Business View Civil and Municipal | Volume 3, Issue 3

27 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3 locally. If you can reduce your commute by 30 minutes that improves your quality of life so much.” Supporting smaller businesses and entrepreneurship is also a priority for the city. “We have added so many locally owned and operated small businesses,” says Manzione. “I think that small business ownership is a great way to have investiture in the community – entrepreneurship is important to keep a community alive.” Working in partnership with Tooele Technical College, the city ensures a skilled workforce is available to local industry, through a variety of learning opportunities. Custom Fit, a program offered through the college, provides Tooele Valley employers 50% of the cost of training and retraining, including instructor and registration fees, as well as books and materials. Stewart states, “Tooele Technical College is a gem. They are good partners for the community, letting residents use their meeting rooms and spaces. The college is a huge influence in our local economy, because businesses can take advantage of the Custom Fit program. So, really, no business should be paying 100% of their training costs in the Tooele Valley.” He adds that the city has taken advantage of a $50,000 Federal EDA grant, partnering with Custom Fit to further stretch the funding and offer learning opportunities to community businesses. “We have done classes on bookkeeping, how to get products on Amazon, how to do digital advertising on Facebook and Instagram. There are tons of mom-and-pop home-based businesses here that just don’t know how to run a Facebook ad effectively. So, we’ve been helping them learn.” As Tooele City has noted a high rate of growth over the past few years, building permits have also shown a huge increase. Stewart recounts, “Building permits are up 150 or more percent TOOELE C I TY , UTAH