Greg Jensen's Richfield Reaper Candidate Profile

The Richfield Reaper wrote candidate profile's for the individuals running for Sevier County Commissioner. Kurt Johnson wrote the following article on April 11, 2022.

Read Full Richfield Reaper Article Here

Greg Jensen is a candidate for Sevier County Commission

(Editor’s Note: This is the second of three profiles on the Republican candidates seeking the Sevier County Commission B seat in this year’s election.)

Having enjoyed the benefits of Sevier County for so much of his life, Greg Jensen is running for county commissioner because he wants to give back to the community he loves.

“I’ve always felt that, in a person’s life, there’s three things,” Jensen said. “You’re born into a community, you raise your children in a community, and then it’s your turn to serve in the community. I’m in that third stage. I think it’s my turn to serve.”

Jensen sees the place he can make the biggest difference is in County Commission Seat B, for which he is seeking the Republican nomination in the June 28 primary election. He was the choice of the delegates at the county convention last week, and also secured the 270 signatures required for the alternate path to the primary ballot.

Jensen grew up on a dairy farm in Centerfield, near Gunnison, one of nine siblings. He was active in sports and anything he could to stay active. His family has been in the Sevier Valley for generations, and remains a fixture here. His mother grew up in Glenwood.

An accident almost 40 years ago limited Jensen’s options when it came to pursuing a career in the outdoors. He instead went into the insurance business, in which he has worked for more than three decades, running a home business long before it was forced upon so many of us.

Jensen and his wife, Candace, have three daughters — Gentry (31), Hadley (27) and Bergen (25).

He is very mindful of people throughout the county who are negatively impacted by tax burdens.

“Sevier County, I feel, is one tax increase away from pricing especially people on fixed income out of their homes,” Jensen said. “We can’t do that to them. Those people are here, they’ve lived here, built their homes to stay here in the golden years and we need to figure out different ways to build a tax base.”

He believes one answer lies with local business owners.

“I think there are so many ways to help our current business owners increase by one employee, increase by one part-timer,” Jensen said. “There are over 1,300 business licenses issued in Sevier County, and that excludes agriculture. We need to find ways to help them grow.”

Jensen’s not anti-growth, but he believes the county needs to have a better plan.

“We need to grow,” Jensen said. “If you’re not growing, you’re stagnant and that’s going backwards. We have so many businesses we can help that are 30 years old, 50 years old, 10 years old, and we need to help them.”

Planning, according to Jensen, puts the county in position to weather difficult times without scrambling for cash reserves.

“We need to plan 10, 20, 50 years ahead or we get behind,” Jensen said. “The best investment is investing in yourself and that’s how all these businesses are built. If we keep taking it away from them and throwing it away to fix a problem or a debt, we’ve wasted those dollars.”

“If we figure out a way to let people keep those gains, they will do a capital improvement, they will hire that new person, and that growth we need, outside of bringing a new business in with be so much more economically beneficial to our county,” he added. “Those family businesses, when they hire a new employee, it’s a great job. When we bring in a great big business, a lot of times there are one or two people that have a great job and 40 that have a job, but it’s not a great job.”

Perhaps Jensen’s greatest desire, as he seeks to serve, is to open the communication between the county and city governments.

“As a county, you need to be listening to each municipality,” Jensen said. “We need to listen to them and follow their directive. As the county, be helping with land that we get into these municipalities so they can be building. But if we crank up these property taxes so high, that’s a deterrent. I’m on the agenda for each and every city council in the county. Every municipality is going to be different, but the county needs to be listening to them.”