New Cache County Executive lists ambitious priority goals

CACHE COUNTY – David N. Zook has laid out an ambitious agenda for his first year as Cache County Executive.

During his first meeting with members of the Cache County Council, David Zook laid out an ambitious agenda for his first year as county executive.

During Zook’s initial meeting Tuesday with members of the Cache County Council, the recently-appointed executive acknowledged that he has a lot to learn about his new position and countywide projects that are already in progress.

Then Zook listed his priority goals as maintaining public safety, improving transportation, promoting economic development, saving open spaces and enhancing the county’s internal organization.

My number one priority will be public safety,” Zook explained. “That should always be the top priority of government, making sure that people are safe. We have a new service that we’re providing as of Jan. 1 of this year and that’s ambulance service. So I want to work with our Fire Chief (Rod Hammer) to ensure that service rolls out smoothly. We need to not only maintain our level of service, but actually improve the level of service.”

Since 2005, the city of Logan and Cache County had pooled their resources to provide consolidated emergency medical services throughout the valley. After much debate, that partnership dissolved this year, leaving county officials with the challenge of reorganizing their EMS program.

“In addition to public safety,” Zook continued, “I want to work on transportation issues. In talking to our voters and citizens around the valley, it’s obvious that’s an issue that is being heavily impacted by the rapid growth we’re seeing.”

With regard to economic development, Zook praised the county for adopting a strategic economic plan in 2020 and hiring Shawn Milne as its economic development director.

“I plan to work with (Milne) to help him get going on many priorities in that strategic plan and ensure that we have a strong and varied economy now and in the future,” Zook added.

The new county executive also listed the preservation of Cache County’s open spaces and agricultural land as one of his priorities.

Ironically, later in the same meeting, Zook argued against a proposal to promote economic development and protect open spaces by licensing local wineries.

Finally, Zook pledged to scrutinize the county’s internal organization to find ways to improve customer service to local citizens.

“That’s something that I find fun,” he admitted, “so I guess that I’m a little bit of a policy wonk. But I just like improving service to our customers.

“I have to confess that sometimes I hate government. I think that we’ve all had experiences where we interact with a government agency and think ‘they should do better and care more about their customers.’

“I want to ensure that our team here at Cache County…understands that our mission is to make the lives of our citizens better,” Zook concluded.

Free News Delivery by Email

Would you like to have the day's news stories delivered right to your inbox every evening? Enter your email below to start!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

For security, use of Google's reCAPTCHA service is required which is subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

I agree to these terms.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.