I couldn't disagree more. Washington County's land bill is merely a follow-up to Sen. Harry Reid's and Sen. John Ensign's Lincoln and Clark Counties land bill that is reinventing the "Sagebrush Rebellion" for the 21st Century. This movement - more than a quarter of a century ago - was a plight to give Western states equitable shares of public lands and their natural resources. It was an attempt to turn more federal land over to more local control. It was needed in the '70s and its still needed now. The federal government owns an average of 60 percent of land in the 12 states that include the Rockies or lie west of them. I think this violates state's rights and I think Reid found and ingenious way to gain control for his state of Neveda that has been deserving of it for decades. Kudos! My extended family have been in the sheep and cattle industry ever since Southern Utah's humble beginnings and the massive amounts of federal ownership has had an adverse affect on the livelihood of these hard-working folks, not to mention the local economies that have tremendous potential but are restrained by federal ropes. As U.S. Interior Department economist Robert H. Nelson noted in the early 1980s, as he analyzed the Sagebrush Rebellion and the privatization movement, "Federal ownership of vast areas of western land is an anomaly in the American system of private enterprise and decentralized governent authority." I agree with the words from "The Angry West," published in 1982 by Richard Lamm and writer Michael McCarthy, that public lands had never been intended to be held in perpetuity by the federal government. Washington County is 82.5 percent federally owned. The land bill asks for a measely 1 percent of that to continue to grow and prosper. Utah's Dixie deserves far more than that! The revival of the Sagebrush Rebellion is in order, especially since a Congressional mandate has already set precedent with the passage of Reid's and Ensign's bill. Certainly, Washington County is as deserving as Lincoln and Clark Counties. Their BLM land sales have brought in an estimated $2.7 billion since 1998, when the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act was made law. You bet this had a positive impact on the local economy and I think the same can happen in Washington County, which will drive wages up, too. I've only become more firm in believing the land bill was the right endeavor in the wake of Nevada's success. My word, it's been the right choice for the last 30 years - if not longer. Congress finally recognized that with Nevada. It's Utah's turn - and the other 10 states in the same situation under absurd federal ownership.

Jenn,
Part of the problem lies within your comment about the ranchers. They have stripped public lands with uncontrolled grazing. They have not replenished the natural grasses nor taken proper care of the environment in those areas.

I can recall standing on a rise over the sacred Parowan Gap with a developer one day. He turned to me and said: "You see beautiful skies, open land, flying eagles. I see condos, ranchettes and strip malls."

Is this what is to become of the natural beauty that surrounds us?

Jobs with better wages? Yes.

Affordable homes? Yes.

But let's get some perspective here. We are quickly becoming a home to the elitists who probably studied harder than we did in school, saved more money than us or got a fat inheritance from mommy and daddy. They are not invested in this place like you and me. It is a temporary stop until they can cash in here and sell their million-dollar homes for $2 million.

We've seen how the state has mangled the budget, education funding and health care. We've seen how Leavitt and Hansen and others have shown little care for the environment and purity of the land. We've consistently seen how special interests and family ties -- remember the Leavitts and Questar? -- take priority over the working man and woman.

Until the state comes up with a reasonable plan, which doesn't mean opening the floodgates for rich developers, I say let the feds handle it.

I don't understand all the legalese and big words, but I think I'm with Ed.

I want zero growth. We're too big already. I want about half the town to go back where they came from.

Oh, not you, Ed.

The "either-or" debate sets up a false choice. Conservation and economic prosperity go hand in hand, as communities throughout the West have shown. With respect to planning in Washington County, better late than never. Would it be underway without the Bennett/Matheson legislative effort? I think you'd have to conclude "no."

Jennifer:

There simply isn't enough water in the west for unlimited development. Existing development is straining the western water supply to the breaking point as it is. The only place to get it from now is for states to litigate it away from neighboring states or remove agriculture from the region. There has actually been discussion about ending ranching in parts of Colorado to facilitate more growth in the Denver area. And what happens if "oil shale" production comes online and needs billions of gallons of water a month? Which towns will be cleared of residents to free up the water supply for other uses?
I'm not even touching on that fact that this is where people from all over the world come to get away from urban blight, strip malls and ugly "Tuscan style" homes in neat Stepford rows. There has to be someplace for people to go that isn't overbuilt. As for good jobs, making it less socially acceptible to post calls for genocide and posts like the one yesterday in the forums repeating Aryan Nation separatist rhetoric are a good first step in attracting corporations. Responsible companies do not relocate their employees to places where they are likely to encounter racial or religious hatred and open calls for violence against them.

