An Open Mind

REGARDING OPEN SPACE

“3 different surveys have been done. All three show that over 80% of those who took the survey, want to preserve and protect our open space. The last 2 surveys showed that over 80% of those taking the survey would support a bond to preserve our open space. Midway residents want to protect our views, our agricultural land and our rural character.

Additionally, property tax on full time residential homes doesn’t cover the cost of services needed. This is true for homes that have been here for 100 years, or homes just being built. The reality is that open space costs less than homes because we save on services and infrastructure.”

-Celeste Johnson, Midway City Mayor

Open, agricultural land actually contributes more revenue to local governments than it requires in services.

  • For every dollar spent on rural preservation, $4 is generated from tourism.

  • For every dollar the city receives, it currently costs $1.35 - $1.65 for the city to provide services to newly developed residences.

  • Commercial development is supposed to fill in the deficit created by residential development. It seldom does.

WE PAY EITHER WAY.

We pay to subsidize development infrastructure while losing our rural character. Or, we pay to preserve our rural, open spaces and retain our unique quality of life.

Open Space Bonds demonstrate a community’s desire to retain its unique environment. Once approved, other funding mechanisms come into play to supplement those bonds.

"Once we lose these amazing landscapes that we recreate in, that give us a sense of home, they can’t be replaced. We aren’t making any new lands.”

-Wendy Fisher, Director of Utah Open Lands

”Buying land [with bond dollars] could even save money [for the city] in the long run because it will never require municipal services like a development would. Even commercial development doesn’t pay for itself over a span of decades,”

-Diane Foster

Park City

Environmental Sustainability Manager

“Development destroyed local agriculture and produced miles of urban sprawl.”

“[Development] was an unintentional Ponzi scheme that went unnoticed by the public because it worked fine for years.”

“But eventually, cities run short of open land to develop, and infrastructure costs exceed tax revenue. Then, they have to raise taxes, cut services, or both. “

“Commercial development is supposed to cover the difference, but it seldom does.”

-Dan Jarvis

Chair of Provo Sustainability and Natural Resource Committee

Development is not the only answer for Midway landowners. In fact, development may not be their best answer.

If you doubt that, just ask Midway landowners who have had their land developed.

You may actually hear them say, “I wish I had known there was an alternative."

The Open Space Bond can help provide such an alternative.

Of Midway, Wallace Stegner wrote:

“If I had been looking for a promised land
I could have found none fairer.
The air...tasted and smelled like the day it was made.
I kept having the routine loveliness interrupted
by tongues of dark red sumac down a watercourse, or a brilliant maple blooming scarlet
among the scrub oak’s bronze.
Some places...compel you to make use of your senses.”

WITH AN OPENED MIND,

VOTE YES FOR THE 2024 MIDWAY OPEN SPACE BOND.

For More information please visit:

preservemidway.org