Candidates spar over Vision Dixie

ST. GEORGE - In 2006 following an outcry from local residents about the Lands Bill proposed by Utah Sen. Robert Bennett and Congressman Jim Matheson, Vision Dixie was born.

The purpose of Vision Dixie is to create a long-term vision that will ensure a high quality of life in the county for years to come by engaging citizens to take part in meetings about growth, gathering ideas and to ultimately outline a publicly supported principle to guide future land use and transportation decisions.

A series of meetings took place throughout the county and numerous people participated in the Vision Dixie meeting before the information was complied in a report in 2007.

Given the enormous response by the citizens of the county, the Vision Dixieprocess was important to everyone from elected officials, business owners and residents and is still important to the candidates running for Washington County Commissioner.

Democratic candidate for County Commissioner Lin Alder said that in order to make the Vision Dixie implementation successful, he believes the business community and the citizens need to be more prominently involved in the implementation committee and process.

"Vision Dixie can not succeed as long as it remains primarily a government driven process," Alder said.

Alder's proposal is to expand the implantation committee from five members to a 15 member board with five members each representing business, citizens and government

County Commission incumbent Alan Gardner said Alder's been pushing the 15 member implementation committee and he doesn't agree with that.

Gardner said Alder has a heavy-handed approach with the implementation committee that Gardner said will be met with resistance by a number of the cities.

"The county doesn't have the authority nor does the implementation committee to go to towns and say 'do this,'" Gardner said. "You will turn off the towns is you come in with a heavy hand."

While Gardner said the individual communities need to make decisions about implementing the principles of Vision Dixie he also said that the wheels of government turn a lot slower than some would like.

"We have given it to the cities to implement in each city as they see the needs in the community," Gardner said. "It will take some time to go through the process."

Alder, however, said many citizens in the community are wondering what happened to Vision Dixie, Adler added that although Gardner claims to be fully committed to Vision Dixie, he wonders where all the enthusiasm went since it was unveiled to the public in January.

"I fully recognize that these processes take time but I question the amount of time that has been taken simply to introduce the principles to the cities," Alder said. "I know that many city councils and planning commissions in Washington County want more help in the work now required which includes rewriting zoning ordinances and general plans.

Alder said that work requires assistance from experts in the field, participation from citizens and careful consideration by the planning and city councils.

"Why has the county not answered the calls for help?" Alder said. "Why has the county not asked more business leaders to answer those calls for help?"

Alder said he believes the majority of citizens want the implementation to succeed and as a community, invested $500,000 designing Vision Dixie.

Gardner said he doesn't feel like there is any resistance to adopt Vision Dixie but the county or committee has no authority to push it down the throats of the cities.

As far as some of the principles about sensitive lands, Gardner feels that it's a little unfortunate some of that could not have happened earlier.

"One of the issues raised is the public lands out there," Gardner said. "To me, some of the public lands would have been better to develop and some of the private lands not develop."

Gardner said in particular, he would have liked to seen the Washington and St. George fields undeveloped and left as green space and developed into sagebrush flats rather than agriculture fields.

"That has been a concern for me in the Pine Valley (area) as well," Gardner said.

Gardner's family has property in Pine Valley and said the family has worked on conservation easements to preserve that property.

Alder said he believes the majority of the citizens want Vision Dixie to address additional key questions, of which the first is how large of a population can local water supplies support Ð 300,000; 600,000; 900,000; and once there is reliable evidence to supply that number, asks ourselves the next and absolutely crucial question of how big do we want to grow.

"Vision Dixie can help us answer the question that we absolutely must answer and how gracefully we will run out of water because we know that someday we will not be able to provide more water for more residents at some point," Alder said. "Will we hit that brick wall running at full speed or will we slide into that wall like sliding safely into home plate?"

Gardner said, like the conservation easement his family has done, there are other similar efforts being done around the county.

"We need to be careful as we grow," Gardner said. "We live in spectacular country and we need to preserve the quality of life and the view shed that we have."