By Aidan Mortensen | KOAL News

As the community across Emery County continues to be impacted by the ongoing opioid crisis and by displeasure with solar farms, the Emery County Commission is seeking ways to ensure the public is involved and has a voice in government proceedings. 

Emery County Commissioner Jordan Leonard joined the KOAL newsroom to discuss citizen concerns across the county and the distribution of opioid settlement funds to programs in the area.

Starting with the opioid settlement funds, Leonard shared,” We had a couple of proposals, and we’re excited about them. We have really good partners now with the HEART program, Four Corners, and the health department. We had two entities come and ask for funding, so these entities are helping with mental health, opioid addiction and other addictions that we have in the community.”

He continued,” We were able to give them some seed money to help get them started and move forward to help our community with some of these addictions. I don’t think things are going to get any easier in our community, so we need to make sure that we have as many resources as we can, and that’s what these opioid funds are meant to be used for, to help move the needle in the right direction to give people support with some of these challenges.”

Switching topics, Leonard turned to ongoing citizen concerns about solar fields. He explained the precarious position the county is put in with these projects on private lands,” I think that we definitely want to protect private property rights. Still, we also understand that there are a lot of citizens that have had enough of solar … We do have solar companies pushing pretty hard on Emery County, trying to get solar projects here. They are working with local landowners. There was a conversation yesterday in meetings about a potential solar project looking at going on SITLA land. I know that got some pushback. We’re going to have some public meetings. We’re going to have more discussions, make sure that we do the right thing for the community, and we get some good input.”

Leonard also spoke on the impact projects can have on the Planning and Zoning Commission,” Planning and Zoning Committees and boards are usually in promoting growth and development. You know, solar is a totally different ballgame when it comes to that. And I think we’re getting, we’re going to get some support through the state legislature this year because they know this is a challenge for other communities around the state.”

In an effort to gather more community input, the Commissioners will hit the road on March 11 to host a town-hall meeting in Green River, Utah, alongside HD69 Rep. Logan Monson.

“I think we’ll talk about some legislative items, and then for the commission, we’ll talk about the different areas that we look after for our responsibilities and what’s happening in our different responsibilities. So it’ll be good to go to Green River and answer questions and also give updates on what’s happening.”

Closing our conversation, Leonard shared information on the upcoming Millsite Off-Ice tournament: “There is a fishing tournament coming up in March if you want to preplan for that. And that’s the Millsite Off-Ice, I believe it’s the weekend of the 20th.”