Governor Cox Answers Questions At SUU For Statewide Radio Show

The One Utah Summit is underway this week at Southern Utah University. The purpose of the summit is to bring together the top leaders and decision makers of Utah to influence the economic viability of rural Utah.

Pre-summit events took place on Monday, and as a part of the day, Governor Spencer Cox was on hand, and took time to participate in the statewide radio program Direct Link, which originated from the campus of SUU.

Audience members, who were from all through out the state, were able to submit questions to the governor who took the time to answer them on the broadcast.

In response from a question by Lawrence from Hildale, Utah concerning the latest designated national monument near the Grand Canyon, the governor said that when President Biden visited Utah, “I told him how disappointed we were in the monument designation, and made it clear to him that we would be helping Arizona to fight this monument. We have filed a lawsuit challenging some of the monuments here (in Utah). We think we have an opportunity to take this all the way to the Supreme Court.”

Addressing some of the purpose of the One Utah Summit, Governor Cox told the audience, “We're going to be talking for a couple of days about all the amazing things that are happening in rural Utah. We've moved over 600 jobs to rural Utah, just state government jobs, which is really good, good for our families, good for our communities.”

Cox continued on the subject of growing economies in rural Utah by saying, “we changed incentives for businesses in Utah – the tax incentives. We have a very powerful rural incentive now. In fact, to get the best incentives to move a business to Utah, you can only get those in rural Utah now.”

When asked by Donna from Cedar City about what people in Utah can do to effect national policy, Governor Cox said, “One of the reasons people are so upset and so angry is that they feel like their voice doesn't matter. I believe that every one of us has a role to play making our country a better place. At a minimum we have to vote, but there's so much more we can do than that.”

Kaylee from Springville, Utah asked the governor what he would do differently if he decides to run for a second term. The governor started off by saying he would keep his commitment to serve only two terms, but said he was hoping to run for that second term next year. He also said, “I made a lot of mistakes, especially through covid. Looking back on what we know, there are things I wish that we had done differently.”

Governor Cox also indicated one of the things they had been working hard to do during his three years in office was to improve the working relationship the governor's office has with the state legislature. Cox feels they have made great progress to that end, calling the last legislative session one of the best.

The One Utah Summit continues through Wednesday