I object to the largely unexamined notion that every community should aspire to grow absolutely as fast as it can, as far as it can, until resources give out. (In the arid West, this will most likely be water first.) Where is it written that St George should, and much less MUST become a metropolis of 500,000 people in 25 years? Why is this notion not considered insanity by more people who live here? Why is this considered a GOOD thing when it would basically remove so much of what makes St George and Washington County so special, and so physically gorgeous, to begin with?

Growth has sensible limits in biology and ecology, and all organisms have a finite size, both in general terms and in absolute maximal ones as well. Those sizes vary greatly (compare a butterfly to a mouse to horse to a whale), but eventually all organisms have a size at which they can grow no more, and beyond which illness or death occurs. Populations of those organisms have sizes too, beyond which the resource base can no longer support them. When reached or exceeded, populations either level off or diminish to better reflect ecological reality.

Body organs that grow beyond ideal limits of size lose their functionality and become cancerous or morbidly obese. Does a liver riddled with large tumors do its livery job better than a normal-sized one? Does an abdominal cavity packed with 50 pounds of extraneous fat serve its owner better than a healthier, more typical one does? Of course not!

So why does St George insist so brainlessly upon becoming a tumescent, bloated half-million or more people, and so numbingly fast? Why can’t Las Vegas serve the regional function of a large metropolitan area, as it already does? Why does Mohave County, Arizona, insist upon the same path to increased destruction in adding 200,000+ homes and the assorted urban dross in less than 20 years?

Won’t this entire region across these three adjoining states suffer a massive decline in the quality of life should these teeming millions of people arrive? Won’t this whole region perhaps suffer an eventual economic and environmental ruin when the water resources give out? Doesn’t it make sense that growth eventually has to stop somewhere, as it does in every world but the fantasy one humanity inhabits?

Oh, but those will be the problems of everyone but the developer class. Sorry, I forgot.

I submit for the purposes of planning and discussion from now on the notion that cities have a certain mature size, one that is optimal for ideal health and functioning. This varies between cities, just as it does for different species of animals and plants. New York City is clearly about 8 million people strong, and the metro area has more than twice that many. It is also a world-class LARGE city, a blue whale or a giant sequoia among munchkins, so to speak. Most cities wouldn’t function as well as New York were they to get to even a fraction of that size, and St George is one of them.

Picture a terrier the size of a buffalo. Picture a tulip the size of a pine tree. Silly, isn’t it? A dog is a dog and a tulip a tulip, and neither should aspire to become an elephant, because then they wouldn’t be dogs or tulips. Not everything bigger is automatically better. I, for one, am very tired of the American consumerist assumptions that bigger is universally, unarguably superior no matter what. I think not!

If St George wants to remain a world-class SMALL city with a strong regional (and possibly national) identity and appeal that sets it apart from the bland, sprawling suburbia of elsewhere, then it needs to place sensible limits upon its growth. Santa Fe wouldn’t be Santa Fe if it were the size of Dallas. Key West wouldn’t be Key West if it were Miami. Boulder wouldn’t be Boulder if it were Denver. Santa Barbara would really lose something indefinable about itself in the process of becoming another Los Angeles.

If St George wants to preserve its identity and its nationally unique charm, then it should aspire to remain a modest size and not morph into something wholly inappropriate for its otherwise stunning, magnificent location.

Too little growth will never be a problem in St George and Washington County. Too much growth will be, and already is!

Gotta have more "Viewlots on the Parke" ringing Zion National Park for California investors to flip! Gotta build those cookie cutter Tuscan crackerboxes and big box "amenities" to try to conform and look like everywhere else in America! If only Washington County wasn't infested with that annoying hard-to-wash-out red dirt! Then we might really be able to construct an accurate pasteboard replica of crackerbox Orange County!

Excellent post, Jan. You too, Damien.

For me, one of the major problems with the WCGCA is that it puts the cart far in front of the horse by stating a goal for the amount of land to be sold before the proper inventories are done by the Interior Department, the Forest Service and the BLM. I'm certain there is some amount of federally owned land in Washington county that could and probably should be privatized. What I don't know is whether that's 500 acres or 50,000 acres. Were Bennett and Matheson calling for a comprehensive interagency inventory of the federal lands to determine what amount makes sense to sell, I'd support them wholeheartedly. But predetermining that 24,000 acres should be sold before that process has been done? That's just plain dumb. The number (who the heck picked 24,000?) makes the whole thing look suspicious - like someone's already decided what land is to be sold, and which large campaign contributor developer is going to get it.