Ed, We're pretty much in synch on this one. The current bill puts the cart well before the horse - there should be agreement on WHICH land is to be privatized before a decision is made to privatize the land. That would simply require a survey by the BLM and other Dept of Interior agencies such as Forestry and NPS, with community input added. Let's all be honest - the land that the developers want isn't the open flatlands, it's the areas bordering Zion, Snow Canyon, Red Hills Preserve, and other premium locations. And as you suspect, they're not looking to build 'workforce housing' on any of it.

Jennifer, I take issue with the idea that Clark County is better off than it was before they acquired land around Las Vegas. Like everywhere else in the country, real wages for the average wage earner have not increased. There are more low-paying service sector jobs, which means the total wages paid are higher, but that doesn't make things better for the people there. The net property value of the county has increased, but so what? It's a plus for those who leverage the value of their property, but a net negative for the average taxpayer whose property taxes increase due to the perceived value of their land even while their actual income stays flat or decreases. The rich have gotten richer, there are more near-poverty level workers stuck in their own endless cycle, and the middle class pays the price through taxes and the lowered quality of life that is the inevitable result of too many people in too little space. (And 20 or 100 thousand acres doesn't make any difference - Nevada's population density would be about right if scattered around the whole state, instead of having 85% or whatever silly number it is in Las Vegas.)

I admit I'm biased. In the Sagebrush Rebellion, I'm on the side of the sagebrush, an acre of which is more attractive than any concrete consumer monument.

Bringing up the water issue with this is a good argument. I worry about having enough water but no one can simply give a straight answer on it. All I know is that there is definitely not enough done on water reclamation. Southern Utah communities can do much better with that and conservation. I agree with Alyson in that we would't even be discussing this without the land bill. It has resparked the conversation about growth, state's rights, federal ownership in western states, water resources, natural resources, which launched Vision Dixie and other Smart Growth strategies. While I wish this would've happened 10 years ago, at least it is happening now.

Check this out! Colorado is possibly going to try to grab the Green River from Utah to supply the Colorado Front Range (Fort Collins to Pueblo) with water for continued development. It's a tributary to the Colorado River, so the mud in Lake Powell's bottom may be a bit closer to the surface sooner than we thought. I'm tellin' ya, the next "war between the states" will be over water. I think the Green River is what the oil shale folks were eyeing if I remember correctly. So...it may come down to this: which states are to be depopulated to supply water for the developer's "growth" in the others? So far, it looks like sticking straws into Utah may become a habit for other states.
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_4425414

The Editorial staff of the Spectrum has done reasonably well in balancing is issues surrounding the Washington County lands bill, that is, until now. We all well know that, if we do not develop and use our Colorado River water soon, it wil be lost to other states who will use it. We clearly understand that the population growth in Washington County is primarily a product of national population growth and, with immagration factored in, growth will continue regardless of what do or does not happen at the our Southern border. Even while the problems of water and growth continue intensify before us, are these fundamentals really forgotten or just obscured by some? Thank goodness that Vision Dixie did not forget or ignore the obvious and got it right. I am confident that the Vision Dixie planning process will continue to make specific changes or corrections as needed, when needed. The lands bill must be enacted now. Yesterday would be even better.

Colorado's rationale for taking the Green River is "using their fair allocation". Nevada's rationale for taking water from Snake Valley is they aren't getting their "fair allocation". California doesn't think it's getting its fair share and Utah wants to "use it's fair share" before the others can by encouraging mass in- migration. There isn't enough water in the Colorado to give every state their "fair share" under the 1923 compact. The compact allocates 130% of the actual annual flow of the river. Clearly, in this rush to develop to the maximum extent possible and bank on cutting other states off, there will, by the laws of physics, end up being some areas totally devoid of water. Rushing headlong into self destruction is what all these areas seem to be hell bent on- mutual assured destruction is the term that springs to mind. The development must be slowed and the cities of Las Vegas, Denver and Phoenix need to shore up supply for existing population rather than continue growth without consideration of the well being of the entire regional population. If we all develop as large as we can in order to better screw over our neighboring states we will all be faced with no more golf, xeriscaping by law and sponge baths every third day if we are to remain in the west at all.

