The Utah Coal Country Strike Team is one of five proposals that has advanced to the final round of the $1 million Alliance for the American Dream Competition. The Alliance for the American Dream is an initiative of Schmidt Futures, who believe that a healthier and more robust middle class will reduce income disparity and ensure upward economic mobility, enhancing opportunities for more Americans, and increasing the country’s competitiveness.
“The Utah Coal Country Strike Team is the brainchild of Natalie Gochnour at the University of Utah Public Policy Institute and they were looking for a project to help an area and Natalie and I happen to know each other so we came up with a project for this area and she took it and ran with it,” said Price City Community Director, Nick Tatton. The University of Utah, a member of the Alliance, is leading The American Dream Ideas Challenge for Utah. The challenge aims to find, fund, and develop policy and technology innovations that have the potential to increase net income by 10 percent for 10,000 of the state’s middle-class households by 2020.
The team has the full backing from the University of Utah who has partnered with Utah State University both of which are two major public research institutions. “They’re going to help with a transition plan. They have four areas of emphasis that they want to work on for the community. One is Red Rock GateWay which is an effort to enhance and promote the area’s designation tourism rather than pass through; another is Silicone Slopes East to open up a branch of Silicone Slopes and that association and effort in this area,” explained Tatton. The other two interventions are to revitalize housing stock to increase wealth and create a more attractive community, plus establish customized economic incentives to spur development in the counties.
“Our area is on its way as one of the finalists for $1 million in private funding, as well as all those matched state and federal sources. And the University of Utah is committed to do it whether we have the funding or not; help with all the planning and the research; it’s the top state Economic Specialists and Demographers and they’re working hard on this,” stated Tatton. Utah Coal Country Strike Team is one of three Utah projects that is moving on to the final round of competition and they will now use the final months to polish their ideas before facing a final evaluation this summer.
PHOTO COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF UTAH