Bogley

[stefan]

05/22/2008
Mount HollyLawyer urges project to go to referendum
Developers, on their part, say the appeal should be dismissed
By Cathy McKitrick
The Salt Lake Tribune

A developer's legal battle to block a public vote on its plans for a pricey ski-and-golf resort in Beaver County took a circuitous and "desperate" detour through the state Legislature, charges an attorney for resort opponents. "In what can only be described as a series of desperate acts, [developers] have taken extraordinary measures to try and avoid a legal review of the trial court's conclusions," Joel Ban, attorney for a grass roots group trying to put the Mount Holly project to a vote, wrote in appeal briefs filed Wednesday. "[Developers] hired a lobbyist, pursued an amendment to the referendum statute and then filed a request to extend the briefing schedule. Knowing that SB53 had been signed by the governor and would become effective May 5, they nonetheless waited until the last day to act," Ban wrote.

Sen. Brent Goodfellow's SB53 - a new law confusing to the point state lawyers say it could be unconstitutional - took effect May 5. A day later, CPB Development LC and Mount Holly Partners LLC used it as the basis to ask that a resident group's appeal get tossed out of court. Ban wants the Utah Court of Appeals to allow the Mount Holly project to go to a referendum vote. A lower court, in a complex decision, ruled it could not. Ban claims the issue is subject to referendum because the county decision constituted legislative action the enacting of an ordinance establishing the details of the Mount Holly Club development agreement. Developers say the appeal should be dismissed, arguing that SB53 bans referendums on all local land-use issues. It also claims the state Supreme Court is the proper forum for an elections dispute. In late April the state Attorney General's Office questioned SB53's constitutionality in a letter sent to Sevier County Attorney Dale Eyre - concerning another right-to-vote effort, this one over a controversial coal-fired power plant. Assistant Attorney General Thom Roberts cited Article 6 of the state Constitution, which provides for the people's fundamental right to legislate through initiative and referenda.

That right - viewed as sacrosanct - bucks up against individual property rights, said Dan McDonald, an attorney with Smith Hartvigsen, the firm representing CPB and Mount Holly. "More and more, citizen groups who dislike a landowner or development organize themselves to challenge land-use decisions," McDonald said. "The Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that individual property rights are important as well as deference to local land-use authority." McDonald intends to file a quick answer to Ban's brief today - although the court could rule without it. The weighty issues of SB53's constitutionality - and application to this case - cannot be ignored, McDonald said. "This has statewide impact and is important enough that we think it will percolate to the Supreme Court, no matter who loses in the Court of Appeals."


06/11/2008
Constitutional challenge Referendum limits law sent to Utah high court
By Cathy McKitrick
The Salt Lake Tribune

A new law that limits local initiative and referendum powers could soon undergo constitutional scrutiny by the state's Supreme Court.

The Utah Court of Appeals has decided to send the case of BRAVE v. Beaver County back to Utah's highest court.

There, justices could rule on the constitutionality of SB53 and whether it renders moot a citizen-led effort to place a referendum on November's ballot over the planned $3.5 billion Mount Holly Club development proposed for land currently occupied by the Elk Meadows Resort. "It's a positive thing that this went back to the Supreme Court," said Joel Ban, attorney for the residents group called BRAVE. "They're more experienced in these matters and their decision will be the final say."

Dan McDonald, an attorney with Smith Hartvigsen, represents CPB Development LC and Mount Holly Partners LLC. "The Utah Court of Appeals was perfectly capable of making a fair and just decision," McDonald said. "But with the stakes being as high as they are in this case, either side would have appealed to the Supreme Court."

Margaret Wellman, treasurer for BRAVE, has battled Mount Holly's resort plan for more than two years. "It will take very crucial water away from our ranchers and farmers," Wellman said. "We're very hopeful that we'll win but nothing is a slam dunk."

In late April, Assistant Attorney General Thom Roberts wrote an opinion that courts would likely strike down SB53 as conflicting with Utahns' constitutional right to initiate local legislation or require a local ordinance to be submitted to a public vote.