"Unfair" (ie, not favorable to me)and "need more study" (ie, don't like the facts) seems to be the uaual touchy, feely political arguement that people fall back on when their emotionally charged arguements are weak or the generally accepted proven don't support their position. When any conflice is resolved, somebody usually thinks that his ox was gored and crys "unfair, delay, delay". The preoccupation with uniminity (offend no one) rather then concensus is how got our selves into this endless cycle of "parralisis by analysis" in the first place. We never have had and never will have all the facts and somebody is always going to be unhappy. At some point, we have to make decisions and move on. "Life ain't always fair", never has, never will be. Some have always made sacrifices for the greater good and, hopefully, some will always be willing to do so. Our best chance for the most good for the greatest number is to give Dixie a chance to solve its problems locally. We must trust ourselves to locally make the right choices about future land uses. Our alternative is to trust hundreds of out of state environmentalists, lawyers and Washington bureaucrats to know whats better for us than we know about ourselves. The alternative, the status quo, is take meaningful local choises about land use, education funding and water and economic development off the table. With or without the lands bill, the demand for available developable land will increase. However, without the land bill, in the long term and even with short term ups and downs in property values, the already looming land and water stranglulation will intensify. Artificially restraicting the availability of developable land and the failure to develop new water sources will further triger ever rising values of already developed land and existing water hook ups. The result will be to continue to price regular people out of the market. Our already weak property tax base, relative to the rising demand and costs for education and general public infrastructure, will continue to fall further behind. We don't need that. We don't want that. Enough of the devious delay tactics. Lets stop beating our gums and do something before it's to late. Pass the land bill today. Yesterday would be better.

I have a few philosophical contributions to throw into the discussion on growth and our relationship to it.

In this post, I want to emphasize that whatever solution we decide to implement as a culture, we had better start changing our cultural assumptions about the economy, growth, the value of money (and increasingly credit, which isn’t money at all), our propensity to set a price tag on just about everything, and consumerism.

Our current modes are unhealthy, and I suggest that eventually they won’t work. Everything that grows eventually dies, from empires to thousand-year-old trees; but things that adopt a truly sustainable lifestyle (like bacterial cell division or vegetatively reproductive trees) can potentially persist for tens of thousands of years. In asking this query, I refer not to our corporeal selves, which are transitory, but our American consumerist pop-culture of today. Which type of culture does America have – one that is sustainable, or one that is not?

I have already made the argument a couple of weeks ago on the ultimate (and increasingly urgent) need to shift our mature economy away from growth, growth, and more growth all the time, and into something resembling a maintenance level of sustenance. This is more what the term “sustainability” refers to: input equals output; balance and harmony prevail; resource depletion and use is in line with renewal and replenishment; recycling and minimizing waste and pollution is a way of life for all; natural and moral/ethical limits are respected; the common life-support systems that literally keep us alive are honored and protected as if sacrosanct; and so on.

“Sustainable growth” is an oxymoron, at least on a physical level. A shift away from physical enlargement is going to need to be something that our culture wrestles with on every level, because it will ultimately be enforced upon us in harsh ways by outside means if we don’t adopt it voluntarily.

We humans, despite our intellect and cleverness, are not immune to Malthusian population corrections should we fail to understand this basic concept. One cannot become infinitely large on a physical level as a body, and the same limits will eventually prevail on a physical level for our cities, populations, and consumption rates. Obesity kills. Cancer kills. Both are examples of how unhealthy (and fatal) growth past logical natural limits is.

Empires always die, leaving nothing but ruins for future archeologists to ponder over, wondering what killed this once grand city and where its people dispersed to. Tribal bands and smaller-scale cultures, however, may well persist for thousands or tens of thousands of years. Ask the Hopi, the Zuni, or the Navajo, each of whom has been present around this general region for at least 800 years (Navajo) to several thousand (Hopi). Better yet, ask the Australian Aboriginals or the South African San “Bushmen”, who have both been around for a contiguous 30,000 or more years as cultures, and have a continuous oral history and relationship to the land to prove it. These people know something real about sustainability and longevity, and we Americans should take a clue or two from their examples.

Or ask the turtles and tortoises, frequently mythologized as keepers of the earth by native peoples, who have survived unchanged for 300 million years. Will today’s America survive for even another hundred years given the path we are on? I doubt it very much. We need to change paths. We need to truly embrace real “sustainability”, and not be misled by its knockoff euphemistic version gussied up in the drag of further “growth”. Our generation and the next couple that follow it are going to have to be the ones that start turning this Titanic around, away from the looming iceberg collision.

