Tour to show county's assets, challenges

This year the Utah Legislature decided to visit Salt Lake County as part of its annual tour to a particular area of the state. We are pleased the Legislature made this decision. Even though legislators and most other people are familiar with Salt Lake County, there is still much to learn, and we greatly appreciate this opportunity to provide a fresh perspective and focus on key issues confronting Utah's most urbanized area.

The Salt Lake Chamber, along with Salt Lake County, the Downtown Alliance and the Salt Lake Valley Convention & Visitors Bureau, was invited to host this tour, and we have been working for months to prepare.

Because this visit has generated substantial news media coverage focused on the cost of this event, I wanted to take this opportunity to describe our preparations and our attempt to present the contrasts of Salt Lake County — both its great challenges and great promise.

During the daylong tour, we will cover more than three dozen topics, issues and areas of focus, including numerous human services challenges, environment and open space, growth issues (highways, mass transit, west-side development, housing, air quality, etc.), education, arts and culture, local government issues, conventions, hospitality, sports, other economic development issues, and other topics.

These important topics will be presented and discussed in a variety of ways, including speakers and presentations, video reports, white papers, short briefing papers and visits to specific sites. The tour, overall, is very much policy and issue-oriented. There is no entertainment or wasted time.

Legislators will travel to a variety of locations across the county and will have the opportunity to see the challenges and opportunities of the burgeoning west side, a part of the valley many aren't familiar with.

In order to take advantage of every minute the legislators are with us, we have prepared video segments that will be shown during bus rides between stops. These presentations will cover topics and interviews with key people that we simply don't have time to conduct in person. While concern has been expressed about the cost of the video, many of the segments will be able to be used again in a variety of ways as these issues are confronted.

Legislators will be on two different tracks during the day with numerous stops on each track. Coordinating all the speakers, schedules, presentations, briefing materials, breakfast, lunch, dinner, transportation, etc., has been a terrific logistical challenge requiring hundreds of hours of work. In all we expect that more than 500 people will participate in the day's events.