Resident pitches idea of county advocate to commissioners

Mineral County resident George Regan was at the regularly scheduled meeting of the Mineral County Commissioners on Friday to discuss his ideas for creating a countywide advocate.

According to Regan, the idea to create an advocate position after looking at various groups in the county and “realizing that maybe not everybody knows what each other is doing.”

“Mineral County needs an advocate, a lobbyist,” Regan said. “Someone whose job is to promote Mineral County.”

Regan elaborated on his idea with the county commissioners, saying that building “face-to-face” relationships with people and companies nationwide would ultimately be beneficial to the county.

Commissioner Roman Zylawy agreed with Regan that “networking is what it’s all about” and added the commissioners have been participating in networking in an effort to get other entities such as the Forest Service on the same page with Mineral County.

“They understand and they want to help but they can’t because it’s higher than them,” Commissioner Zylawy said. “I hear what you are saying and we’re kind of trying but its sort of hard when 90% of the land is locked up…I don’t know who we could entice but we are always thinking about that.”

Regan responded to Commissioner Zylawy by stating there is people in the county already working with the forest service but “we should use the land and forget the organization.”

After Commissioner Zylawy asked Regan what he meant by using the land, Regan stated that the county should use the land as an attractant to businesses that are unsatisfied with operating in cities – adding that if the county does not have things like a work force or broadband, they would never get it if that is how they are marketing themselves.

“Well I don’t think that’s true because we are working on those things all the time,” Commissioner Duane Simons said. “There was a time there was no low-income housing in St. Regis, now there is low-income housing in St. Regis and they are working on even more. There’s now low-income housing in Superior and they are working on even more. So to say ‘you guys have just tossed everything aside’ and ‘if you look at it that way you are never going to have it’, we don’t look at it that way – we are working on those things and we have been working on those things.”

Commissioner Simons added that “we aren’t giving up” and “some of those businesses will move here because they want to move here” and it wouldn’t require an advocate to bring them here.