Reflections of San Juan County Commissioner Bruce Adams after 20 years of service

By Sally Jack
A contributing Writer
After serving as a San Juan County commissioner for 20 consecutive years, Commissioner Bruce Adams is ready to pass the torch, but he will not be passing his signature cowboy hat along with it.
The hat holds many memories and has been signed by prominent people, including governors, senators, congressmen, and even a United States President.
Bruce retired from teaching school in 2000. When Ty Lewis retired from the county commission in 2004, Bruce decided to run for the spot as a way to give back to the community.
He was elected, and by the time his first term was up, he was serving at the state level on a number of committees that could help rural communities. Wanting to keep the momentum going, he chose to run again.
Bruce served as the president of the Insurance Committee for 15 years. They insure all county liabilities for 24 out of 29 counties in the state. This committee was formed in1992 when insurance companies refused to insure jails in rural Utah, so rural commissioners decided to start their own insurance indemnity pool. San Juan County put up $100,000 to help start the pool with Emery County and a couple of other counties. They eventually paid back every penny of that, as the insurance indemnity pool became successful.
Bruce was appointed to the Permanent Community Impact Board (PCIB) which manages mineral lease money throughout the state; they manage hundreds of millions of dollars every year.
He served on the Constitutional Defense Council for the governor.
He has been director of the board for the Utah Association of Counties (UAC) and the conglomerate group of all the counties in the state.
Bruce has been president of USAC, which is a group solely made up of commissioners; this committee does not include other elected officials.
He was also the board president of the association of local governments, which included Carbon, Emery, Grand, and San Juan. They meet once a month to deal with federal monies that come into the counties, and two different times he’s been elected board chair of that. He is the board chair right now, and will continue to serve there until the end of the year.
Bruce has been on the National Public Lands Committee for nearly all of the time he’s been a county commissioner.
“I’ve had some pretty meaningful appointments.” Bruce says.
During his tenure in office, Commissioner Adams completed 61 major projects for a total of $235 million dollars’ worth of projects that directly benefited San Juan County. This includes the new hospital now under construction in Monticello.
“The most difficult thing I ever did as a commissioner was to get that new hospital,” Bruce said. “I spent four days a week for six full weeks lobbying for it, testifying to our need for it.”
Other challenges Bruce faced were the Federal and sometimes State regulations that would impede what county employees or commissioners were trying to do.
“We’d run up against something that could slow us down significantly. The longer I stayed in office, though, the more I figured out how to circumvent the red tape so that I could actually get some things done. Experience is pretty valuable,” he says.
In the beginning there was a learning curve, and it took time to get to know the county employees so he could help them in their work.
“It probably took me a whole term to figure out all the processes,” he relates. “Other commissioners helped me to be successful, and I appreciate all of them.”
Adams says although being a commissioner is not necessarily always eight hours a day, it is definitely a daily job; he typically had involvement in county commission things every day in one form or another. Sometimes it was more than eight hours. “I’ve been really busy this year, every week,” he says. “It was called a part-time job, but I chuckle at that. I often tell people, ‘I only work 80 hours a week on that part-time job.’”
But the job is not without its rewards. “Up until I served as a county commissioner, I was a home boy. I had hardly ever traveled east of the Mississippi River. Going to Washington D.C. and attending meetings, seeing what counties from other states were dealing with, and networking with them, was really, really valuable and exciting; and of course, to be back in Washington D.C. and get to see all of the workings of the Federal Government, and visiting with our state representatives and their colleagues was really exciting, too.”
“I was required to do a different amount of training through the years. I went to D.C. about fifteen times. I felt like I was the champion of rural Utah. I’ve got letters from people all over thanking me for standing up for them. It has been a gratifying position for me to hold. When there were decisions to make, I studied things out and made the best decisions I could. I hope I did the right things. I did my best.”
Commissioner Adams reflects: “It’s a great experience being a county commissioner. It’s very rewarding. It’s a little bittersweet, leaving the office. The thing I will miss the most is all of the new friends I’ve made from all over the state. I will miss serving on the boards from the federal down to the state level. I will miss the work. I liked it. I really did. But I feel like it’s time to give someone else a chance to have the opportunity to serve and to have those experiences.”
“I have been assigned as one of seven people on the UDOT commission for the state highway, so I’m still going to be busy. I’m excited about that new appointment. It’s been 60 or 70 years since we’ve had a representative from San Juan County on the UDOT commission, so this will be a good thing.”
His advice to new commissioners is to “Just get as involved as you possibly can. Get involved with the state, and with NACO at the federal level. It can be what you make it. Work hard, and make things happen.”