EAGLE MOUNTAIN -- CWC Inc. President Phil Cooper broke ground Tuesday for his and the City of Eagle Mountain's first full-service grocery store, Coop's Market.

"We're excited to be here, and we're excited to put this project together," said Cooper at the event. He said the store will employ 75-125 people and that he hopes to have 90 percent of those employees come from Eagle Mountain.

The future store will be built on property that was used as a dry farm primarily for wheat in the early and mid-1900s by Lehi residents Virginia and Rodney Chase Allred.

An anchor for a 10-acre shopping center, the 50,000-square-foot Coop's Market will feature a bakery, deli, indoor and drive-up pharmacy, an organic food section, a butcher-block meat counter and a fresh produce section.

Residents currently need to go to neighboring communities for major grocery shopping. The opening of Coop's Market will likely change that.

"We've been working on this project for a couple of years now, and I know it's just a grocery store but hopefully this will stimulate a lot of other commercial development," said Ifo Pili, the city's economic development director. "I'm excited for the residents. It's been a long time coming. We're 23,000 residents, and we've needed a grocery store."

He said some of the delay in moving the project forward was because it will be the first of its kind in Eagle Mountain and it involved several different parties.

Coop's Market is a member of Associated Food Stores, a grocery cooperative.

The building design shows piers, canopies and trellises to give the structure variety and interest. Done in an old-market theme, the design makes use of the natural light in the area with more windows than is typical for a grocery store.

"We wanted to provide some visibility from the street and give it a sense of transition from exterior to interior," said Prescott Muir architect Corey Cracroft.

In addition to the grocery store, there will be two retail pads and three in-line storefronts available -- two small and one medium -- comprising 18,000 square feet.

R&O Construction will be working on the project. No completion date for the store was given, although many of the speakers said they were excited to see the project started.

"We have been a long time coming to get the economic development here in Eagle Mountain," said Eagle Mountain Mayor Heather Jackson. "We're so happy to finally be at this point when we're going to break ground."

• Cathy Allred can be reached at heraldextra@digis.net or 801-376-6422.

WHITE HILLS -- Amid accusations of annexation without representation, Pole Canyon developers met with 42 White Hills residents in Eagle Mountain's council chambers on Tuesday.

Eagle Mountain City Council members voted in January to consider the Pole Canyon annexation, which involves approximately 3,000 acres in Cedar Valley. White Hills and White Hills Country Estates together comprise approximately 80 acres of that total.

The developers arranged the meeting to answer questions about the proposed annexation into Eagle Mountain.

The meeting generated some heated exchanges, but gave residents an opportunity to air frustrations and get information. Utah County Commissioner Gary Anderson and Utah County Deputy Attorney Robert Moore attended the meeting to represent the county's perspective.

"If the annexation is all around you, you don't have a choice. You've got to go in," Anderson said.

"The county is not here to advocate a position. We're just here providing information," Moore said.

Development Associates, Inc. developer Nathan Shipp explained a project map that includes plans for 12 residential areas, three commercial zones, one mixed-use area and five industrial sites proposed for the development.

"We hope the plan we've come up with is a good plan and something you can get excited about," Shipp said.

When Moore explained that according to Utah state law, White Hills must be included in the proposed annexation since an unincorporated island is not allowed, one resident said, "Are you saying that these people who purchased the ground have more say than we residents do?"

White Hills resident David Myers said, "It sounds like communism to me. We have 130 people, but our fate is being decided by five people on the Eagle Mountain City Council that we didn't have a vote in electing. It's Big Brother going to tell us how it is."

"I didn't want any part of you to begin with," Shipp said.

A fact sheet distributed at the meeting read, "The Pole Canyon land owners would like nothing more than to leave White Hills out of the annexation, if that is what White Hills would like to see happen, but that would not be the right thing for a responsible developer to do from a utility standpoint, plus neither Utah state law, nor Utah County policy will allow this .... ."

"Why not just annex the east side and leave the west side alone?" asked one resident.

"We're choosing not to piecemeal. Our intent is to launch two phases -- light industrial on the east and residential development on the west. The prime property is on the west," Shipp said.

Anderson outlined the problems White Hills residents will have to deal with whether or not they are annexed into Eagle Mountain, including fixing their deteriorating water and sewer systems and improving storm drainage.

