CACHE COUNTY — Former house representative for Cache County in the Utah legislature, Jack Draxler, has been staying busy since leaving public office.
He is the co-chair of a task force that worked throughout the spring with many leaders from Cache Valley, community members and more. They collected and analyzed data on open space, on growth, on changes over the years in northern Utah.
They presented a report to the Cache County Council, which prompted the council to vote almost unanimously to put on the ballot a question for voters.
It asks, if Cache County should bond to set some money aside to set land aside for open space.
On a recent KVNU For the People program, Draxler talked about the Open Space Initiative.
“It’s going to be on the November 8th ballot which will be mailed out in October, actually. And we’re going to be sending out a mailer to every registered voter in the county that answers what we think are the key questions in voters minds about this issue, and why it’s important, and in our opinion, why people should vote for it,” he explained.
Draxler talked about how the initiative would work.
“A couple key elements, it will be a situation that is completely voluntary. No landowner would have the force of government or condemnation brought against them regarding this. It would only be landowners who were willing to place some or all of their land in a conservation easement.”
He said it would work similar to the RAPZ tax which has been extremely successful in the valley, where the county would appoint a board to evaluate proposals and then make a recommendation to the Cache County Council, then they would make the final choice on how these funds would be used.