County Leaders Address BEAR General Board

BEAR Press Release

On Oct. 26, the Castle Country Business Expansion and Retention (BEAR) general board meeting was addressed by Carbon County leaders about some of the issues facing the county as well as some economic development news. Carbon County Commissioners Larry Jensen and Casey Hopes, along with Economic and Tourism Supervisor Shanny Wilson, were present and discussed some of what is going on.

“We have had some issues with property tax assessments this year and we are trying to solve those,” said Jensen, who began the meeting. “Challenges to tax assessments were up considerably this year and the board of equalization has been working to solve those issues.”

The county has hired some outside assistance to help with assessments and the system that is used in working with assessments. The expert they have hired has been in the county offices working with personnel for nearly a month and will continue there until the issues are resolved.

Hopes then did a presentation concerning the airport.

“Just a few years ago, Utah State University approached us about our airport and told us they wanted to expand their educational program to our area,” he said. “They said it was a fantastic airport and that we have a lot of good airspace. It was the perfect place for the university to bring in their flight training program.”

He said the university liked the fact that flights could come in and out easily and that the airport has two crosswind runways. So, the county agreed to work with the university.

“We took the upstairs of our main hanger building and created two classrooms for students and instructors to use,” he stated. “They are leasing those from us now.”

The open bay that was used by the Civil Air Patrol is now being used as a hanger to house the USU Eastern programs planes. They presently have 32 students in the program at USU Eastern and will soon have a total of five planes operating out of the airport.

“There is a lot of good in this in addition to the fact that a lot of our FAA grants are based on how many planes we have coming in and out of the airport,” he told the group. “The more there are, the more secure our funding remains.”

Another grant has also been secured that will be used to build another hanger for the maintenance side of the USU program.

“In their program, there is the flight training side and now there will also be the program that trains mechanics to work on the aircraft as well,” he said. “One side of the new 50’ by 100‘ hanger will be used for airframe training (body and fuselage) and the other other half will be used to train students on engines and the mechanics of aircraft.”

Hopes said that in addition, Duncan Aviation is coming to look over the area at the airport with the idea of possibly building an aircraft repair facility. They already have a relationship with the Logan campus and they are excited about the possibility of building a facility here and hiring students from the local program.

“USU has worked out an agreement with us to become the airport manager and they plan to offer a degree in airport management as well,” said Hopes. “They have been fantastic partners to us in so many ways.”

Wilson then discussed some Ridge Road prospects and what is going on with that.

“As manager of both economic development and tourism for the county, I have learned a lot in the year and a half I have been in this position,” she said. “Tourism happens on a daily basis while economic development happens over a period of time. We have three companies that we are talking with us on a regular basis concerning development along Ridge Road.”

She stated that Ridge Road is ideal for a lot of economic development due to the fact it has all the utilities and essential factors to back up industrial development. One of the companies that is interested uses corn husks to develop natural gas. They are working on permitting for such a facility. Wellington Micro Tech is still working toward building its facility and is negotiating with the Utah Port Authority to develop a port project in the area. In addition, there is a furniture manufacturing company that wants to move to Ridge Road as well. There are also numerous others that are considering the area.

“There could be up to 250 jobs that come into our area from these companies should they bring facilities here,” concluded Wilson.

The next BEAR general board meeting will take place on Nov. 30 at 8 a.m. at the Jennifer Leavitt Student Center Alumni Room on the USU Eastern Campus. The topic that will be discussed at that meeting will be the San Rafael Energy Research Center.