"The county portion of your taxes has already gone up ... and we're going to start charging you on roads now," Anderson said.

Shipp and participants spent the remainder of the meeting exploring possible options for improvements to White Hills infrastructure.

EAGLE MOUNTAIN -- Eagle Mountain is going green -- in the traditional leafy way.

Resident Tiffany Ulmer picked up a 27-foot maple last week for $65. Getting it planted in her backyard was a community affair.

"It was with much neighborhood effort," she said with a laugh. "It was very heavy."

The price was a great deal, she said.

"It is wonderful because you get a large tree."

Any tree is hard to grow here, so getting a tree on the cheap is a deal too good to pass up.

"We have a short growing season," she said. "They have a hard time adjusting to the Eagle Mountain weather ... there's quite a bit of wind. It just went through its first windstorm."

The city has ordered 250 of the deeply discounted trees, which were donated by an Oregon company with the city paying only shipping, said city spokeswoman Linda Peterson. Normally the trees would cost between $250 and $300, but the city is offering each tree for $65.

Originally the city was going to use the trees for its parks, but decided to offer them to residents in celebration of Arbor Day. The varieties include Austrian pine, locust, ash, maple, ornamental fruit trees and more, Peterson said. All were chosen because they do well in Eagle Mountain's climate. The trees range in size from 10 to 30 feet.

"It is important for people to know that these are very large trees and they need to bring a vehicle large enough to transport trees that size," Peterson said. "A mini-van will not work."

"Trees are such an asset to the community, we wanted to give our citizens the opportunity to purchase them when we were able to secure them at such a good price," City Administrator John Hendrickson said.

The first shipment of 85 trees has already sold out, and the city is expecting the next shipment at any time. The arrival will be announced on the city's Web site, www.eaglemountaincity.com

Buyers must live in Eagle Mountain and provide either a photo ID or a copy of their utility bill for verification. Payment may be made with either a check or exact cash. There is a limit of three trees per family. Trees will be sold until the supply runs out.

Trees are available on a first-come, first-served basis at the Eagle Mountain City Public Works building, 2545 N. Sweetwater Road, Monday-Friday from 9 to 11 a.m. and 1 to 3 p.m. For general questions, you may call (801) 789-6670; however, the city cannot take orders, reservations or payment over the phone.

Orem builder Trophy Homes may be turning the corner, says company founder Stan Ricks, after teetering on the brink for several months as fourth-quarter home sales "fell off the cliff" and several lenders abruptly stopped its construction funding.

The company, which had as many as 120 workers in the beginning of 2008, now has only four workers left after implementing massive layoffs last year to slash costs as the company was forced to stop construction on some of its projects when financing dried up from its stable of about nine lenders, including Arkansas National Bank, Royal Bank of Canada, Zions Bank and Prime Alliance Bank.

Trophy Homes has not been able to secure a new lender since Arkansas National was taken over by federal regulators last May for lax lending standards, mostly for construction and development loans for projects in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Arkansas.

"But we've been in continuous discussions with our [existing] banks and investors since the middle of last year on how to restructure our loans and keep interest reserves current," said Gary Petersen, Trophy Homes's controller. "More banks, especially those that already have loans on a project, are starting to realize that the only way they can get repaid is to continue to provide construction financing for us to finish the project and sell the homes."

Still, it hasn't been easy, Petersen said.

"Some banks don't think they're under water yet. Some banks won't even talk to us. Other banks are in denial. Most are only willing to negotiate terms of repaying [existing] loans," he said. "There's a major disconnect between federal stimulus policy stated in Washington, D.C., which wants the banks to lend, and policy as implemented by bank examiners, which may not allow the banks to lend if certain internal guidelines aren't met."

After suffering from slow to virtually no sales for the second half of last year, Trophy Homes finally got a break in March when sales picked up, thanks in part to record low interest rates and the introduction of new state and federal tax credit incentives, which offer as much as $14,000 in down-payment assistance to eligible buyers.

Slashing prices by 30 to 40 percent over the past year also helped improve affordability, although the company stopped cutting prices as of this month because of the pickup in sales.

Last month, the company sold about 20 new homes, mostly in the $150,000 and $200,000 price range, for its projects in Pleasant Grove and Midvale. That, for Ricks, was a significant improvement, after two months of virtually no sales in December and January.

