Utah’s economy is booming, at least along the Wasatch Front, and Gov. Gary Herbert told a group of rural Utahns recently that the onus is on them to make sure their areas aren’t left behind.
Speaking at the annual “Rural Day on the Hill” at the Capitol, Herbert said he has been meeting with representatives of each rural county to make it clear that the state can help them but the ideas and plans for boosting their economies rests in their hands.
“We’re changing the approach. There is no silver bullet, there is no solution that can be found here in Salt Lake City,” Herbert told the crowd. The solutions are in individual areas, he said, “and you know your strengths and weaknesses and what you can do and what you can offer to the marketplace.”
State government’s role will be to help facilitate plans, open doors and partner with counties, he added.
The meetings are part of a second phase toward Herbert’s goal to have 25,000 jobs created in 25 rural counties by 2020. The first phase involved Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox and business services providers visiting rural communities. The third phase will focus on implementation of county plans.
“Our efforts are really going to be redoubled and refocused on making sure that rural Utah has economic opportunity, but we’re going to expect you in rural Utah to help drive that effort and say, ‘Here’s what we need to do,’” Herbert said.
Utah has created more jobs overall and more private-sector jobs than any other state, he said, but not all parts of the state have seen economic growth.
“But it’s kind of an average, and the problem with averages, [it’s] in the old story about how you can have one foot on an ice block and one foot in the fire and on average, you’d be just right,” the governor said. “And I think that’s part of the image we have in Utah today. We have a lot of great things happening in some our urban areas and some of our rural areas but not in all of our rural areas. It appears to me, at least, that we’ve got 10 rural counties that are really struggling and they’re doing the best they can to tread water.”
Herbert said he does not want to hear Wasatch Front people say that rural Utah’s troubles should belong there. “It’s not their problem; it’s our problem, and I really am committed to making sure that we will not rest, as a state, until all 29 counties and all 245 cities really have economic opportunity,” he said.
At a rural Utah high school recently, Herbert asked its senior class members if they planned to attend college, and all raised their hands, he said. He followed up by asking how many planned to return home after college. Only a few raised their hands.
“Why? Because there are no jobs. There is no economic opportunity, and that’s the thing we’ve got to change, no matter where you’re at in the state. When we consider a good quality of life, a good quality of life does not include having to export your children,” Herbert said.
The governor noted that some people like urban life and some prefer rural, “but what everybody wants is the ability to have a job, and we want that for our children and our grandchildren.”
Speaking later, Cox expressed similar sentiments, adding that many people from rural Utah want to return to their roots. “Rural is not for everybody, but it’s for a lot of people,” Cox said. “And a lot of people want to do it and if they could just make a living, they would do it in a heartbeat.”
Cox, who commutes daily from Fairview in Sanpete County to Salt Lake City, said the state is working on an initiative that would allow more Wasatch Front jobs to move to rural Utah, but he provided few details. “This is going to be a really big deal, and I would like to see hundreds, if not thousands, of state of Utah jobs going to rural Utah and I think it’s something we can pull off,” he said.
Rural Utah has momentum and needs to capitalize on it, he said.
“Good things are happening. Rural is on the radar now more than it’s ever been before. It’s kind of cool to be on the rural train,” he said.
With advances in technology, telecommuting and videoconferencing make working remotely inexpensive and seamless, he said. That can allow rural Utah to participate in the booming economy on the Wasatch Front.
“The biggest concern we hear [from Wasatch Front companies] is, ‘We don’t have a trained workforce, we don’t have enough people to fill these jobs up here,’ and here we are in counties with 5 percent unemployment, 6 percent unemployment, 7 percent unemployment, going, ‘Hey we’re right here. We’ve got people who can do these jobs.’”
Linda Gillmor, associate managing director for urban and rural business services and director of the Office of Rural Development in the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED), said governor’s meetings with rural officials is expected to yield county-derived one-, five- and 10-year economic development plans. In some cases, she said, counties are resurrecting economic development groups or creating new ones to bring city, chamber of commerce and other representatives together to formulate their plans.
Val Hale, GOED’s executive director, said he has heard from a few companies interested in expanding into rural Utah. One is a manufacturing company that will grow by 200 high-paying jobs. Another is considering rural Utah rather than outsourcing its new jobs overseas.
“I’ve had a couple of conversations with businesses in that regard,” Hale said, “and we’d love to see that happen.”