Wasatch County Manager Dustin Grabau will join the Utah’s Military Installation Development Authority’s development review committee over the Mayflower Project area, which includes the new Deer Valley East Village ski portal and resort as well as several other developments around the Jordanelle Reservoir.

The MIDA board voted him in unanimously Tuesday morning.

“As chair of that committee, we’re so excited to have him on board. He has been participating in those meetings for quite some time now, and, as you’re aware, is very knowledgeable about the things happening in the MRF project area,” said Nicole Cottle, the committee’s chair and MIDA’s chief legal and administrative officer.

Grabau is not the first county leader to be given an official position working with MIDA and coordinating the association’s efforts with the county. In July 2021, former Wasatch County Manager Mike Davis left his position to become the county’s MIDA coordinator. He retired in January, and county employee Richard Brietenbeker has filled the open position he left.

Steve Farrell, a current county councilor whose term ends at the end of this year, has sat on the board since 2020.

MIDA itself has largely been involved with the county since 2018, when the land use authority made a deal with county leaders to create a Morale, Welfare and Recreation hotel for military members and help the county develop the mountain and the area next to The Jordanelle and grow its tax base.

The agreement — which is based on tax increment growth — takes a certain percentage of tax revenue from taxing entities within the lakeside project area, though each taxing entity receives the amount that they did from the project area prior to MIDA’s involvement and then some. The idea is that after the county’s 40-year agreement ends and all of the area’s tax revenue goes to the more traditional taxing entities, the area’s increased tax base that could have largely remained the same without MIDA’s interference will have grown exponentially, making the county’s agreement with the authority worth the investment.

Already, Grabau said the agreement is working in favor of the county and its taxpayers.

“As of the end of 2023, the county collected more in revenues from the MIDA Project area than we incurred at direct costs,” he told The Park Record last month. “Since that time, the revenues have picked up.”

As more properties come online and as recreation opportunities within the project area begin to open and see patronage, he expects the county to see more revenue, and he hopes to secure the benefits of the project for the county.

“I’m just looking forward to being more involved in this aspect of the project,” Grabau said about his new position on the development review committee. “I will be more aware of the status of developments in what happens over there.”