This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

I attended the public hearing in Panguitch on March 13 at which the Garfield County Commission approved a resolution to shrink the boundaries of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by up to 75 percent.

While I was unable to enter the building due to the crowd size, I did watch much of the "action" on a laptop outside. I can safely state that Rep. Mike Noel and the commissioners are firmly embedded in the age of disinformation, given their continued rationales for shrinking the monument.

They blame it for the demise of the sawmill in Escalante, when (a) no commercial logging was ever done inside the monument and (b) even the press of the day indicates the mill was on its deathbed even before the designation in 1996. They claim that livestock grazing has declined because of it, when the numbers indicate that this is simply not true. They want to get at the dirty, remote, coal on the Kaiparowitz, for which there is no market. They claim that the towns in Garfield County are suffering economically, when anyone with eyes to see can observe the new and expanding economic activity in those towns.

As for shrinking school enrollments, this is a problem for nearly all small rural towns in the West. In other words, they would love to turn the clock back 100 years, to the "good old days."

Once upon a time, many people were employed building wagons and making buggy whips. There once was a thriving farm economy growing tobacco and cotton with slave labor. The children and grandchildren of those people have had to adapt to current realities and find other ways to make a living. It's about time Garfield County quit feeling victimized and embraced the economic opportunities provided by some of the most matchless landscapes on the planet. The business owners in Escalante, Boulder and Kanab and the American public that treasures these lands would thank them for it.

Veronica Egan

Teasdale