Twenty Dollars In, Thirteen Thousand Out

The seat

Box Elder County's three-member commission voted unanimously in May 2026 to let the Stratos Area Project — a hyperscale data center campus planned for roughly 20,000 acres in the Hansel Valley — move forward under Utah's Military Installation Development Authority. Two of the three commissioners who cast that vote, Boyd Bingham and Lee Perry, were up for re-election weeks later. Both lost their Republican primaries.

Smith, a former member of the county's Planning & Zoning Commission, is now the Republican nominee for Seat A. He faces Alan Williams, an unaffiliated candidate who gathered signatures to get on the ballot without a primary — and who is married to Brenna Williams, one of the more visible organizers against the Stratos project.

What he says, and what he voted for

Asked directly about the data center by the Tremonton Leader, Smith gave a careful answer — one that doesn't accuse the outgoing commissioners of wrongdoing.

“Our current leadership didn't take bribes or campaign to bring this project into our county… While local leadership could not stop this particular project, they could set clear expectations to protect our surrounding community.” Vance Smith, candidate Q&A, Tremonton Leader, June 1, 2026

His platform leans on the same language: “responsible growth,” protecting “rural character,” and property rights. But the clearest record of how he actually approaches land use isn't a campaign answer — it's a vote he cast as a sitting Planning Commissioner.

Smith served on the Planning Commission from at least April 2024 to sometime before November 2025, stepping down before filing for County Commission in January 2026.

The businesses

Smith's own conflict-of-interest disclosure, filed with his candidacy, lists 14 entities he owns, manages, or is an officer of. The Weber County Hive checked every one against Utah's business registry.

Two turned out to be trade names, not separate companies — SFRP Supply and Timber and Limestone are both Assumed Names filed under LLCs already on the list. The rest are real, distinct registrations, most of them tied to his home address in Garland. His stated employer, SHRED Group Inc., is registered at that Garland address but physically headquartered in Smithfield — the same building as Century 21 Naomi, the real-estate brokerage where his wife, Randi Smith, is broker and owner.

His own COI form marks the "real property I hold an interest in" section N/A — even though several of these entities are explicitly named as land or rental businesses. That isn't necessarily a contradiction: property held through an LLC isn't the same as property he holds personally. But it's the kind of distinction that matters for a commissioner whose office votes on land use, and it's one the form itself doesn't resolve.

The ledger

Smith's first financial disclosure report, filed with the County Clerk, lists $20 in contributions and $13,009.67 in expenses.

The report names exactly one donor — a $20 gift from Earnie Harlow of Brigham City. Every other dollar spent has no funding source shown on the form. The report's own "balance at end of period" line reads $12,989.67, a figure that doesn't reconcile against $20 coming in and $13,009.67 going out. It's the kind of gap that a self-funding or candidate-loan disclosure would ordinarily explain — but no such disclosure accompanies this report.

The opponent

Alan Williams filed as an unaffiliated candidate, gathering signatures rather than running in a primary.

A fifth-generation Box Elder County resident, Williams describes 40 years working in engineering for the "Space and Power Industries" before returning home. He's the husband of Brenna Williams, who told a reporter she decided to push for a referendum the moment the commission approved the Stratos project, and who has led public tours of the proposed site. Alan Williams joined one of those tours himself in July 2026.

His own campaign site doesn't mention Stratos or the data center by name — its language stays general, about growth bringing both good and "detrimental" change. His financial disclosure report lists no contributions and no expenditures.