EVANSTON — The Uinta County Economic Development Commission (UCEDC) met for their monthly meeting at the Lyman Town Hall on Wednesday, March 26. The meeting agenda focused on updating the strategic plans UCEDC had developed in 2024.

The 2024 strategic plans main goals included: workforce development, quality of life/housing, promoting development and funding/revenue. 

The members assigned to the workforce development goal are Jon Conrad, Mike Williams, Clyde Kofoed, Sheila McGuire, Mark McGurn and Amy Jensen. Kofoed has since resigned from UCEDC due to being elected mayor of Bear River. The focus of that group was working with the NextGen program and business leaders to develop career opportunities, training and education paths and to gain industry support.

The quality-of-life group focused on supporting housing development by working with city and county officials to develop a contact and resource list for contractors in order to expedite development. Commission members to work on that goal are Kelly Bonner and Gary Welling.

Dan Wheeler, Bryan Ayres and Ben Bell are assigned to the “promote development” goal. The plan was to apply for grants and identify land within the city and county that could be procured to offer to developers.

The members who focused on the funding and revenue goal are Rocco O’Neill, Brent Hatch and Eric Wyatt. At that time, they focused on attempting to get the half-cent tax resolution passed during the 2024 primary election, though it failed.

Welling asked if the goals were still relevant and should they reorganize.

“I’m frustrated,” UCEDC chair Wheeler said, “How do we put all of this together?”

The group had a long discussion about possibilities and eventually decided to combine the workforce development goal and the quality of life/housing goal into one group. They determined that the two goals were so closely linked it would be a benefit to work on it together.

Bell reported he had been contacted by a young couple who want to develop housing in Wyoming and he connected them with landowner and developer Mike Pexton.

“We also need to work with cities on the process of building codes and infrastructure to make it easier for developers,” Bell said.

O’Neill said the city is in the process of looking at the codes and are working on a new comprehensive plan.

A discussion then was held on the NextGen program and Wheeler asked how they could get school districts to attend the NextGen conferences.

Ron Wild with the NextGen program said they had met with principals of the schools and representatives were attending grant meetings at the colleges. He added the focus of NextGen is to reach out to students and encourage them to consider tech and trade careers.

At the last UCEDC meeting, Conrad had asked the commission to prepare a summary of the accomplishments and failures of the commission in order to show the public what UCEDC does.

Welling’s administrative assistant, Darby Norda, had one prepared and gave each person a copy. The brochure covers the mission, vision and values of UCEDC and outlines the accomplishments and losses from 2019 through 2024. Norda said anyone interested can pick one up at the county planning office at the county complex in Evanston.

Conrad and the other members thanked Norda and complimented her on a job well done.

The meeting ended with Wheeler giving a report on the conclusion of the Jumpstart classes for that season. An average of 32 people had attended and eight entrepreneurs had won funds. He said the funding comes from private donations and not taxpayers’ money.

Kiley Ingersoll, southwest regional director of Wyoming Business Council, announced she is taking another position and will be leaving soon. She thanked UCEDC for the time she had spent working with them.

Ingersoll announced that Kickstart applications had opened March 1. She encouraged UCEDC members to attend several upcoming events.