The Standard-Examiner provides the latest information on the simmering Powderville Town incorporation fiasco in this morning's edition. A group of Powderville incorporation opponents got some "face time" with Lt. Gary Herbert yesterday, according to this morning's Charles Trentelman story. For the benefit of those unfortunates who don't have a Std-Ex hard-copy readily at hand, here's the story lede:SALT LAKE CITY — A group of Ogden Valley residents hoping to find a way to stop an independent township from being formed around Powder Mountain Ski Resort got little consolation Monday from Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert.Unfortunately for the folks of Powderville, Mr. Zini is entirely correct. Under the provisions of SB 466 as originally enacted, both the Weber County Commission and the Lieutenant Governor are deprived of any discretion in the matter. Language in the now-grandfathered statute contains the word "shall," which renders approval of a properly prepared township petition a mandatory "ministerial act" on their part. Provided the petitioners have dotted all their i's and crossed all their t's, Powderville Town will become a reality, unless judicial action is initiated in a timely manner.
“This group of folks is clearly very passionate about this,” Herbert’s spokesman, Joe Demma, said after the meeting.
“They didn’t really ask Gary to do anything other than listen and understand their concerns and maybe help dialogue and conversation. “He did inform them there’s nothing he could do administratively to stop this action.” Finding some way to stop the proposed town is the goal of the residents of Ogden Valley.
Larry Zini, spokesman for the dozens of families that found themselves involuntarily included in the proposed Powder Mountain Town, said they are frustrated that nobody seems able to stop the township from being formed.
If worse comes to worse, Zini said Monday, “the next step for us is a federal lawsuit.”
There are many who are familiar with this case who believe SB466 is susceptible to an "equal protection" constitutional challenge under Article 14 of the U.S. Constitution, which provides in pertinent part: "no state shall… deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The prospective citizens of Powder Mountain Town stand to be imminently stripped of their voting rights, rights which are otherwise enjoyed by all other similarly-situated citizens of Utah. There are other constitutional issues involved too, we have been told. The time is ripe, we think, to put these constitutional principles to the judicial test.
Although it's indeed unfortunate that our cowardly state legislature (the governmental body who created the problem in the first place) dropped the ball into the Ogden Valley Lumpencitizens' lap, we'll point out that this is sometime how it works out in America, a nation which operates under the rule of law. The benefits of citizenship sometimes impose upon aggrieved citizens the burden of asserting own rights against oppressive acts of their own government, often at their own expense.
As an aside, today's article mentions ongoing negotiations between the Powder Mountain petitioners and the Weber County Commission. While some observers still nurture hope that an informal resolution will emerge as a result of such discussions, we believe that our County Commissioners actually have very little leverage in this situation. As set forth in the subtitle to today's article, "Powder Mountain holds all the cards;" which is essentially true. The Powder Mountain principals have played hardball so far. Judging from past performance, we believe its unlikely they'll be amenable to any significant compromise, absent major concessions which would be unacceptable to the citizens of Ogden Valley.
As we've noted before, we believe the citizen-activists of Ogden Valley are an exceptionally committed and resourceful lot. They've already lawyered-up, according to our understanding. Let the games begin, if necessary, we say.
And what say our gentle readers about this?
Update 4/28/08 12:31 p.m. MT: It's just now come to our attention that Ogden Valley Forum, our comrade-in-arms in the ongoing battle for the right of the citizens of Weber County to have their say in the destinies of their own communities, has just published a new article, fleshing out details about yesterday's meeting with Lt. Governor Herbert, his staff, and one lawyer from the Attorney General's office. Be sure to check out OVF's new article here.
To the surprise of nobody with functioning grey matter (Gentle Reader Monotreme , the neuroscienist, is the board expert on grey matter, BTW... and he can give you all the minute details,) The Powder Mountain people responded to the County Commission's negotiation overtures, by upping the ante from the initially-proposed 3700 units at Powder Mountain to 9000 units. So much for "good faith bargaining," we snarkily observe.
