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The new Grand County commissioners
Meet the commissioners!
GRAND COUNTY’S NEWLY ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES
Written by Sharon Sullivan
THE MOAB AREA REAL ESTATE MAGAZINE SPOKE WITH THE THREE NEWLY ELECTED GRAND COUNTY COMMISSIONERS TO GIVE READERS AN IDEA OF THEIR BACKGROUNDS AND WHERE THEY STAND ON SOME OF THE COUNTY’S TOP ISSUES. MARY MCGANN WAS RE-ELECTED AS COMMISSIONER AT-LARGE, AND BILL WINFIELD AND MIKE MCCURDY WERE EACH ELECTED AS COMMISSIONERS REPRESENTING DISTRICTS AT-LARGE AND 5, RESPECTIVELY.
Mary McGann
McGann grew up in Moab after her family moved here when she was in kindergarten. She left town at 18 to attend college, and returned to Moab when she was 30 to teach kindergarten through 12th grades, including special education. She’s married, the mother of four, and grandmother of eight children.
McGann remembers her father telling her that “running for office without an agenda is a great way to serve your community.” “I grew up in a family that believed in being politically active,” she says. “My father served on Moab City Council and my mom served on the Grand County Commission. So, at a young age I knew when the time allowed, I would serve the public in some form.”
McGann first ran for Grand County Commission eight years ago and won. In January, she will begin her third and what she says will be her final term as a county commissioner. Though she loves “working hard to improve the situation for community members,” she does not enjoy campaigning, she says.
A couple of projects she’s worked on and is particularly proud of include the designation of Utahraptor State Park by state legislators in 2021, and the removal of radioactive uranium mill tailings from the banks of the Colorado River in Moab.
McGann also wants to see to completion the Arroyo Crossing project – a lower-income housing development of 300 homes. Some of the housing will be apartments to rent, while other homes will be available to purchase. It’s a unique concept, she says, where the dwellings will be built on landtrust property that was donated by a local philanthropist with the stipulation that it could only be used for affordable housing. Homebuyers will own the deed-restricted houses, but not the land.
“It’s exciting, it’s unique in the nation,” McGann says. Several local nonprofit organizations will participate in building the Arroyo Crossing housing project.
As a commissioner, McGann has also addressed housing by working on the high density overlay ordinance which requires 80% of properties within an included lot be sold to people who live and work in Moab 12 months of the year. This would make the homes affordable to people who keep the community going – teachers, nurses, police officers, says McGann.
The commission has also worked on establishing an RV park for people who work seasonally in Moab and do not necessarily want to rent an apartment or house, McGann says.
“This commission has done more for affordable housing than any commission ever in the last eight years. It doesn’t happen overnight. There are lots of obstacles,” she says.
Some people believe affordable housing could be built quicker if regulations were eliminated, but McGann doesn’t see it that way. “We’ve done that,” she says. “This situation we’re in was caused by removing regulations. It would not result in more affordable housing.”
Another top issue commissioners will continue to address is the UTV noise affecting residential neighborhoods. McGann says that after state legislators passed a 2015 law disallowing local restrictions on UTVs, some residents suddenly found themselves unable to sit quietly in their backyards without dozens of UTVs rumbling past their homes.
McGann says the commission attempted to install a curfew between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. but it failed to pass. “Noise is pollution,” and it has an impact on quality of life and property values, she adds.
Other important issues to her, says McGann, include water – making sure the aquifer can replenish what is used each year, diversifying the economy, and storm drainage.
Bill Winfield
Winfield began working in construction in Moab when he was in just the seventh grade, and has worked in the industry ever since.
After he graduated from high school, Winfield traveled and settled in Reno with his family, where he raised five children. He moved back to Moab about 10 years ago, where he lives with his partner Crystal. He brought with him his AW Construction, Inc. business, where one of his sons, Jon, also works and is partowner. In Moab, his company has performed infrastructure work, including underground utilities, and he develops land for housing.
Winfield says he was motivated to run for county commission because he believes restrictions on land-use have slowed down the building of homes that could add muchneeded inventory in Moab.
“I believe we should look at it differently and advocate for looking at ways to incentivize builders (to create more) housing,” he says.
