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Show Officials Attend National Confab Garfield County Commissioner Louise Liston, former County Attorney At-torney Patrick Nolan and County Clerk Hazel Rich were among 55 county officials from throughout the state of Utah attending the 54th annual conference of the National Association of Counties (NACo) held in Hamilton County (Cincinnati), Ohio July 15-18. Through the efforts of Liston as a member of the Public Lands Steering Committee and Commissioner Commis-sioner Cal Black of San Juan County on the NACo board of directors, di-rectors, Utah was successful in amending a previous position adopted by NACo supporting the creation of an "American Heritage Trust." The trust provides for at least $1 billion annually to the federal government gov-ernment and other nonprofit institutions (i.e. environmental groups) for land acquisitions. Utah amendments spearheaded by Commissioners Com-missioners Liston and Black made NACo support contingent on amendments to the federal legislation legisla-tion providing county officials prior pri-or approval of any acquisitions. The new NACo position was ultimately ulti-mately adopted by a solid majority vole of the entire membership in its general meeting. "Considering current environmentalist environ-mentalist focus on southern Utah," said Liston, "they would have the potential to buy up everything south of 1-70 without the amendments." amend-ments." Nearly 5,000 county officials from all over the nation were present pre-sent at the convention. |