Physical growth must cease and a carrying capacity in line with natural resource limits (and I argue moral/spiritual ones too) must be adopted. Then growth can continue – on non-physical levels, such as cultural development, artistic pursuits, creative endeavors, healing the sick, restoring the wounded planet, and all types of other very worthwhile, non-consumptive pursuits. The type of growth we switch to is non-physical, in other words. Our American consumerist culture needs to internalize this, and quickly.

Until this cultural shift takes root across the land and in most hearts and minds regardless of other differences we may have as individuals and peoples, I have a few suggestions and observations on how to manage physical growth properly. As a realist, I know that these badly-needed shifts will not occur overnight, and as such we need some interim plans to deal with the impacts growth does have on a culture and society, not to mention our biosphere.

1. Growth and urbanization ought to be restrained to the least sensitive, least biologically diverse, most “expendable” lands. (I hate to use that last term, but it is the best I can think of.) Lands that are already stripped of their native species via agriculture, industry, and so on ought to be considered first. This makes sense because such lands are already usually privately owned.

After that, once-public BLM lands offered for sale that are easily accessible, flat, and not as impactful upon native creatures ought to be considered. Priority protection should be given to important physical features such as riparian zones, wetlands, ridgelines, mountains, canyons, and other harder-to-develop regions. Ones that also possess useful levels of wildlife and botanical value (including agricultural) should be doubly protected. Green, non-carbon-emitting energy supplies and nontoxic methods of food production, material trading, and the like should be the standard wherever possible in building and powering homes and businesses and public spaces.

2. As a culture we should start seeing all land and all life as sacred, and making it unthinkable to desecrate certain areas, while treating the areas to be developed with respect even if they seem “useless”. This is an ethic, and a worldview, that will take at least a couple of generations to fully take root, since our predominant Judeo-Christian mindset usually treats land as inanimate and nonhuman creatures as inferior. Both are there to be used for OUR purposes, not independent entities with perhaps their own pathways and rights to existence, and lessons to teach. I am just suggesting that this is a direction Western cultures like our own have not explored for thousands of years, and that it is high time to start reconnecting to that sense of sacredness in all that we do.

We have made some excellent moves towards this with our concepts of National Parks (of which Utah has far more than its fair share) and wilderness areas. But flaws in those areas exist in the form of a hands-off attitude, and a policing mentality so prevalent and sadly necessary when the more profane individuals in our midst treat the land and its creatures and its historical artifacts with disdain like vandalism and poaching and other predatory behaviors.

The long-term cultural shift towards reconnection will eventually eliminate such negativity, but for now we should start seeing our physical environment as more than a bunch of “wasted resources” with no intrinsic value of their own unless we can find a “use” for our own selfish purposes. When we get to this position we will stop seeing everything as a commodity, and the quality of life will improve for all.

3. With respect to “affordable housing”, I contend that as a part of that cultural shift we need to make our homes HOMES, not commodities and investments to be sold at a later date for a profit. I am not necessarily against profits, but to make them the primary consideration of what should instead be a home where a life is lived in tune with spiritual values (of your own choosing, I might add) as a part of a relationship to a larger community, is to miss the point of living altogether.

As long as homes are primarily about profits in a “free market” that values quantity over quality at most turns (or potential sales prices over actual costs), then housing will never be “affordable” for most, and will always turn towards benefiting the wealthier classes with the best access to capital and resources. The less-wealthy will be left behind. If the profit motive rules all, it will be too strong to resist, like an addiction. Balancing the right to make some profit with other, non-monetary values is imperative.

Once again, I speak of a widespread cultural shift away from consumerism as a key point to learning to manage growth in appropriate ways. When developers, lenders, realtors, and other members of the capital-controlling classes rule the game and are sanctioned by a culture that idolizes profitability, they will always see the land (and its people) as either opportunities for enriching themselves or obstacles to same. It is important that people start to voluntarily adopt a value system that places less value on materialism (and its ugly stepsister, greed) and more on whatever one defines as spiritual, alongside other intangible values without a price tag.