He says he’s not advocating for the building of “affordable housing,” but instead what he refers to as “attainable” housing for the workforce – “the middle housing we’re missing,” he says.
He notes there are programs to build affordable housing – including “self-help” programs where homebuyers provide their “sweat equity.” His company has worked on such building projects. “It’s a great program, but it doesn’t fit every person,” he says.
Winfield said his company has also built Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs). People who have the space on their property to build a second, smaller home can increase their property value, add income, while also increasing available housing in the community, he says.
Noise is the other big issue in Moab, says Winfield. “I believe if we’re going to solve the noise problem we need to do a better job of bringing both sides to the table,” he says. “We need reasonable solutions that work for both parties. We also need to respect the fact, as residents, we should be able to mitigate extreme noise that sometimes goes on in Moab. There are ways to make that happen,” – including enlarging trailhead parking areas, and trailering vehicles to the trailhead.
He mentions the possibility of limiting certain roads and hours of the evening. Though, curfews won’t be able to be enforced unless state law changes, he says, adding it’s a “complex issue,” that will require more than a curfew to fix. “State legislators, local government and local businesses must all get involved to solve this problem together. If we leave any of them out the problem won’t go away.” Each of the commissioners says that they would like to see tourism be managed in such a way to be sustainable, while also encouraging more economic diversity. Winfield said Moab must be allowed to grow so it doesn’t end up like “another Telluride or Aspen.”
Winfield is involved in philanthropy work – both locally and overseas. He typically travels to Nepal a couple of times per year where he works for a nonprofit that helps a children’s home and local coffee farmers.
In Moab, he’s particularly fond of the Moab Free Health Clinic. He first became involved with the clinic as a patient when he didn’t have health insurance, he says. Then, he started volunteering by doing weeding, maintenance, and other work around the clinic. The nonprofit has since hired Winfield’s company to help them with remodeling buildings at its new location.
Mike McCurdy was born in Salt Lake City, before his family moved to Moab where he grew up and graduated from high school. He left town to attend college in Grand Junction, Colorado, and at Dixie State College in Utah. He returned to Moab where he worked at City Market for 13 years. McCurdy now works as a property manager for two Moab companies.
McCurdy, 38, married his wife Ronnie about a year ago, blending their two families of five children. He says the kids are very involved in sports and that he often volunteers as a coach at various sporting events. For fun, the family enjoys traveling to Grand Junction to drag race at the Western Colorado dragway – something he says they do four to six times a year.
As a father, and someone who struggled at one point to find a house he could afford, McCurdy says he understands Moab’s affordable housing issue.
“The easiest direction to go to increase the number of affordable properties is to eliminate construction fees,” he says. Developers’ inability to pay fees, or obtain a building permit in a timely fashion has contributed to the lack of housing inventory, he says. “We’ve got to look at ways to reducing costs,” to builders.
McCurdy says he’s is in favor of mixeduse housing areas – that would include commercial development – to alleviate some of the housing crisis. He says eliminating fees for this sector would be a good and fast choice for increasing housing.
Regarding UTV noise in Moab, McCurdy says “I don’t like a bunch of UTVs going through my neighborhood,” however, he says he sees both sides of the issue. “We can’t turn away any branch of the tourism industry,” he says. “I see both sides; I don’t see any short-term answers.”
However, McCurdy does foresee a longterm fix – if and when the industry switches to electric vehicles – which some companies have already begun doing, he says – because those vehicles are quieter.
Putting restrictions, such as curfews on the activity would be too difficult to enforce, he says.
He points out that UTVs are state-licensed and it’s possible the vehicle could be a person’s sole means to go get groceries, for example, he says. “I don’t think government should say you can’t drive a state-legal vehicle to City Market,” he says.
McCurdy says it continues to be important to him to promote tourism to the area, while also working to diversify the economy by inviting companies, and light industry to invest in the area. He says tourism can be encouraged without doing it recklessly, and that there needs to be a balance to achieve “sustainable tourism.”
Part of what makes McCurdy prepared to serve, he says, “I happen to know almost everyone in town; I know people in the greater area. It comes down to relationships. We put people in a room together maybe we can work some things out.” n
Mike McCurdy
