Cedar Hills is going green.

Cedar Hills is the first city in Utah County to join up with the Rocky Mountain Power Blue Sky Program.

Delynn Rodeback, customer and community manager for the program, stopped in to the Cedar Hills City Council work session Oct. 16 to recognize the city for its "visionary" stance.

The Council voted in August to buy 58 100-kilowatt-hour blocks of wind power a month, at $1.95 per block, which is the equivalent to what the City offices use in electric energy. Rocky Mountain Power, in turn puts that amount of windmill-generated power into its grid.

"They are the first community here to participate in this program. All funds go to sustainable wind energy sources," said Rodeback.

"It's really at the insistence of Joel that this happened," said Mayor Mike McGee, referring to Councilman Joel Wright. Wright researched the program and presented it to the Council.

"This level of commitment makes them a Visionary level partner in Rocky Mountain Power's Blue Sky program. It also qualifies the city as an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Green Power partner," said Jeff Hymas of Rocky Mountain in a separate interview.

Hymas said over a year's time, the city's purchase will help avoid more than 69 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, providing environmental benefits equivalent to taking nearly 12 cars off the road for a year -- equal to 296 round-trip drives between Cedar Hills and Salt Lake City -- or planting 27 acres of trees.

Rocky Mountain Power serves approximately 2,216 households and 77 non-residential customers in Cedar Hills. Currently, 42 Cedar Hills households are enrolled in Blue Sky.

The Blue Sky renewable energy program provides customers with an easy way to purchase renewable energy, support new renewable energy development and help community-based renewable energy projects in the region to get off the ground. Customers can buy Blue Sky in 100-kilowatt-hour blocks for $1.95 each, in addition to their regular monthly electricity bill.

Cedar Hills joins a growing number of environmentally conscious cities in Utah including: Alta, Castle Valley, Moab, Ogden, Park City, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Springdale, Sundance community, and Kennecott Land's Daybreak community.

Going green brought out a bit of humor for the Council.

"We just bought a bunch of wind," said Councilman Jim Perry.

"Yes, kind of appropriate for a bunch of politicians," joked McGee.

HIGHLAND BRIEFS

No Parking signs extended near Lone Peak -- Students at Lone Peak High School will soon finds their options for parking will be fewer.

The Highland City Council voted unanimously on Oct. 16 to restrict parking from Ole' Bish Lane to Kilarney Drive on the east side if 4800 West. Now there is no parking any time between there and Cedar Hills Boulevard or during school hours in the Wild Rose subdivision.

However, Mayor Jay Franson said there will soon be more parking available on old the road into the Adventure Learning, now Highland Glen Park.

"I met with the Alpine School District dealing with parking north of the high school in back of the park land west of the seminary. We discussed making it a one way road with the trail on one side, It would be a right turn ( at the old gate) and access back on the road between the high school and the seminary building."

Roy Buhler snags two gold metals -- Highland resident Roy Buhler came home from the Senior Games in St. George with two gold medals. The first was the singles horseshoe pitching championship in the A class where he pitched 54 percent ringers on Wednesday Oct. 24. The next day was for first place in doubles with Shirl Barney from Bountiful. Buhler pitched 45 percent ringers in that game.