There's an intelligent and honorable way to carry out the process that involves all the constituents and represents everyone's interests. The Bennett-Matheson bill fails both those criteria.

It is high time that Washington County addresses it’s future by looking at a Comprehensive Land Use Plan!

Probably as important to the discussion are the actual growth projections. Where do they come from? Are they realistic? Is it really necessary to grow to such an extent to survive? Just how much growth can the existing private land base accommodate? The bill as proposed may be getting the cart before the horse with regard to REAL comprehensive land use planning.

With all the talk about this area growing to somewhere in the vicinity of 500 to 600 thousand people over the next 30 years it is interesting that the bill makes little definitive reference to the most important aspect of land use planning- Infrastructure with regards to traffic; utilities and recreation.

With a projected half a million people coming to live in this area it would seem obvious that at the very least a broad brushed line showing the locations of both the north and south Beltways around St. George should be shown. In reviewing topography and current development it is obvious the northern bypass will have to cross the Redhills Desert Tortoise Preserve. Show us where it needs to go. Don’t say that it is UDOT’s problem--- it’s ours!

Talk in Hurricane as to where these roads should enter the city is misguided. It should in fact be addressing how to get traffic AROUND the city. Find a route for the southern bypass that traffic can get from Sun River to Page, Zion, or back to I-15N WITHOUT having to go through the heart of town before any more of the undeveloped lands are sold and block the obvious good routes. I see lines on a map that seem to have been drawn without much forethought as to where they are going and why.

500,000 people generate significant amounts of sewage and garbage. Any comprehensive land use plan should address disposal and removal--------. Are current sewage treatment and landfill facilities adequate to support this growth? If not, where will additional facilities be located?

Recreation-----There is reference to an OHV trail but nothing regarding hiking and biking. There has been talk of bike trails from Saint George to Zion but nothing is shown in the bill.. Draw them in so future development will make allowances for their siting. There are many “close in” opportunities for hiking trails in areas that currently are NOT possible to hike in due to terrain or management objections. Get the wilderness advocates, hikers, bikers, equestrian and motorized riders together, along with the State Parks and the Redhills Desert Preserve management and mandate they come up with a plan to share the recreational opportunities of the county. Quite frankly; there is plenty of room for everybody. With close to another half a million people moving to the area the time is now to plan for their recreational needs.

Water--------- Is there really a need for the Lake Powell pipeline? Just how many people would our current water facilities supply? How much savings would come about by converting most of the grass in lawns into landscape that didn’t require much water. Could treated sewage be used for any of our irrigation needs? The politics of claiming Utah’s water from the Colorado River is understood but is there any other way or place to use it other that building an expensive pipeline to a lake that currently is less than half full?

Is there enough private acreage open to development to accommodate the projected 400-500,000 new residents w/o adding another 40 square miles to the mix.------- . At the very least could initial sale of public lands be limited to those parcels difficult to manage due to close proximity to developed areas that have no significant archeological or public recreational opportunities. Adding 40 square miles to the development base in this county would add to the need for more roads and utilities, causing sprawl and all those things a good Comprehensive Land Use Plan is meant to limit!

Take this planning process in stages; identifying traffic arterials and beltways necessary to move traffic around an area with 500,000 people. Provide for their recreational and utility needs. Set aside open space. Consolidate public/private lands then when all that is done; determine just how much additional public land must be put into private hands to insure a sustainable and viable economy for the county. Identify public lands that COULD? be disposed of in the future if and when it becomes necessary. Current planning at our local levels is more reactionary rather than visionary. The Comprehensive Land Use Plan should be one of vision for the growth and development of Washington County. The process deserves more than the current bill offers!

I'm in support of the Vision Dixie process, even as I remain a bit leary about just how that process will proceed.

