Those two topics and a lot more were dealt with at the recent National Association of Counties convention held in Nashville, Tenn.
All three Davis County Commissioners attended various sessions of the multi-day conference held last week.
“The True Cost of a Wildfire” was a session freshman County Commissioner John Petroff attended, with the major Farmington wildfire of several years ago still fresh.
“The panel talked about cost not only of fighting the fire, but also the cost for recovery of the (effected) area,” he said.
“Some of the panelists were from areas in California where several hundred homes got burned. They’re trying to mitigate it and make it possible for others to learn up front” about potential impacts, Petroff said.
“Chasing Down the Values” was a session Commission Chair Bret Millburn attended, which dealt with property tax valuation.
“That session was in regard to challenges we all face in counties dealing with assessing, especially over the last couple of years,” he said.
“There have been some dramatic increases (in valuations), and now a sharp decline in values. There are some inherent challenges there,” Millburn said.
“Some tips and tools were shared to help us hopefully mitigate those issues,” he said.
In addition to the wide variety of topics that were covered, Petroff said “we also learned to work with the people that are there.”
Thousands of county commissioners, and their equivalents, converge on the sessions from across the nation.
“Sometimes you have to realize an issue isn’t as black and white as you might think,” Petroff said. He used the example of coal-fired power plants.
Many people are pushing shutting them down or curtailing their contribution to the nation’s energy supply, citing emissions concerns.
“You can sit and talk with somebody and talk about what will happen,” he said of being able to engage face-to-face with county officials from other parts of the country who might have a totally different view.
“If you do that (cut out coal power plants) here (in the West), then what you do, you have to visualize what happens to the overall economy,” Petroff said.
“California is a perfect example” where issues may not appear as cut and dried as they may seem
“They want power like crazy. but want it to come from somewhere else. They don’t want a power plant to be built by them,” Petroff said.
While at the conference, the commissioner was interviewed for a telephone survey as to whether he’d want a nuclear power plant in Utah.
“Absolutely,” Petroff said. “No one has ever (reportedly) been hurt” in a nuclear power plant accident in this country, he said. “I drove right by Three Mile Island,” in Pennsylvania, the site of what has been considered the most serious commercial nuclear power plant accident.
The 1979 accident was a partial core meltdown in a pressurized water reactor. No increase in cancer or other levels reportedly could be determined due to the incident.
“It’s all running, generating ‘zillions’ of megawatts of energy,” Petroff said of the plant.
tbusselberg@davisclipper.com
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