Tooele City Mayor Patrick Dunlavy first met representatives of Big 5 Sporting Goods at the International Council of Shopping Centers convention in Las Vegas in 2007. At the time, Dunlavy was told Tooele was not on a short list of Utah cities the company was considering for expansion.

Dunlavy didn’t give up. After returning from Las Vegas, he sent Big 5 an information packet including demographic details on population, income levels, and growth rates in Tooele. When Big 5’s regional representative became interested enough to pay a visit to the city, Dunlavy personally lead the tour.

“Up to this point we were nothing more than a dot on the map to them — a small town in Utah just outside of Salt Lake,” Dunlavy said. “Not too long after the visit, however, I received an e-mail that Big 5 had decided to locate in Tooele.”

That kind of persistence and hands-on work ethic has led the Tooele Transcript-Bulletin to select Dunlavy as its first Tooele County Person of the Year for his successful efforts to revitalize downtown Tooele. The award will be given annually to an individual who has made a significant positive impact to life in the county.

Dunlavy had a banner year in 2008 — all the more remarkable considering the recessionary climate. Not only did he personally lead economic development efforts that are giving Tooele’s once-derelict downtown new life, he also championed the drive to preserve open space in the city’s foothills, upgraded overtaxed infrastructure, and furthered a climate of transparency at City Hall.

Tooele’s downtown began a slow decline long before Dunlavy took over as mayor in November 2005. Roughly two decades ago, Wal-Mart and Smith’s opened up on the north end of town. Retail stores from downtown either moved north to be near Wal-Mart or just closed their doors. Smith’s left town and Albertson’s boarded up its old store and moved north to occupy the former Smith’s.

Dunlavy has played a key role in bringing life back to downtown, which in 2008 has seen the opening of Big 5 Sporting Goods, a Sears Authorized Dealer store, Gold’s Gym, Allen’s Floor Covering, Grandma’s Closet and Liddiard’s Budget and Clearance Center. A new downtown restaurant, Sostanza, is also under construction and scheduled to open later this year.

Dunlavy’s dream for downtown is for it to become a place with character and charm, where people hang out and maybe catch dinner and a movie. He hopes with anchors like Walgreens, Big 5, and Sears, enough traffic will be generated to help the smaller specialty shops in the older section of downtown stay open.

“We need to solve the parking problem for that to happen,” Dunlavy said. “We need to make downtown more walkable. That will take a cooperative effort of property owners and the city.”

Even as he has concentrated on economic development, the mayor has also been serious about preservation of open space in a way few local leaders have been previously.

Under Dunlavy’s administration, the city has added 60 acres to its hillside open-space property — a 48-acre parcel east of Deer Hollow and 12.4 acres above Skyline Drive to be used for a public park. Dunlavy is also in negotiations for another 100-acre parcel south of Skyline Drive.

“These pieces of property are in key areas of Tooele’s foothills,” said Roger Baker Tooele City Attorney. “I worked with the owners of the 48-acre plot with no success, but then the mayor stepped in and started negotiations personally — and with the authority of the mayor’s office the deal was made.”

Dunlavy has also solved some infrastructure problems he inherited as a result of the city’s explosive growth at the beginning of the decade.

“I was in office no longer than a week when our public works people came to me and said ‘We have a problem,” Dunlavy said. “The city sewer treatment plant was near capacity and the city showed no sign of growth stopping.”

Dunlavy instigated a $2.5 million expansion of the treatment plant, increasing capacity by 60 percent. The expansion was completed in September last year.

“It was a critical issue,” Dunlavy said. “Without the additional capacity, we would have had no choice but to issue a moratorium on all new construction in the city, both residential and commercial.”

Dunlavy’s administration has also been praised for its transparency by many outsider observers.

“Being the recorder for 23 years, I was responsible for meeting notices and compliance with the state’s sunshine laws,” Dunlavy said. “When I became mayor, I met with he department heads and told them we are doing the people’s business and everything should be open to the public. If we are doing the right thing, we should have nothing to hide, and we should always be doing the right thing.”

Steve Bevan served on the Tooele City Council for eight years and ran against Dunlavy for mayor in the 2005 election. He said Dunlavy has opened up City Hall.

“I have been in Mayor Dunlavy’s office when people have walked in off the street to talk to him and he listens,” Bevan said. “Mayor Dunlavy has taken very little time off as mayor. He is usually in his office and that has not always been the case with our mayors.”

From Dunlavy’s second-floor office, he looks out upon Big 5, Sears, Walgreens and Gold’s Gym. He says he’ll run for re-election this year to finish the job he started revitalizing downtown.

“We still have work to do — more business and jobs for people in Tooele, downtown parking and continuing to work with property owners to encourage improvements in downtown.”

It’s a long list of tasks, but there seems little disagreement these days about the right man for the job.

Tim Gillie: tgillie@tooeletranscript.com