Todd, when you say "We can either sit back and gripe about how things are going related to growth in the area, or we can get involved in the process and help shape the form that growth will take," I would point out that indeed many of us local residents have been trying pretty hard to "get involved with the process" of the Washington County Growth and Conservation Act as it has been shoveled out to us by our elected representatives. Trouble is, so far the only paths available to residents and citizens-at-large to "get involved" has been to "submit comments" to elected officials (this has been the tiresome and insufficient mantra of our county commissioners for the past two years) or to align ourselves with either, A. commercial groups or, B. special-interest groups. This has presented a very, very limited menu of options for individual citizens to "get involved with the process."

For goodness sake, isn't it at least a little ironic that this large and complex proposed bill that bears the title "Washington County Growth and Conservation Act" has never yet received a genuine, roberts-rules-of-order-type public hearing with the duly elected Washington County commissioners, a hearing that is genuinely receptive to comments and, especially, to questions from local and regional constituents?

As the Vision Dixie process proceeds, I hope that one of the principal things it will foster is a system of public forums where elected officials--not just Vision Dixie roundtable members-- will directly meet, listen to, and respond to individual residents and citizens, and not just to spokesemen for various "stakeholders" and groups (I get to vote for candidates for public office; I probably don't get to vote for roundtable members). To a limited extent, yes, these workshops and open-houses we're besotted with do allow for a limited (!) measure of public input, and such meetings are helpful to the extent that they provide individual citizens with information on what elected and appointed officials are thinking and planning...for us, their constituents. However, these meetings fall significantly short of public hearings in that they allow elected officials to avoid responding directly and in front of their consituents not just to comments we would like to offer, but also to difficult and/or troubling questions about these issues that are really quite complex.

Will there ever be a series of public hearings on the proposed Lake Powell Pipeline project?

Todd, you also state that, "The goal, of course, is to help county residents reach common ground." This is, of course, a wonderful--and very abstract--ideal, and one that I think many of us are in support of. But let us keep in mind that the actual, very real, and vitally important "common ground" for our society is, in point of fact, our public lands.

Thanks, Todd, for encouraging us to "Get involved. Stay involved." I think many, many of us have been and indeed remain willing. And once we finally have an opportunity to do something more than "submit comments," the process might then have a real chance of setting a genuine positive precedent for achieving reasonable and lasting concensus on complex land-management issues as our society continues to find its way into and through this still-new and oh-so-dynamic century.

As it should be, there is a lot of talk about the Vision Dixie land use planning process and citizen involvement. As it should be, there are lots of questions about the crafting of the Washington County land bill and citizen involvement. The issue of pure democracy (full citize participation in every public policy decision) verses representative government (full citizen participation in the selection of those who will make public policy decisions) has rages since before the first 4th of July. Fortunately, the Founding Fathers, in framing the US Constitution arived at a system of representative government. That is, we all go through a process of seemingly endless public debate about public policy during the nominations and the election of public officers, who's burdens can not be delegaded (though sometimes abdicated), to make public policy. Those same, duly elected and properly sworn, local, state and federal government office holders, in an attmept to be loyal to their charge to make public policy insitgated a process, called Vision Dixie. Through this process, those elected officials, wisely sough out the advise and assistance of respected community and business leaders in whom they had confidence, to develop a long term strategy to responsibly manage the inevitable growth in Washington County. Part of the outcome of that long and laborious process is what is commonly known as the Washington County lands bill. Is is perfect? Only time will tell. Is everything cast in stone? No, it can and probably will require changes over time. Did any of the participants in the Vision Dixie process get everything they wanted. No, not even close. Is it carefully and maticulously reasoned? I believe it is. Should it be enacted into law today? Absolutely! Cudos to the Vision Dixie participants. You got it right!

What the founding fathers never envisioned, Voin, is the fix we're in now - we have the best government that money can buy.

What they did envision is that it's the responsibility of the governed to keep an eye on their government - and when necessary, vote the bums out!

Actually, although the Founding Fathers may not have anticipated every possible problem we would face, they did anticipate the displeasure of those affected by how lawmakers deal with the problems of their day. They provided a mechanism to vote incumbants out. They also provided, by the same mechanism, for those of us who approve of the incumbants actions to keep them around. Isn't our marvelous constitution wonderfully thought out and well crafted?

All the stuff they were explicit about has served us really well. The stuff they left more vague, we've been arguing about for over 200 years now.

Maybe the fact that they left us stuff to argue over is the smartest move of all - sure keeps us on our toes, doesn't it?