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Saturday, June 7, 2014

Marathon Denied, Enterprise Zone Discussed


Rich County has a policy of not allowing races that close two lanes of roadway around the lake during the busy summer months.  Mitch Poulsen, director of Bear Lake Regional Commission, asked for an exception for a Bear Lake  marathon and half marathon at 6 am in the morning June 13-14 .  Norm Weston and Bill Cox said the problem is precedence  The half marathon will end at the LDS church in Garden City as does the marathon.  Norm Weston does not want to double up the road. "We should stick to our policy," said Commissioner Bill Cox.

Poulsen introduced the idea of an Enterprise Zone for the county.  The State website has documentation on Enterprise Zones.  They are established to designate an area where businesses may claim state tax relief in small counties.  The State has a map online of existing zones.  

The State wants to focus on small businesses. It opens existing businesses to tax credits.   It is not land use, but used for job growth and creation and incentives to expand their businesses.  Adopt the whole county as an enterprise zone, said Poulsen.  This gets a home garage business into a storefront because with the tax credits it would be more affordable.  There is for example a tax credit of 25% for a 200,000 rehabilitation of a building that was empty for two or more years.  There are other grants available for businesses who are adding employees. The county needs to target what kinds of jobs they can get.  Poulsen has been asked to look into this to get even more information.

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