hoover, the first FBI director, who gathered dirt on countless Americans. This frenetic, manual process was the forerunner to Prism, the recently revealed highly classified National Security Agency program that seizes records from Internet companies. As laws changed and technology improved, the government and industry moved toward a streamlined, electronic process, which required less time from the companies and provided the government data in a more standard format. The revelation of Prism this month by the Washington Post and Guardian newspapers has touched off the latest round in a decade-long debate over what limits to impose on government eavesdropping, which the Oba-ma administration says is essential to keep the nation safe.

But interviews with more than a dozen current and former government and technology officials and outside experts show that, while Prism has attracted the recent attention, the program actually is a relatively small part of a much more expansive and intrusive eavesdropping effort. Americans who disapprove of the government reading their emails have more to worry about from a different and larger NSA effort that snatches data as it passes through the fiber optic cables that make up the Internet's backbone. That program, which has been known for years, copies Internet traffic as it enters and leaves the United States, then routes it to the NSA for analysis. Whether by clever choice or coincidence, Prism appears to do what its name suggests. Like a triangular piece of glass, Prism takes large beams of data and helps the government find discrete, manageable strands of information.

The fact that it is productive is not surprising; documents show it is one of the major sources for what ends up in the president's daily briefing. Prism makes sense of the cacophony of the Internet's raw feed. It provides the government with names, addresses, conversation histories and entire archives of email inboxes. Many of the people interviewed for this report insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss a classified, continuing effort. But those interviews, along with public statements and the few public documents available, show there are two vital components to Prism's success.

The first is how the government works closely with the companies that keep people perpetually connected to each other and the world. That story line has attracted the most attention so far. The second and far murkier one is how Prism fits into a larger U.S. wiretapping program in place for years. Deep in the oceans, hundreds of cables carry much of the world's phone and Internet traffic.

Since at least the early 1970s, the NSA has been tapping foreign cables. It doesn't need permission. That's its job. But Internet data doesn't care about borders. Send an email from Pakistan to Afghanistan and it might pass through a mail server in the United States, the same computer that handles messages to and from Americans.

"You have to assume everything is being collected," said Bruce Schneier, who has been studying and writing about cryptography and computer security for two decades. This story includes reporting by Anne Flaherty, Jack Gillum, and Matt Apuzzo. Fire zens to do their part in reducing the risk of wildfires. "It's tinder-dry, so just a little misstep by anybody can cause a real devastating fire," Herbert said. Drought conditions persist in many parts of the state, and the governor urged people to use common sense.

Herbert reminded campers and hikers to follow fire restrictions and riders of all-terrain vehicle to stay on marked trails. Herbert also encouraged target shooters to use designated ranges and avoid using exploding targets, which have been blamed for several fires around the state in recent years. low humidity and high wind created the perfect conditions for wildfires. The largest fire in Utah was the Lackey Fan Fire, which had consumed about 915 acres southeast of Moab by late afternoon Saturday The lightning-caused fire was listed as zero percent contained by UtahFireInfo.gov. Also burning in southeast Utah was the Dark Canyon Fire, which had consumed about 100 acres in the Dark Canyon Wilderness near Blanding.

Officials were flying into the rugged territory by helicopter and reported that the blaze was growing rapidly. The Rock Creek Fire, 15 miles east of East Carbon, had consumed approximately 235 acres by late Saturday afternoon. The lightning-caused fire was zero percent contained, and while area departments responded Friday evening, they reported the blaze was burning in "steep, rugged, inaccessible terrain." Friday afternoon, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert urged citi- Continued from A1 He said the fire was 100 percent contained, with firefighters needing only about 35 minutes to control it and about an hour to make sure it was fully contained. State fire personnel remained at the scene to make sure the blaze did not re-ignite after the five CCFD vehicles returned to their base.

Sorensen said the fact that the grass was still a little bit green helped with containment of the fire, and no structures were threatened at any time. The cause of the fire is under investigation, he said. The National Weather Service had issued red flag warnings for southwestern Utah for much of the afternoon and early evening Saturday, as high temperatures, HOW TO REACH US The Spectrum dailyNews PUBLISHED AT 275 E. ST. GEORGE BLVD.

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