Trophy is now planning to resume construction on some projects that were stalled since the middle of last year after skittish lenders backed off as the value of assets securing their loans (land, building lots or partially-built homes) plunged and home sales plummeted, causing a steep fall in the home builder's cash flow.

New construction at East Town Village, a condominium/town-home project in Midvale, has resumed after Zions, its lender, agreed to continue funding the remainder of its build-out, Ricks said. So far, 125 homes have been completed, with a remaining 250 to be built.

"It's been painful but pragmatic to work with Zions, but they realize that they lose less if they work with builders rather than foreclose on the project and sell it themselves," he said. For now, "we're recapitalizing projects that make the most sense. Eventually, we hope to recapitalize all of our projects."

Zions officials weren't immediately available for comment.

Statewide, Trophy Homes has about 12 single-family and multi-family residential projects, including five in Utah County. They include three single-family projects -- Park View Estates in Lehi; The Ranches-Northmoor in Eagle Mountain; The Preserve in Saratoga Springs -- and two multi-family projects in Pleasant Grove -- Mayfield and Cambria.

Over the next 30 to 45 days, Ricks also hopes to resume construction on Mayfield, which stalled after its lender, Royal Bank of Canada, abruptly closed its western U.S. operations. There are 286 townhomes and condos still unbuilt in the Mayfield project.

"Royal Bank of Canada is now working with us to negotiate new repayment terms on our loans. But they won't give us any construction financing," he said.

Similarly, Prime Alliance, a lender for Trophy's Park View project in Lehi, won't provide construction financing unless a majority of the project is pre-sold, Ricks said.

"But there are no sales now" for that project, he said. "We'll need to raise private financing or go to another lender."

Because of difficulty in getting new loans from banks, Ricks said Trophy Homes is hoping to raise funds from private investors, venture capitalists and other lenders to complete the build-out of its remaining projects.

"Financing is the lifeblood of the industry. How do you survive without oxygen -- the sales -- and blood -- the financing?" he said.

Former partner Jeff Southard said many builders, including Trophy Homes, are now hurting because of massive debt they took on to expand their projects right before the housing bubble exploded.

"When the market turned, all of a sudden we got caught because we were highly leveraged," he said.

In December, Southard, along with another former partner Bill Montgomery, transferred their ownership in Trophy Homes to Ricks, because they felt there was "no value left in Trophy."

"We gave away any managerial or ownership interest in exchange for Stan taking over the liabilities of Trophy," Southard said. He has since started his own company, South Haven Homes, in Lindon, but is still working with Trophy Homes to sell some of its projects.

PROVO -- A jury found an Eagle Mountain man, who was accused of holding his wife and children hostage before a four-hour standoff with police, guilty on two of the three charges against him. He was found guilty of terroristic threats and domestic violence in the presence of a child, second- and third-degree felonies respectively. He was found not guilty on charges of aggravated kidnapping and assault.

Prosecutor Doug Finch said he knew the charge of aggravated kidnapping would be difficult for jurors, as he was asking them to believe Matthew Graham was kidnapping his wife simply by not allowing her to leave the home.

"It was a tough case," he said. "It had an awful lot of evidence that didn't fit the normal stereotypical domestic violence definition."

Finch said despite the acquittal on the aggravated kidnapping charge and its alternative, he is happy with the outcome of the case. This verdict will hopefully allow Graham to move past the case and put the incident behind him, Finch said.

"I think that this gets him the help, the counseling that he needs," he said.

The two felony convictions will also prevent Graham from owning guns in the future, which is something Finch said he wanted to see.

Defense attorney Lisa Estrada said she was surprised by the verdict. The defense was not allowed to present several items they felt were key to the case, so Estrada said she told Graham to expect a guilty verdict on all counts.

Despite one positive verdict, Estrada said she is not sure how the jury felt Graham could be guilty of domestic violence in front of a child while acquitting him on the basic violence charge.

"I have no idea," she said. "I think they split the baby."

Estrada said she plans to appeal the case, because Judge Samuel McVey ruled that certain evidence about Matthew Graham's wife could not be presented. Mindy Graham told police she had bipolar disorder, Estrada said, but defense attorneys were not allowed access to her medical records to show jurors what effects certain medications could have had on Mindy Graham that day.

