Trouble in Logan City
It’s not the kind of trouble “with a capital T that rhymes with P that stands for Pool!”, as made famous in the town of River City by professor Harold Hill in ‘The Music Man’ .
Logan City’s trouble with a capital T, rhymes with G, and that stands for Growth.
Cache Valley, home of Logan, Utah is growing. Exponentially. I don’t know where they’re coming from but they’re coming. The housing market is booming. Farm land is being sold and developed into multi-unit housing developments faster than you can say trouble with a capital T that rhymes with D that spells developer. But, conversely, the population of Logan City proper is shrinking in proportion. Especially, the student population at Logan City Schools, and that’s trouble with a capital T that rhymes with E that stands for education.
This northern Utah community, Cache Valley, has probably been the best kept secret in America. But no more. The community has never really drawn attention from the tourism side of things, losing interest and both national and international visitor dollars to Southern Utah’s Bryce Canyon, Moab area made famous by John Wayne/John Ford movies, Monument Valley, Arches National Park, Zion National Park, etc., but these days people are moving to the Valley in droves.
The trouble is that people are moving away from Logan City proper.
Logan, Utah, located on the northern end of the state, sits just 20 miles from the Idaho border, and is popularly known as the closest place from which to drive to Idaho to buy a lottery ticket. But to be fair to the Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Board, Logan is the gateway to places like Bear Lake, Jackson Hole, Sun Valley, Twin Falls’s Snake River Canyon. Pocatello, Idaho is Logan’s sister city to the north, home of Idaho State University. To the south, winter haven St. George is less than a half day’s drive, and Las Vegas just a few hours from there ..and Los Angeles just a few hours from there.
As a short history, Cache Valley was called “Willow” Valley by the Shoshone and the other indigenous peoples who lived here. Fur traders later coined the name Cache Valley because they “cached” or stored their furs here in winter to be retrieved in the spring at their annual rendezvous.
But growth always brings problems, growing pains, and Logan is facing a crisis with both it’s downtown business district and it’s school district. Businesses have been moving out of downtown Logan ever since the Cache Valley Mall was built back in the mid ’70’s, just north of town on U.S. 89/91 which runs straight thru town and serves as Logan’s Main St. Many buildings and store fronts are empty. This is not an uncommon problem to Utah towns and cities, or to any town and city across America. It’s Progress with a capital P that rhymes with T which stands for trouble ..especially, for the downtown business boys.
Utah’s Orem/Provo area has gone wild with population growth, attributed largely to the increase of high tech companies moving into the area.
Salt Lake City met this kind of downtown demographic landscape challenge forty years ago with the “cleaning up” of the Second South district. Ogden followed years later with the redevelopment of the 25th Street business district. Logan’s problems are both similar and different due to its unique location, demographic, and leadership challenge.
The City is working hard to rectify the problem, trying to draw business to Main St. locations, and also to develop high density residential areas close to downtown, but it’s slow going. The developers are building out into the valley faster than the farmers’ kids can sell granddad’s property, and faster than the downtown brain trust can think, and that’s where people are moving ..and the businesses follow the money, as they will. If you listen real closely in the dead of night, you can hear a giant sucking sound created by the vacuum of the businesses and people leaving Logan proper.
Up until this year, there have been three main Region 12, 4A high schools in Cache Valley, which includes numerous towns, Logan being the largest and home of Utah State University ...towns like Smithfield, Hyrum, Wellsville, and Franklin and Preston, Idaho, just to name a few. Little towns and hamlets are scattered all over Cache Valley which is approximately 25 miles long and ten miles wide. Just for reference, Manhattan island would fit nicely into Cache Valley.
There a few other smaller high schools, and Preston High (The Indians) in Preston, Idaho, not in the Logan City or Cache County School Districts. Preston High was made famous in the cult classic film, ‘Napoleon Dynamite‘ ...”Vote for Pedro!”
Cache Valley’s three rival high schools have always been Logan High (the Grizzlies) in Logan, Sky View High (the Bobcats) in Smithfield, and Mountain Crest High (the Mustangs) in Hyrum. Now, in just one year’s time there are two more, Ridgeline High (the River Hawks) in Millville, and Green Canyon High (the Wolves) in North Logan. All five high schools are within just a few miles of one another. They could open a zoo!
Many Valley residents have noted that it seems unproductively redundant to have so many high schools in such a small space. Some have cited socioeconomics and the changing demographics as the reason, some have cited racial and religious issues. Logan High, located in inner city Logan, is Cache Valley’s most ethnically diverse high school.
Logan High is also in the Logan City School District, as are numerous elementary and middle schools, which means it draws financial support from the property tax base of Logan City residents ..of which the numbers are shrinking by proportion ..of which the student population is shrinking ..and of which the funding is shrinking. All the other schools are Cache County schools drawing financial support from the tax base of the county residents, the growing population living out in valley areas not in Logan proper.
The Logan School Superintendent recently announced financial problems in the district and indicated that Logan High might have to cut staff. And this comes at a time when the school’s new multi-million dollar expansion building is being completed, and after two bond issues taxing the idling number of Logan City residents, and after much speculation about gross overages and construction costs. The controversy continues with the fact that the previous superintendent, now retired, is still working as a consultant to the project two years after construction began. Fiscal responsibility is being questioned.
A critical financial crisis is looming on the horizon for both Logan City and the Logan School District. And that spells trouble with a capital T which rhymes with C that stand for Challenge.
John Kushma is a communication consultant and lives in Logan, Utah.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-george-kushma-379a5762
http://newsbout.com/a/John+Kushma