4. Until this shift takes place, I think that limited growth for Washington County cities is a good policy. Take it slow and steady, don’t rush to build everything as fast as possible, and don’t make hasty and irreversible decisions. Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, which in Southern Utah’s case is the magnificent spaciousness and world-class scenery that people travel thousands of miles for a chance to see, among other qualities. People are fortunate to live in Southern Utah. Why on earth pave paradise for the immense profit of a few capitalists, and to the lament of everyone else paying the barely-affordable mortgages?

Voluntary growth limits have been successfully adopted by communities everywhere in the developed world, from Canada to Europe to Japan. It isn’t a radical idea, even though it is still a minority position in an era when sprawl is so handsomely profitable. Not every place is growing anymore. San Francisco, for example, is hemmed in by water on three sides and suburbs to its south. It literally CANNOT GROW anymore on a physical level, and somehow switched over to other types of growth and activity by non-physical means.

Despite this cessation of physical growth, San Francisco remains a magnificent city with a thriving economy – and one not based in housing and sprawl, mind you! This example can apply to any city that has become restrained by its suburbs or geography – New York, Chicago, Key West, and more across the globe. They all have discovered ways to have an economy based in things other than more sprawl and population surges. Necessity is the mother of invention, isn’t it?

One final point on the links between “affordability” and rapid growth: THERE IS NO DIRECT LINK EITHER WAY! It is true that many limited-to-no-growth cities, like San Francisco or Manhattan, are incredibly expensive places to live. But Las Vegas, Phoenix, and St George are all growing very rapidly, and all are less affordable than they ever were in spite of it!

There simply is no provable link between fast growth and affordability. High costs are related to perceptions of “market hotness” and desirability, not to growth. High-growth areas and no-growth ones are both very pricey if demand exceeds supply. Want affordable? Move to an area not considered desirable. Rural North Dakota is very affordable, I hear….

I suggest that from now on, now that St George has been “discovered” by the outer world and is “hot” thanks to its many natural assets, that high prices will be a persistent problem. Until we change our cultural value system away from making the sales price and investment potential the primary factor in why we buy houses and where we live, and allow developers and lenders to set financial policies (aided and abetted by local and regional governments), we will face an abiding class division driven by wealthy investors and speculators that are cashing out in hyper-expensive San Francisco and moving to “affordable” (to a San Franciscan) St George. The problem lies mainly within our personal and collective cultural value system. It is not “out there” somewhere else, to be blamed on only one group.

Basically put, if we start moving our own lives towards that which we find meaningful, and away from culturally-conditioned, falsified “needs” like the right lifestyle in the right zip code and drinking the right drinks so that your life has meaning and you are a worthy person, then many of these problems we face with excessive overconsumption and golden-goose killing will start to right themselves.

I said it before, but it bears repeating: Too little growth will not be a problem in the foreseeable future of Washington County. But too much growth, too fast, and in the wrong places will! Let’s start discussing the viability of genuine alternatives to becoming a half-million people in 20 years. It is literally culturally insane to just blithely assume that that is the way it is going to be and has to be and is appropriate to be.

Our world is calling upon us humans to rebalance our behavior in so many ways, yet we seem so intent on blindly allowing outside forces to determine our fate. I think that the next step of human development on all levels is demanding that we generate creative solutions to problems that said blindness is creating.

I urge every one of us to rethink our assumptions about how we do things, and rise to the challenge. It is not overstatement to say that our cultural viability and future survival will depend on our willingness to successfully answer the rising distress signals we are seeing.

The Tao of Jan is definitely worth pursuing, however that would require a major cultural and economic shift in the thought process of those who decide to lay down hard-earned cash to live here.

I agree. A house should be a home, not an investment. Of course, you are listening at a world-class idealist here who barely has a nickel in his pocket after the bills are paid. Yet, I'm happy. Don't know if that will apply when I get older, losing my hair, many years from now. (Sorry for that interlude from The Beatles, but it seemed appropriate!)

The whole concept of property ownership, I must add, was totally distant to me until about 10 years ago. For the life of me, I don't understand where it all goes back to. I mean, who owned this land to begin with? How do we barter a price with and for Mother Earth? But, that's beside the point. I can go on about the lack of balance in the yin-yang of necessity versus greed, but it is, really, pointless.

And, we really need decisions made now, not two generations from now.

But, how do we, honestly, tell the poor guy who has been holding onto his large parcel of land that has been in the family for generations to turn down a million bucks so some developer can pave it over for a new row of cookie-cutter homes? Perhaps if there were incentives to keep it green, to keep it loose and open, they would have an alternative. But, will that help him put the kids through college?