"I fully expected him to be convicted on everything, because we weren't able to present a full defense," she said.

Estrada said she is pleased that Graham was acquitted on the aggravated kidnapping charge, because it shows jurors did not believe Mindy Graham's account of what happened.

Estrada called three witnesses Wednesday morning, including Matthew Graham's mother, sister and state Rep. Eric Hutchings, who is Mindy Graham's brother-in-law. All three testified that Mindy Graham has been untruthful in the past.

"I love Mindy, but she's a drama queen," Hutchings said. "She exaggerates a lot. A lot."

However, jurors were told to disregard Hutchings's reply, and those of the other witnesses, because their answers delved into their past with Mindy Graham. They were told instead to say only whether Mindy Graham was truthful or untruthful, and each claimed the latter. Estrada said she was frustrated by the defense's inability to bring Mindy Graham's past into the testimony. Estrada said she has great respect for McVey, but she did not agree with his decision.

On cross-examination, Finch asked Matthew Graham's mother and sister whether they were angry with Mindy Graham for the situation her husband is in. He also asked Matthew Graham's mother, Helen Espy, if she is angry that she has not seen the couple's children since the incident.

"I wish I could see the children," she replied.

Finch urged the jury to look at the big picture before deliberating, that Matthew Graham terrorized his family and police officers that day. He told his children that his wife was going to kill herself, and he told officers he could "take them out," Finch said.

Finch asked why Graham would need to barricade himself in his home for five to six hours while negotiating with police officers. If he did not commit a crime, why did Graham negotiate his way out of charges while communicating with police during the standoff, Finch asked.

"In my business, we call that a consciousness of guilt," he said.

Matthew Graham's family expressed frustration after the verdict that several aspects of Mindy Graham's character were not admissible at trial. It has been hard to watch their son and brother go through his legal battles over the last year, and his family felt that he was not able to present his side of the story.

"We feel really bad that there were so many issues we think should have been brought to the public eye that were not," Espy said.

Leah Mettmann, Matthew Graham's sister, said there was a lot of evidence that could have been beneficial to her brother at trial that could not be admitted. Attorneys could not bring up his battle with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder because a doctor found Graham was not suffering from an episode at the time of the incident. Graham had been in the military.

"The PTSD should have been brought into the case, because it's pertinent," Mettmann said.

Graham is scheduled to be sentenced on May 11, after a pre-sentence report has been prepared by Adult Probation and Parole. Finch said prosecutors have not decided what they will recommend for Graham, and that will depend on whether Graham appears to take some responsibility for the incident.

"We really need to see what his attitude is with AP&P," he said.

A winning team for the Utah State Destination ImagiNation Challenge Saturday used duct tape to secure a prop and win its acting challenge.

Fifteen children from five Utah County cities took state at the finals for the Destination ImagiNation Challenge last weekend.

Sponsored by the Hutchings Museum and Lehi American Legion Post 19, the group consisted of three teams. Of those, one team will go on to the international competition.

"The Hutchings Museum is proud -- as I am sure the Lehi veterans are, as well -- to have provided a place for these kids to prepare for their teamwork and creativity challenges," said museum program director Valerie Meade. "I'm so excited that all their hard work paid off so well."

Destination ImagiNation is a little-known competition in Utah, but in other parts of the world it is popular with educators and children.

A community-based, nonprofit, volunteer educational organization founded in 1999, Destination ImagiNation teaches kindergarten through university-level participants about critical- and creative-thinking skills.

More than 250,000 children and young adults in all 50 states and more than 40 countries compete each season. Two- to seven-member teams focus on finding solutions to two separate types of Destination ImagiNation challenges: Team Challenges and Instant Challenges. Then they present their solutions to appraisers in tournament-style settings.

"In Oregon, Destination ImagiNation, it's huge," said team manager Melissa Price, who is from Oregon. "Usually [Oregon] has a regional competition at the beginning of March. Here there are not enough teams to have regional anywhere and they only had six teams at state."

Other states have 20-30 teams competing at regional events. In Utah, one of her teams didn't have any competition at the state level and the other teams had only one team they went up against.

"Hopefully, I can help get the word out for next year so we can get some more teams," she said. "I feel it's important for the teams to have more competition."

That's not to say preparation for the state competition wasn't tough. The children had been practicing since January, three to four hours each week.

