Three Iron County GOP debates focus on future of the county at Southern Utah University

With mail-in ballots already being sent out and the deadline for voters to register vote in the upcoming Republican primary coming soon, the candidates for the three primaries in Iron County gathered at Southern Utah University this week to debate the issues important to the county.

The issues discussed were wide ranging and included questions on the challenges of population growth, poverty, economic development and local issues like where to put the new Iron County Jail. The debate was hosted by the non-partisan Leavitt Center for Politics and Public Service at SUU and the debates were moderated by students at the university.

There are three Republican primaries in Iron County. Two are for open seats on the three-member of the Iron County Commission and one is for the multi-county state Senate District 28. Republican primaries in Utah are closed, meaning only registered Republicans can vote in the primary and the deadline for unaffiliated voters to register Republican is June 17 and can be done at the vote.utah.gov website.

Senate District 28

The two candidates in the race have very different resumes when it comes to elected office. The incumbent, Sen. Evan Vickers, has been an elected official in Iron County for nearly 25 years since he served on the Cedar City council for 12 years and has been in the state legislature since 2009. His challenger, Patrick Larson, is running in his first election and has never held public office before.

Larson said he was motivated to run by the brief COVID-19 regulations that were placed on residents two years ago and since he believes there needs to be a change in leadership in Senate District 28, a vast geographic area that covers parts of Washington, Millard, Juab County and all of Iron and Beaver County.

“The reason that I'm running is because over the last two years, I felt like our constitutional rights were stripped from us,” Larson said. “We were asked to be muzzled.”

Vickers said that his experience in the Utah Legislature and his position as Senate majority show that he knows how to get goals accomplished and that he is able to earn the respect of other lawmakers.

"I believe in low taxes and limited government,” Vickers said. “That's why I passed as a sponsor of SB 59, last year, that reduced taxes by almost $200 million.”

The two agreed on many topics, including reducing government regulations to make healthcare more affordable and leaving decisions around housing to local governments. They disagreed on how to address Iron County's poverty rate, which is 13.7%, nearly double the state average of 7.3%, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Vickers said the key to addressing poverty in Iron County is to bring the “right” kind of economic development to southern Utah to increase wages. Vickers pointed to several different state programs that can help with this including the Tax Increment Area program that allows local governments to create tax districts to earmark those taxes for specific purposes.

“That is a piece of legislation that actually specifically targets and allows incentives and promotions to go for businesses coming into rural Utah,” Vickers said.

Larson said the main thing to be done about poverty is to deregulate business as much as possible.

“If we don't continue to lessen and lessen the legislation for the small businesses, they can't thrive,” he said. “If they can't thrive, they can't hire people in and they can't get the lower end employees and get them to come up and teach them and train them and bring them out of poverty and up into a way that they can make a living.”

Another point of disagreement between the two candidates was over the Pine Valley Pipeline. A proposed 66-mile pipeline that would bring water away from Beaver County and to Cedar City, this pipeline is a “toxic issue” says Vickers, since Beaver County contests the need for the water in the county to be shipped to Iron County.

Vickers says that because he represents both Iron and Beaver County it’s an issue he is trying to stay out of and will accept whatever outcome happens around this pipeline whether the pipeline gets built or not.

“I've got counties on both sides of that fighting, so I've had to kind of stay out of that one,” said Vickers. “I'll have to let the agencies and the courts decide that.”

Larson disagreed, saying that he supports the pipeline since it will “help out” Iron County.

Iron County Commission Seat A

This race is between two candidates with backgrounds in law enforcement. Mike Bleak is the incumbent and has been on the Iron County Commission for six years and has worked with the Cedar City Police Department for over 20 years before taking a part-time job with the Enoch Police Department. Bleak said he is running for another term because he was born and raised in Iron County and wants to make it a better place for future generations.

Bleak’s challenger is Destry Griffiths, who also worked for the Cedar City Police Department. He has some experience as an elected official by serving on the Enoch City Council. Griffiths said he’s committed to traditional family values, property rights and state rights. He also threw his support behind Sen. Mike Lee’s reelection effort in his opening statement.

One of the most pressing issues in this debate was on the challenges that come with rapid population growth. The Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at the University of Utah estimated that the county grew by 6.2% from 2020 to 2021, which was one of the highest growth rates in Utah.

