By Pete Aleshire | Payson Roundup
The heroic, bewildering, vital, baffling effort to build a university campus in Payson lurched through 2014.
The year brought mostly good news for the project, starting with a lower-than-expected appraisal on a 253-acre parcel of U.S. Forest Service land that has long been the preferred site for a phased-in, 6,000-student campus. The $4.2 million price tag for the land ended the last-minute search for an alternative site and once again focused the project on the Forest Service site.
The new year should see the long-awaited agreement between ASU and the Rim Country Educational Alliance to build the campus. The Alliance hopes to acquire not only the 253 acres in the original proposal, but perhaps another 21 acres for spin-off facilities. Unfortunately, the last two months of the year were dominated by a conflict between Alliance Chairman Steve Drury and Payson Mayor Kenny Evans.