Jan's theory of natural selection thinning the human herd is probably spot on, whether we like it or not (remember "Soylent Green"?) because there are limits to nature. That's not defeatist or alarmist, just a fact.

So, shouldn't we start thinking about these things? How DO we find a little nook or cranny for all of us to survive in?

Yeah, there's still a lot of land here in Washington County. But, before we turn it into strip malls, luxury houses for the captains of commerce and high-density rat cages for the proles, shouldn't we take at least five minutes to suss it all out?

I hope so.

Voin,

You have it wrong. ""need more study" (ie, don't like the facts)" is not the issue at all. The problem is that what the proponents of the bill state to be facts simply are NOT facts. This post is already going to be long, so I won't go over every claim point by point, but let's look at this very basic one: how much private, undeveloped developable land actually exists in Washington County? Even the proponents of the Act cannot provide a clear answer to that question. Is the private developable land 75-80% developed, as some claim, or is it barely 10% developed, as the Chamber of Commerce claimed until fairly recently? My guess is it's somewhere in between, but I honestly can't tell which figure it's closer to - though the rush to push this legislation through suggests to me that those who support the Act's passage don't WANT me to know what the facts are. Before we rashly give all the premium remaining private land in the county to all the Senator's and Congressman's largest campaign contributors, let's figure out what we really have and what we really need.

This isn't NASCAR - the goal is NOT to go as fast as possible, nor to finish first. Think of it like the old Mobil Economy Run, where the goal was to go as far as possible using a limited supply of resources - exactly the parallel of the local situation.

None of the land that the developers want will go away if they have to wait until 2010 instead of 2008, nor is any of it likely to decrease in value.

We could easily put 3 million people into St George using not one more square foot of land simply by building higher density, multi-level housing. "Unlimited growth" eventually means that it would be necessary to do exactly that, even if ALL the land in the county is declared developable. How do you plan to deal with the 40 million people in Washington county by 2060, if the current growth rate is sustained?

As Jan points out, at some place in the cycle of 'growth' there is a breaking point at which the land can no longer support the population. For my money, the current argument is between those who see that point in the not too distant future and want to deal with it logically, and those who see it coming and look for ways to exploit it for their personal financial benefit.

I do agree with you on one thing: Dixie needs to be given the opportunity to work out its problems for itself. That means input from ALL interests, not only those hand-picked by the pro-development sources, who put together the current proposal.

Jennifer and all,

Here's some breaking news from the Associated Press on Harry Reid and the land swap around Las Vegas:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061011/ap_on_go_co/reid_land_windfall;_ylt=AjxrFlBfeqXmxZXFec7xIoGMwfIE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3OXIzMDMzBHNlYwM3MDM-

Sad but true: these things always benefit the few at the expense of the many. And it doesn't really matter what political party they belong to.

Population growth will keep occuring in Washington County because of its clean, friendly communities as well as its outstanding scenery, recreation and weather.

The only way to stop growth in Washington County is to make it an ugly, sprawling, traffic-choked and crime-ridden metropolis where no one wants to live.

We only have one chance to choose our future. Vision Dixie is clearly the better way for us to make that choice. The lands bill would make the sprawl-fueling choice for us. It must be shelved until our community speaks its mind about the future.

Let us congratulate the leaders who helped inspire the current and crucial growth dialogue. But let's not allow ourselves to be locked into a bad bill that trades our economically-prosperous scenery into more subdivision scars and unaffordable gated communities.

We already have 200,000+ acres of private land where sprawl can happen. We have another 30,000 acres of State land that will be developed soon. We simply do not need more private land to ruin. We already have a near-nightmare to manage on our existing private land. Adding more land now would simply be throwing fuel on the fire.

By all estimates--even the Water Conservancy District--we have at least 15 years(probably 20) until water becomes a genuine (not an orchestrated) issue. There is simply no legitimate reason why the lands bill must pass this year.

By the time Vision Dixie identifies our community-preferred vision, politics in D.C. will be ready for a legitimate and well thought out piece of legislation for Washington County.

Let's put the cart and horse back where they belong. Our community must lead the way towards our future, not politicians with empires to build and dogmatic agendas to pursue.

It's time to let the lands bill rest in peace. We have a community vision that needs our full attention.