CEDAR CITY — Doing business in rural Utah could mean having it all — clean air, open space, and a direct link to the rest of the world through the use of modern technology, Cedar City's mayor said Friday at a rural summit.

"All those disadvantages of Cedar City will become huge advantages," Gerald Sherratt said during a discussion of rural Utah's future and its enormous economic potential at the 18th Annual Utah Rural Summit at Southern Utah University.

While the Cedar City Council voted against financing the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency, or UTOPIA, Sherratt said the city still belongs to the 14-member coalition of cities. The group contracts with private companies for installation and provision of high-speed voice, video and data transmission services to its residents and businesses.

"Places like Brigham City (which is a finance partner in UTOPIA) will benefit financially from it, but at least Cedar City will have it," the mayor said.

The two-day rural summit attracted dozens of economic development officials and elected leaders from around the state. Breakout sessions included topics such as the pros and cons of big-box retailers, public land issues, tourism promotion and how to capitalize on individual economic strengths through business clusters.

Attracting new business to rural Utah really does depend on the ability to provide the right kind of infrastructure, said Rob Adams, economic development director for Beaver County.

"Over the last several years, we've responded to recruitment efforts, and we've had major problems," he said. "It's the classic chicken-and-the-egg argument. We can't extend the infrastructure without having someone to buy the gas, electricity and telecommunications already there, but we can't attract new business without the infrastructure in place."

Ed Meyer, with the Utah Office of Rural Development, said rural companies are also facing the daunting task of providing health insurance for employees.

"We conducted a survey of 500 rural businesses in the state and found that 53 percent of them don't have insurance for their employees," he said. "It goes to 73 percent when it's companies with less than 10 employees."

The survey results will be posted next week on rural.utah.gov.

"But there are options out there," including the state's Children's Health Insurance Program, that are vastly underutilized in rural Utah, he added.

Bill Johnson, Vernal's economic development director, said his community's No. 1 priority is water development.

"The Central Utah Project wasn't completed to Vernal and Duchesne County, and we're not getting our water," he said. "We want that put back onto your radar screen," he told state officials.

Vernal's second priority involves providing a technical education for residents, a goal that Johnson said "seems to be low on the Legislature's list."

"We've got 500 jobs in Uinta County open that don't necessarily take a university degree," he said. "We need some form of education in the rural areas better than what we have right now."

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