Providence joins regional council movement

By Taylor Scott

March 30, 2006 | PROVIDENCE -- A motion was passed Tuesday at the Providence City Council meeting to adopt a County Planning and Development Office and to create a Cache Valley Regional Council to identify and "promote cooperation between citizens and elected officials" in order to resolve countywide problems and issues.

The name given to this on going project is Cache Vision 2020.  The presentation was originally supposed to be presented by H. Craig Peterson of the Cache County Council; in his stead was Wendell Morse, development and services director for Cache County Planning and Zoning and Herm Olsen.  According to the written agreement there are many people which would be included in the council, to name a few: the President of Utah State University, several mayors from the surrounding areas, Cache County executive, and even a  number of non-voting members as deemed necessary.  "The president of Utah State University is the only non-elected official due to his large constituency and the university is such a large part of the community and President Stan Albrecht would be happy to sit on the committee.

"This group Cache Vision 2020 is anxious to bring everybody together to the table to help address some of the broad community issues," said Morse.

All of Franklin County, Idaho, has approved Cache Vision 2020.  Along with Franklin County, every city that this proposed regional council has been presented to have approved it.  Morse said there are only four communities that have not yet heard the presentation and Providence was one of them.  Hyrum will consider the presented agreement in two weeks.

City Councilwoman Stacie Gomm said it was significant that Franklin County has agreed on this issue because 70 percent of the nonagricultural workers from Franklin County work in Cache County.  "They work as part of this county," said Gomm.

The council duties would include four main areas. Adopting by-laws and rules of procedure, cooperating between local, state, and federal officials regarding important issues, the council is enabled to create communities and use them as deemed appropriate and members will represent the Cache Planning and Development Office and govern that office to the laws, according to the resolution. 

The council would meet bimonthly, complying with the public meeting standards set by Utah Code and voting will be held just as any other council with a majority quorum and a majority affirmative vote to pass all actions.  Also, Morse said ,the committee would probably meet in the Cache County Council Chamber and part of the time in Franklin County.

Olsen said the importance of this regional council would be, "Representing a group from multiple organizations, the Cache County Council, the Mayors Association, the Cache Chamber of Commerce and a number of other groups within the community who have been concerned about multiple issues that are growing and are not going away in Cache County."

The example given by Olsen was that 100 years ago in 1904 where what is now the national forest used to be primarily private and privately controlled land, and as a result vast herds of sheep and cattle were kept upon the range in the Franklin and Cache County and through the south end of Weber County.  Due to the lack of control, it was common to see immense clouds of dust to the east and over the mountains. Citizens decided they would "plead with the federal government to come in and essentially preserve for the citizens through means of a national forest what citizens were unable to do for themselves. We have some of these same issues," Olsen said.

NW
MS