Grand County is doing everything in their power to shut-down motorized recreation in/around the county, to include car shows at the Spanish Valley Arena. I attended their Council meeting last night, here are the notes:

Grand County Commission notes:
-Christina Sloan (attorney) and Sarah Stock (commissioner) are clearly anti-motorized anything, even to the extent that they lobbied against a recurring car show at the Spanish Valley Arena. Sarah Stock continued to rail against anything motorized and against the car show because "it would give them hope they could grow". Christina kept trying to tie this back to their "Noise ordinance"
-At the beginning of the meeting, the commission seemed almost giddy about continuing to enforce a mask mandate post the State's removal of the Covid mask mandate.
-A bill was introduced and approved to develop additional trails (based on an RTP grant), based on OHV fees/fuel taxes collected, though some of the county council seemed to talk about hiking/biking trails..
-FOX 13 News was on the ZOOM call (just informational)
-Grand County council are not tech savvy. Failed to MUTE many times and clearly didn't realize their cameras were on as they walked about their homes, etc. Mary McGann just wandered off several times, but left her camera on. Gabriel Woytek (councilman) seemed to be sitting under a tarp canopy with a bed sheet as his backdrop.
-Public comments opened up about ATV rentals/businesses: Other than rental businesses selling their own old fleet, all ATV’s/UTV’s being sold must be ELECTRIC.  Note: Mary wandered off for a bit during this section. I got my 2 minutes to speak and ask them how they were going to regulate noise from Diesel big rigs compared to UTV’s. Chris (VP of UTVUtah) spoke well, but was cutoff due to the 2minute clock, followed by Kent Green who called the Council out on being discriminatory. A couple of local business owners chimed in about the discriminatory nature of the Councils requirements. Recommendation was made and 2nd’ that there should be a designated route around Moab to get to Sand Flats, etc. Jared Trader (who looked to be 17 years old) indicated that UTV noise pollution was a very real problem and was creating real health issues. One consistent comment about trailering is “where to park” ?
-Mary McGann is Utah’s Nancy Pelosi.. Cliff Koontz is supporting mandatory renter education and a revised noise level for UTV’s (Mary Mcgann wandered off yet again)
-Brett Stewart was one of the last speakers and he referred back to the Street Legal Laws to the Commission.

Flipper wrote on 04/08/21 at 06:41:55:


Moab, and the counties, are definitely run by lobbyists and cronyism.  I have family members that rent AirBNB places down there, and the hotel lobbies absolutely have sway, and it's very difficult (and getting more difficult) to find any places you can do that.

It does make no sense, because AirBNBs still pay the same "hotel" taxes as hotels, and if anything, employ MORE people in cleaning, because AirBnBs get cleaned FAR more thoroughly than hotels do - and a LOT of locals are employed in cleaning AirBNB rentals.  All in all, it makes no economic sense for the city or counties to so heavily restrict zoning, and to not open zoning in new developments for overnight stays.   Yet... they're siding with the hotels, pretty much completely.

Like Douglas Adams said... anyone who WANTS to be in power is generally one of the LAST people who SHOULD be in power.