More: Washington, Iron counties grew even faster from 2020 to 2021, new Utah population report says

Both candidates said the county needs to do more to prepare for the continued growth. Griffiths says that he doesn’t want the county to handle growth the way St. George did and an updated general plan that addresses infrastructure concerns is needed for smart growth.

Bleak says Iron County isn’t ready for the growth it’s seeing but says the “right people are in place” in county positions that can address issues. But Bleak says the biggest challenge is creating a secure water future for the county and that the plans being put in place now need to help the county grow for the next 30 years.

Bleak acknowledged growth and water are “super complicated” issues since both the state and federal governments impact how the county grows. He said the most important thing a county commissioner can do around water is to build relationships in order to secure additional water infrastructure.

“When it comes to financing issues, we need to accept those partnerships and those programs that we build with the state and federal partners to maximize our efficiency in solving that problem,” Bleak said.

Griffiths said that when it comes to water, the county commission needs to be “open minded” to all possible solutions. He says he would want to seek out partnerships with neighboring governments in order to have a secure water future for all of southern Utah and not just Iron County.

“We have neighbors in Beaver County in Washington County and other counties that are hurting. So hopefully we come up with a solution that can benefit all Utah as well,” said Griffiths.

Iron County Commission Seat B

This race is between a political newcomer, Steve Miller, and the incumbent, Paul Cozzens, who has been on the commission for the last four years and before that was on the Cedar City Council for eight years.

Miller is an owner of a insurance agency with the Farm Bureau Financial Services who said he wants to be on the county commission to bring integrity, trust and transparency to it.

“We need to make sure that people know what's going on,” said Miller. “The general public needs to know what we're doing as a commission.”

Cozzens is a retired cabinet maker who is seeking reelection to protect quality of life and taxpayers, build infrastructure and to prevent government overreach. He says he was inspired to get involved in public office because of his experience in business and wants to see more business people in politics.

“I think every politician ought to have to build a business and learn what it's like to sacrifice and do that and how important tax dollars are,” said Cozzens.

Both candidates said they were concerned about housing affordability in Iron County but had different approaches to the problem.

Cozzens said he wants to provide zoning in the county that allows for smaller home sizes which can be sold at lower prices and conserve more water. Smaller homes also allow for younger adults to start building equity and get a foot in the real estate market without having to buy expensive homes, said Cozzens.

“Our kids cannot go from $0 to $500,000 on a home,” said Cozzens. “They've got to have a place where they can go to build something, build equity. And then maybe move up later if they want to.”

Miller said he isn’t a “fan” of smaller homes saying that he would just want to see homes being sold at affordable prices since he says the current prices are “ridiculous.” But he didn’t offer any plan or idea on how to get home prices to be more affordable.

“I don't know the exact plan at this point,” said Miller. “But there needs to be some kind of plan put together that we can manage to help make it more affordable for our younger generations and anyone to afford a home right now.”

One other hot button issue in the debate was where the site of the new Iron County Jail should be placed.

In recent months the Iron County Commission decided the jail should be placed at 40-acre site called the Auto Mall site. This angered some residents since this site is located near Interstate 15 on the north end of Cedar City, an area which local residents should be used to bring in commercial development.

More: Iron County chooses a northern Cedar City jail site, despite some concerns from citizens

Both candidates said a new jail is badly needed in the county but Miller  said he understands the concerns of residents saying northern Cedar City could lose rooftops because of the jail location. Miller says the Auto Mall site isn’t the right place for the jail and the county should keep looking for a spot, although he didn’t specify where he would want the jail to be placed.

Cozzens, who voted for the jail on the Auto Mall site, defended the placement of the jail and noted that only 15-acres of the 40-acre site would be used to build the jail. He said building a new jail is an “emotional topic” but it’s needed soon and that no matter where it’s placed there will be opposition against it, Cozzens also notes that the Auto Mall might not be the final site since the Cedar City council needs to approve the site before the jail is built.

“If that doesn't work, we'll regroup and look at all our options,” said Cozzens.

Sean Hemmersmeier covers local government, growth and development in Southwestern Utah. Follow on Twitter @seanhemmers34. Our work depends on subscribers so if you want more coverage on these issues you can subscribe here: http://www.thespectrum.com/subscribe. 

This article originally appeared on St. George Spectrum & Daily News: Iron County GOP primary debate growth, housing and the new jail at SUU