More Powder Mountain Ink... This Time From the Deseret News

We don't know why some folks still don't "get it;" perhaps they just don't want to get it

The Salt Lake print media devotes more ink to the Powder Mountain Saga this morning, with this Deseret News story, which briefly summarizes the facts leading to the introduction in the legislature of Rep. Gage Froerer's HB 218, which (as DNews reporter Rebecca Palmer aptly notes) seems to be "held up on Capitol Hill [the Senate] despite hard lobbying by the local state representative and support from county officials":

• Developers pushing to create town in Ogden Valley

While this morning's story in many respects reflects a respectable gum-shoe reportorial effort, with its sizable collection of presumably hard-gotten and pithy lumpencitizen quotes, we believe the Deseret News nevertheless misses the main point. Whereas Rep. Froerer has carefully framed his bill narrowly, as remedial legislation to cure a gross legislative error and to re-establish citizen voting rights, the tone of this morning's story not-so-subtly drifts back to that tired old theme, which seems to pop up so regularly in stories written by reporters who've only superficially covered the "Powderville Town" issues... i.e., that this is a garden variety "Developer v. Environmentalist" story.

Exhibit "A": Check out the photo in the center column, which carries this hopelessly misleading notation:

Jim and RuthAnn Halay are members of a group of approximately 120 home-owners and residents who are resisting the development of their Weber County area by Powder Mountain Resort.

We've said it before and we'll reiterate: Rep. Froerer's HB 218 is a voter rights bill, and NOT an anti-development bill! We honestly don't know why some folks (even hard-working reporters) still don't seem to understand the issues at stake.

Perhaps Ms. Palmer (and others who still don't seem to "get it") ought to check out the audio from the 2/5/10 House Government Operations Committee hearing wherein Rep. Froerer carefully spells it all out:

...by most estimates, by most estimates I've seen, if this incorporation was to take place, and would require those citizens to wait two years, the infrastructure that would be necessary to be put in place, we all know the cost to set up city government, would increase the property tax burden on a very small group, approximately a hundred people, somewhere between fifty to seventy-five percent, unless some deal was made by the incorporator. So what you're saying, by forcing them to wait the two year period of time,you could very well see property tax averages for this small group of people, right now on their single family homes, that probably average between twenty five to three-thousand, to increase to five thousand to maybe up to seven thousand dollars for that same home, just because of that incorporation, not because of additional services that would be provided by that community.

Significantly, this morning's DNews story didn't even mention the economic issues which are ever so closely tied to the "right to vote."

Yes, it's all about voting rights, people; but we mustn't forget that voting rights stem fundamentally from the core American principle that there shouldn't be "taxation without representation." (This aforementioned principle is of course even more primarily derived from the common sense "core" American notion that "hapless property owners ought not have their tax bills capriciously jacked up 'between fifty to seventy-five percent' by their self-absorbed, greedhead neighbors, without at least having some say in the matter.")

We don't know why some folks don't "get it;" perhaps they just don't want to get it.

Take it away, O Gentle Ones. It's been uncharacteristically quiet here at Weber County Forum over the past few days.