April 16, 2020 Update

Greetings everyone.  I got a lot done on my day off yesterday, including taking a relatively large load of stuff from my garage to the city's Spring Cleanup site.  But I am glad I had a break because today, so far, I have been in Zoom or Team meetings from 7:30 am to 2:30 pm non stop and still have a couple to go.

So, let's start with numbers.

Coronavirus stats

Federal:  The CDC reports 632,548 total cases nationwide with 27,012 fatalities as of today.

State:

Utah County:  387 total cases, with 21 hospitalized and 4 fatalities.

Current News

• An additional 24,000 residents of Utah filed for unemployment benefits this last week.  More than $11 million has been paid out in benefits by the state.  I suspect this is hitting close to home for many of our families - I know it has for our family.
• The Utah State Legislature opened its special session today - entirely online.  It will be interesting to see what they do during this very unique legislative session.  One of the bills we will be following relates to how the state will be dividing up the federal stimulus money that was allocated to Utah for the state and local governments.
• Federal stimulus payments to individual taxpayers and their families have begun arriving.  Hopefully, you have seen yours arrive by direct deposit.  If not, you can check the status of the payments at the IRS website.

Provo Social Media

• Provo Parks and Recreation was named the Best if State for outstanding delivery of parks and recreation services.  We have always known this - nice to see others find out about what we know. Way to go, team!
• We are still experiencing sewer pipe clogs in Provo due to things being flushed that shouldn't be flushed.  If you are guilty - just stop it!  :)

Fun Stuff 

And the winner is... Tara Riddle for getting a 100% guess rate on the Easter Egg contest.  Rylin Patterson was the runner up.  Nice job.  However, a lot of employees did not do so well.  We obviously have to get out more so that you get a sense of our personalities.  For the record, the Mayor's egg, pictured below, was actually a family effort - with Steve taking the lead on the concept.  Prizes will be forthcoming for Tara and Rylin.  We will be in touch!

Finally - one of these days we will talk about my taste in books. But just know that there is something I love about being in a library or a bookstore, and Amazon just doesn't cut it.  So I loved this little graphic that was floating around the Internet yesterday.  You have to read the titles in order to get the message. 

Thanks again for all you do.  See you next Monday!

Wayne