[stefan]

and a little bit on Marc Jensen, Holladay resident and key figure in the Mount Holly Club



05/27/2008
Agreement may end fraud case
Utah attorney general has accused Holladay businessman of engaging in securities fraud and racketeering
By Mike Gorrell
The Salt Lake Tribune

A plea agreement is being negotiated that on Thursday could end a 2005 fraud and racketeering case brought by the Utah attorney general's office against a Holladay businessman.

<snip>

The A.G.'s office contended, in a lawsuit filed Aug. 10, 2005,
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that Jenson engaged in securities fraud and racketeering, both second-degree felonies, in business deals in 2000 and 2001.

Jenson allegedly convinced three Salt Lake County men - Michael Bodell, Morty Ebeling and Ricke White - to give him money that would be used in one case to purchase a bicycle company and in others to serve as short-term loans to businesses until they acquired long-term financing.

Assistant Attorney General Charlene Barlow's complaint alleged that the lenders were promised significant returns on their investments, but instead lost several million dollars. The state also alleged that Jenson failed to disclose to investors, as required, that he had been sentenced to federal prison in 1991 for failing to file a federal tax return and had gone through bankruptcy.

<snip>

05/30/2008
Fraud victims to get $4.1M
Holladay businessman to pay restitution in plea deal OK'd by judge
By Mike Gorrell
The Salt Lake Tribune

After rejecting an earlier plea agreement, 3rd District Judge Robin Reese approved a negotiated settlement Thursday that provides almost $4.1 million in restitution to victims of busted business deals that formed the basis of a 3-year-old criminal fraud case.

Reese accepted an agreement in which Marc Sessions Jenson, 48, of Holladay, entered a no contest plea in abeyance to a reduced charge of three counts of offering the sale of an unregistered security. Those are third-degree felonies.

He originally was charged by the Utah Attorney General's Office in 2005 with five second-degree felony counts of securities fraud and racketeering stemming from "hard money loans" he received in 2000 and allegedly failed to repay.

The plea in abeyance means the charges will be wiped from Jenson's record if he fulfills terms of the settlement within the next three years - and allows him to clear the slate even earlier if he pays a $15,000 fine to the state's Division of Securities and makes restitution to Salt Lake County residents Michael Bodell and Morris Ebeling.

Ebeling is entitled to $2.5 million and Bodell to $1.6 million, according to the agreement, which also allows both men to negotiate different amounts with Jenson.

While Jenson's no contest plea also included one count involving a failed business transaction with Salt Lake County businessman Ricke White, the settlement did not include compensation for White. His losses were dealt with separately in civil litigation.

In April, the Attorney General's Office and Jenson's attorneys told Reese they had negotiated a settlement that did not include any restitution. When Jenson's alleged victims objected, the judge rejected the agreement.

Further negotiations produced the compensation clause the victims and Reese wanted. In addition, the settlement prohibits Jenson from being involved in hard money loans - high interest, short-term loans used by companies until longer-term financing is secured - and allows the Division of Securities and the Attorney General's Office to track his federal tax records for the period in which the no contest plea is in place.

The agreement also specifies that Jenson can participate in the ownership, financing and management of the Mount Holly Club. Jenson is a key figure in efforts to turn the closed Elk Meadows ski area outside of Beaver into an exclusive private resort with its own ski hills and a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course.

<snip>

"It's been almost 34 months since I was charged. That's a long time. I'll take that energy and put it into the Mount Holly Club," Jenson added.

[stefan]

Building of large resort near Beaver is at a virtual standstill
By Mark Havnes
The Salt Lake Tribune


BEAVER - All's quiet on the mountaintop.

Instead of an exclusive ski area with jet-setters visiting their multimillion-dollar homes, locals here have seen no changes at the Mount Holly Club atop the Tushar Mountains.

There's no Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course being built, or water projects, or anything else at what was supposed to be, by now, a world-class ski resort, 18 miles east of Beaver.