"Every Friday afternoon and work, work, work," Price said then laughed.

There were two teams, the Huskies and the Atomic Air Force, whose members were kindergarten to fifth-grade level. The other team, The Sharp Shooters, is the one going to finals and has three members of junior-high-school age.

"Well, I think they start to learn to work as a team," Price said. "They also learn what to do when something goes wrong. They really learn to work with different personalities. It's fun to watch. By the time the process is through, they become great friends and they really learn to rely on one another."

She said the most difficult thing for parents to do is to not help or guide them.

Adults are not allowed to help in any way, the children have to solve all the problems and do all the skits by themselves. It's completely child-led.

"It's kind of hard for parents to watch while the kids come up with a solution," Price said.

Now the teams are faced with how to raise enough funds to pay for getting to the Global Finals in May at the University of Tennessee. There were 18,000 competitors, all kids, from all over the world at the finals in 2008.

She said they need $5,000 per team to get the props and team members there and to pay for lodging and food.

"We are certainly trying to earn the money to go," Price said. "At least one of our teams is going to go."

Destination Imagination

http://www.idodi.org/

Sharp Shooters

Myla Coletti, 11, Lehi

Erika Meade, 12, American Fork

Summer Price, 14, Provo

Robbie Robinson, 11, Orem

Atomic Airforce

Damon Schultz, 10, Eagle Mountain

Jason Spoons, 9, Provo

Jeffery Coletti, 8, Lehi

Hunter Thueson, 10, Eagle Mountain

Huskies

Kelsey Nettles, 8, Lehi

Reilly Price, 9, Provo

Sadie Thueson, 8, Eagle Mountain

Jeniel Zimmerman, 7, Orem

EAGLE MOUNTAIN SEmD The staff Christmas party, City Council salaries, lobbyists, office supplies and new city vehicles may have to go in Eagle Mountain as the city tries to fend off a $260,000 deficit.

Councilman David Lifferth immediately suggested the council cut its salary. The city budget for fiscal year 2010 includes $30,000 to pay council members, not including the mayor. Lifferth suggested council members take a 10 percent pay cut. It was not clear whether this would include Mayor Heather Jackson, who is a full-time mayor.

"I think it would be a good show that we are tightening our belts the way everyone else is," Lifferth said. "I would propose that."

The move certainly wouldn't save the city much money in comparison to the quarter-million dollars that must be shaved, but "it should be looked at, it should be evaluated," Lifferth said to the council. "I would encourage you to tighten your belt $50 a month for a good cause."

City manager John Hendrickson reported that city staffers had volunteered to give up the city Christmas party, a catered affair attended by 120 last year at a cost of $12,000. The city will also forego staff birthday celebrations and employee activities.

"We may come up with a way of doing a Christmas party," Jackson said. "It may be pot-luck."

In a sign that many in the city are having a hard time making ends meet, staffers said each month on average 200 families have their utilities shut off in the city, while another 600 families are late paying their utility bills. The announcement brought a somber tone to the meeting.

"That is sad," Jackson said.

Eagle Mountain has seen its revenue from building decrease by a staggering $2 million compared to two years ago, but profits from city-owned utilities have "kept us in a position where we are not so desperate," Hendrickson said.

The city will consider adding a monthly storm-drain fee to city utility bills in order to help meet the budget, council members said, though Lifferth said it would be "morally wrong" to charge residents more in storm-drain fees than the city needs to cover storm-drain costs.

Hendrickson said the city can save "several tens of thousands of dollars" by deciding not to replace aging vehicles in its fleet this year, but warned that putting off vehicle purchases a second year in a row might be folly.

Last year Eagle Mountain paid $90,000 for a legislative lobbyist, but this year that too may have to go.

"Put the lobbyist on the chopping block," Jackson ordered.

Council members also said they could consolidate office supplies, which are now purchased and distributed by each city department. Having one set of office supplies for all city staffers could potentially save $10,000 a year, Jackson said.

The city had hoped to add a second school resource officer this year, but may try to add a part-time officer instead of a full-time officer, in an attempt to balance the budget, council members said.

Overall, the city's total estimated $34 million budget for fiscal 2010 will be down $10 million from the previous year, almost entirely because the city has cut its spending for capital projects in half, Hendrickson said.