17 comments:
Consider this, Rudi. The threat of an unfiled citizen lawsuit is THE MAIN LEVERAGE held by the County Commission.
Rudi:
You wrote: we believe that our County Commissioners actually have very little leverage in this situation.
Actually, no. The Commissioners have a great deal of leverage. All it requires on their part is courage and an unwillingness to cower and fold and to refuse to do their jobs when the rights of their constituents are under attack. Do they have that kind of courage? I doubt it, since they are all Republicans feeding at the trough of developers influence, but I would be delighted to be wrong and have them surprise me.
Imagine... just imagine... the Weber County Commissioners issuing a statement like this, if the Powder Mountain application actually gets submitted to them:
"This application, if we approve it, would strip residents of the proposed town of voting rights enjoyed by residents of every other town in Utah, and it would, in our view, strip them as well of rights guaranteed them under both the Utah State Constitution and the United States Constitution. We are under no compulsion of law to be complicit in stripping residents of Weber County of their fundamental liberties, which this application would, if approved, do. We therefor refuse to sign it or forward it to the state for further action. The developers have, we are told, threatened legal action against Weber County and the Commission unless we agree to approve their application. To this we reply: sue and be damned.
Application denied."
What they need is the same kind of courage a Rosa Parks displayed when asked to step to the back of that Montgomery bus: "This is wrong. I won't do it."
Sometimes, the public trust conveyed to elected officials requires of them not simply time serving and rubber stamping, but the exercise of courage on behalf of the people who put them in office. This is one of those times. I'm not holding my breath waiting for it to happen at the Weber County Commission.
LOL, Curm! How is it I'm getting the funny feeling that your above comment might be intended to "frame" one of the major issues in the upcoming Dearden/Johnson Weber County Commission Seat “C” race?
I'm quite sure both candidates are carefully weighing their poitical options.
The county commission could stop this.
All they have to do is find a flaw in the petition, and send it back, over and over.
When Powder Mountain gets frustrated, tell them it might help for them to negotiate.
Politicians and bureaucrats do it all the time. The law provides no penalty for this, so there is nothing to sue over.
Hopefully the citizens will sue in federal court and get an injunction.
The latest word is Powder Mountain has offered to drop the incorporation only if they would be allowed to develop 9,000 units instead of the 3,700 units in their original petition. The PM road won't support the 3,700 units and their response to the attempted negotiations by Dearden is to raise the demand to 9,000 units. This is typical of their arrogance. Curmudgeon is right on target about the Weber County Commission. Who the heck is looking out for Weber County citizens? They better wake up, they could be the likely target of any Federal Lawsuit.
Caesare
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." (Edmund Burke)
Rudi:
Ah, nice try, your attempt to shift the discussion from the substance of the matter... should the WC Commissioners show some backbone and stand fast against the raid on WC residents liberties... to questions of "framing."
Just consider, though, if you want to look at it in terms of politics, what the Commissioners' issuing a statement like the one I suggested above, would do for the Republican party in this coming election: if that didn't inoculate the WC Republicans against charges of cronyism and meekly submitting to the rule of Whatever The Developers Want We Will Give Them, I'm hard put to think what would.
The WC Commissioners face one of those moments when doing the right thing, though it will take courage, also means doing the smart thing. Now, I realize that concept... that doing the right thing IS good politics... is one not widely evident as a rule on the Right. But it could be. Should be.
We'll see how the Commissioners rise to the challenge facing them... or if they do.
zeke:
Being the good liberal Democrat that I am, I'd amend Mr. Burke's wise observation only slightly:
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men and women do nothing."
Amen to that.
Curmudgeon:
I accept that amendment.