"I thought [the development] was a bit grandiose," said Beaver County Commissioner Chad Johnson, who supported a 2007 agreement that allowed developers to proceed, even though he had reservations about the project. "I thought it was quite a bit to bite off."

Johnson hasn't been in contact with Mount Holly officials and knows nothing of their future plans. But when no applications were filed last spring with the Beaver County planning commission, he could tell little would be done this construction season - a limited one because the resort is at 10,000 feet, where snow can fly as early as September and linger until June.

What's more, he added, "I know [the developers] have a ton of things filed against them."

Those include a lawsuit headed to the Utah Supreme Court that challenges a law passed by the Utah Legislature limiting local rights to pursue land-use initiatives and referendums.

The BRAVE vs. Beaver County suit was filed by Mount Holly Club opponents who collected 845 signatures on a petition calling for the county's approval of the project to be put to a public vote. BRAVE stands for Save Beaver County, the Beaver River, and varied estates, according to court documents.

There is also a notification of default that Beaver County filed against the project's main developer, Mount Holly Partners LLC. Beaver County Deputy Attorney Leo Kanell said developers owe nearly $69,000 in fees for improvements made by a special service district at the development from when it was known as Elk Meadows.

And there's a lawsuit that one contractor, Murray-based engineer Bill Risen, filed against Mount Holly's partner company, CPB Development, that seeks $644,000 for work on a wastewater treatment plant.

While hesitant to discuss his claims because of the suit, Risen acknowledged, "I did some engineering work for Mount Holly in 2007 and waited more than a year to get paid . . . I've paid off my subcontractors and have waited more than a year to get some funds [from Mount Holly]. I just want to get paid and move on."

Developers blame a national economic slowdown for their setbacks. They remain determined to move forward after reorganizing some of the project's design and financing elements. The project, they now say, will bloom come springtime.

Company spokesman Bill Quick said developers have taken a new financial direction because of the economic slowdown, attempting to raise capital internally and by partnering with club members. "We don't want to incur a significant debt to get the ball rolling. "It will take some time to flush out."

He would not divulge the current number of club members, citing a desire to protect the group's privacy. "Let's just say there are multiple investors."

Quick said delays are problems common to many developments and predicted the disputes will be settled soon.

"The membership is not nervous about the timeline. It's not so much a problem as it might be perceived," he added.

The development started in the 1970s as a public ski resort, known as Mount Holly and later Elk Meadows.

Over the years, it grew into several condominium projects, on private and state trust lands, organized into homeowners associations.

Many residents in those associations have had a contentious relationship with the Mount Holly Club since the fall of 2006, when developers arrived on the scene, hoping to buy property to secure their project.

Its first phase is envisioned to scatter multimillion dollar homes over 1,800 acres within a fenced perimeter. Ski lifts that have been idle for years will be restarted for club members whose summer recreation would revolve around the Nicklaus-designed golf course. When completed in a decade, developers projected their finished club to be worth $3.5 billion, boosting Beaver County's tax base and providing jobs for locals. But the golf course remains a distant promise and prospects for skiing this winter appear slim.

If nothing gets built, it wouldn't disappoint Brent Stapley, a Beaver business owner who opposed the project from the outset.

"My concerns were if they [developers] were financially capable of really doing it," Stapley said.

Stapley added that in tough economic times, those who can afford to build at Mount Holly are more likely to pick places in Colorado like Vail or Steamboat Springs. Some resorts there are slicing off chunks of their property for private clubs like Mount Holly.

"Their timing is wrong," Stapley said. "Their plan [Mount Holly Club] may have worked 10 years ago. Now the big boys are jumping into the private club business. If you have $50 billion, you're still going to look for the best deal."

Quick expressed confidence that competition from other private resorts will not divert potential customers away from the Mount Holly Club.

"It's a proven deal," Quick said. "We take potential members there and it's an easy decision to make simply because of the shear beauty of the location."

[offpiste]

So if its not going to happen who's up for a trip to the Tushars this winter?!

