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Show p community comments... In a quick action, towards the end of their regular meeting, Grand County Commissioners voted unanimously to withdraw from the Southeastern Utah Association of Governments, and Economic Development Develop-ment District. Commissioners, queried later, stated that it was their intention to join forces with neighboring San Juan County to form a "truly southeastern Utah" development district, with no alliance with Emery and Carbon Counties to the north. The action comes as no surprise although it did come as a surprise to SEUAOG Director Bill Dinehart, who had met earlier with the Commission but left before Commissioners brought the issue to a vote. There has been talk of withdrawal in Moab and Grand County for a number of years, with officials here finding more and more time needed to travel back and forth to Price for meetings, and the continuing feeling here that most benefits from the association were going to the Carbon-Emery area which were much closer to headquarters. San Juan County---once a member of the association- has already pulled out. And County Commissioners there seem to be of the opinion that if they had it all to do over again, they would definitely do it just like they did before. 1 have never been particularly fond of the regionalization of government in Utah. For one thing, it removes individual county and city commissioners one more long step from the state capitol, where they had traditionally and historically gone with their problems, requests and recommendations. Secondly, county and city officials are busy people busy in their own businesses and professions -and membership on governing boards far removed from their homes places tremendous demands on the time they have available for public service. This makes it tough to keep good candidates interested in seeking local office. Third, counties and communities are different. Differences between Carbon-Emery and Grand-San Juan were mentioned by commissioners of both Grand and San Juan in their rationalization for wanting to split. It must be said, on the other hand, that there are benefits to be derived from a multi-county grouping in terms of qualification for public (mostly federal monies fur various programs. These benefits might be lost or at least reduced by a split-up of SEUAOG. Only time will tell. It must also be said, on the other hand, that things have changed in SEUAOG tremendously since young Rill Dinehart took over as director. He has worked hard to keep things moving in the three-county area, and has proven that he is a no-nonsense administrator wanting to do a professional job as efficiently and fairly as possible. Governor Scott M. Matheson has not yet reacted to the Grand County action, or on the accompanying request to allow Grand and San Juan County to form their own alliance. That will certainly come in the immediate future. Grand County Commissioners have bitten off a big chunk of red meat. It will be interesting to see how easy it might lie to digest. -sjt- Utah's Congressional delegates were just gearing up to attempt a blocking move on President Carter's announced killing of the Bonneville Unit of the Central Utah Project, when the Administration announced this week that lliey had decided to kill a couple more Utah projectsthe Jensen and Lyman Unit3 of the Central I'tah Project, which have already been partially completed. That'll teach us Utahns a lesson about how to conduct ourselves at the polls. Next thing we know, Jimmy will cancel the 24th of July, and then we'll really be in trouble. -sjt-- VVe've got a bunch of letters from readers agnin this v.-'-k. and it's great. Trouble is, however, most of Itii'in iue too long. The two longest ones, which are mu h longT than normally allowed, take opposing viewpoints, so we'll let it go for now. However, we won't in the future be able to include anything over lion words, ho --- letter writers, take note. |