I think your other point is excellent as well. If these commissioners stood up for their constituents, they would be hero's in this County no matter what happened with any subsequent lawsuit by Powder Mountain. They appear too frightened to even consider that. I would like to see Powder Mountain file a suit that in effect said "we don't care about the citizens rights, we only care about our incorporation." I think the newspapers and TV would love to have that story.
One feels that your petition, Curm, would not only be possible for some people to do as county commissioners, it would be easy, even required.
Indeed, I suspect there are some here who would be grateful for the opportunity to take such an official position as a public official. "I have to go to meetings and bullcrap all the time, but this, THIS, is why I ran for office in the first place."
But such persons do not run for office, or are not elected. I suspect it is primarily the former.
Why is that?
It would be good if we can get "60 minutes" interested in this story. A story where no state or county officials choose to stand up for their citizen's rights.
I have to say that these people get there just deserts. They voted republican and it was the republicans that have done this to them. They can not blame the democrats because they are not in power to have done this to them. As I look at the voting results the Ogden valley has not voted for a democrat since Haynes Fuller was in the house. That has been well over 15 years now. So I just have to just sit back and say what seeds did they sow.
Ah, but Rudi, I may know a lot about gray matter, but I know next to nothing about Utah government since I have not been attending "Beggar Thy Neighbour" conferences for the last 35 years.
My only thought is that it's an election year, and high time for the citizens of Utah to put a stop to this nonsense by defenestrating a few of the non-functioning state legislators.
Is it just me or are all of you people completely ignorant!
Gage Froerer is the past President of the Realtor Association, and that is the only reason he is in office. He is a lapdog of that organization and has and will continue to represent only his family's "business interests". To continue with him in office insults your intelligence and threatens the lifestyle of every person in Ogden Valley, if not the entire State.
The Realtor Association is literally running the State legislature using bribery and racketeering. The Realtor lobbyists, Kyler, Kohler, and Ostermiller, are the ones who wrote the legislation and many many more bills which "favor the Realtor Association", and the Developers, who also contribute to the graft and corruption of the legislature: County Commission, Utah League of Cities and Towns, and by their own admission "every level of government".
The Lt. Governor Hurbert is also a past President of the Realtor Association, by the way.
So what in the 'blue-eye suzy' do you (Zini) or any of you good and honest California expats expect? Truth, justice and the American way?!
Give us all a break! You are either the dumbest buffoons on the planet or the most naive.
The only solution is to remove the cancer (Realtor Association influence) from Utah politics including from Commissions, Association of County Governments, Mayors, City Managers, etc.
The only reason you are really ignorant is because no news paper (including the Ogden Valley News by the way) is willing to cut off its nose to spite its face. Meaning the business editors over- ride editorial decisions to print any negative news about their by FAR largest advertisers. Simply look at the Realtor Developer pages and pages of advertisements, then calculate how much a postage size ad costs ($191 for only two printings) to see how much a "news" source depends of this scheme. Two to seven full pages of usually color spreads plus color booklet inserts, what is that worth? Call your local newspaper business office and ask how much they drag in from the Realtor/developer ads. They will not tell you because the BYU trained "lawyers" have a clause which protects them from disclosure. The Realtor Association has extended its incestuous and evil corrupt tentacles into every newpaper at every level in the State using "advertising dollars" the same way they use "campaign donations" to distort and corrupt.
But don't believe me. Sit back and pretend Superman, in black and white, is still available...you know..."Defending truth, justice and the American way." YGBSM!
Representative Gage Froerer, Lt. Governor Hubert...how stupid are you people?! You do make me laugh though...
get with Utah Reality is a the type that is critical of anything anyone does. He or she is like a ghost pointing an empty sleeve. He or she is not a participant in change, but a crybaby that mocks any effort to help bring change.
Get with . . .
Post the names of the offenders and I will gladly vote for someone else.
Realtor = Devil
is an equation I have known for some time.
Have any of you that vote republican ever been to a reality lunch. They are the republican party and so I just laugh my head off that you will all vote for them again and again and again.
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