BEAR Press Release
A presentation by Price Mayor Mike Kourianos and Castle Dale Mayor Danny VanWagoner will take place at the Castle Country Business Expansion and Retention general board meeting on March 12.
The Utah Coal Country Strike Team stands ready to help Utah’s most distressed region, the coal communities of Carbon and Emery counties, diversify the economy and raise incomes in the area by 10 percent. The group has assembled a multi-disciplinary team of experts, secured a $500,000 state appropriation, landed commitments from over two dozen large employers and organizations, and developed an evidence-based, counterfactual trend model to measure the efforts success.
The work plan calls for the team to harness the strengths of two public universities to train/re-train workers, invest in tourism infrastructure, revitalize housing in the community and to reinvent economic development incentives. The plan is to leverage each dollar of Alliance for the American Dream funding with $2.50 from other sources.
The region’s congressman, mayors, county commissioners and the Utah lieutenant governor support the efforts, which the team believes can serve as a national model on how to help distressed coal communities as America combats global climate change. With the Alliance’s help, the team can expand economic opportunity and create a healthier and more robust middle class.
BEAR’s mission is to inform, grow and improve business in the Castle Country area. The meeting will start at 8 a.m. and light refreshments will be served. Each general meeting never lasts more than one hour.
BEAR meetings are held at the Jennifer Leavitt Student Center in the Alumni Room on the USU Eastern Campus in Price and the general public is always welcome.