[Mooseman70]

It's too bad that Elk Meadows may become a private retreat. I took a couple of Christmas vacations there with my family when I was a teenager, and I loved the fact that there were miles of wide open runs and NOBODY in line to ride the lifts. :hail2thechief: One of Utah's best kept secrets, IMHO. :2thumbs:

[offpiste]

Mooseman70 wrote: It's too bad that Elk Meadows may become a private retreat. I took a couple of Christmas vacations there with my family when I was a teenager, and I loved the fact that there were miles of wide open runs and NOBODY in line to ride the lifts. :hail2thechief: One of Utah's best kept secrets, IMHO. :2thumbs:

AGREED! How long ago did you take those vacations?

[Mooseman70]

I think the last one was in 1994. We did a couple of them prior to them to '94, but I still cannot believe to this day that the place was relatively unknown. We'd show up early AM and have the entire moutain to ourselves ALL DAY, day after day. It was great. We bought group lift passes with the number of us vacationing in our family, so the actual per-lift-pass cost averaged out to be $17.00 apiece. :2thumbs:

Man... what Utah is going to lose if they privatize Elk Meadows. Would be a real shame.

[stefan]

for your FYI, mooseman, offpiste helped build the ski area ... check out the beginning of the thread

http://bogley.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=44404#44404

[Mooseman70]

Very cool! :2thumbs: Nice to know someone on here was involved in building the place.

Yep - good memories of Elk Meadows. I'll have to see if I can go find my photo album w/ all my pics in them from those vacations. We drove all the way from So Cal & back several times just to be able to enjoy the mountain. Nothing I've been to before or since can even compare - Elk Meadows was a great secret! :2thumbs:

[offpiste]

true, too bad they want to ruin it.

[oldno7]

Always wondered who cut the original Mt. Holly runs, none of them followed the fall line.(very hard to ski) Later the Elk meadows runs had good fall lines but only beginner terrain.
On the theme of this thread-- it would ruin a good mountain to let it be privately developed. The used terrain and existing runs are mediocre at best. Having said that the terrain going both east and north are incredible.
This resort failed because Brian Head did not. A little closer to Vegas and no road or access issues in the winter. I also think Brian Heads terrain is mediocre but they built good infrastructure and more importantly a town.

[offpiste]

It failed because people don't want to drive the canyon. Infrastructure a little. But the folks I talked with had plenty of money to buy and build whatever they wanted and they said the travel was the deciding factor, no large airport and charter buses basically refused to travel the canyon.

I have to agree with the statement on the runs we tried our best to get them down a fall line on the old Mt. Holly side, we came in and tried to clean them up but it wasn't happening without major tree removal.

The best part is still the back country, that is why they need to leave it alone and let people use it.

[stefan]

An Unlikely Shangri-la:

Part I: Little room is left for new development at the West’s established resort towns, so entrepreneurs are turning second-tier ski hills into private enclaves for the jet set. But will the new resorts fly?

By Christopher Solomon/High Country News

Steve Jenson twists the throttle of his hornet-colored snowmobile and rockets up the empty ski slope. At the top, where the motionless chairlifts wait, Jenson finally slows, and cuts the engine. The shattered quiet of southwestern Utah’s high country knits itself back together. At 10,300 feet in the palm of the Tushar Mountains, frosted Engelmann spruce and subalpine fir stand as silent as penitents in the December snow. The air smells of balsam and wintertime. A romantic would say it smells like Christmas; a cynic, cash. That’s because Jenson and his colleagues are transforming this troubled but scenic ski area into an über-exclusive resort to rival the finest anywhere. And in the process they hope to make themselves a great deal of money.

“This is going to be our temporary upper lodge,” Jenson says. He’s dismounted and is pointing at something a snowball’s toss away from the lifts. The building is vintage early ’80s, the windows now dark, a slab of plywood nailed ignominiously over the door: the shuttered ski area’s upper day lodge. We are here just six weeks after the Mt. Holly Club has begun selling memberships, and a certain amount of squinting is required to see Jenson’s vision. “We’re doing a full remodel on it,” says Jenson, the club’s president and CEO. “We’re doing a ‘European mountain feel’ — stone, timbers, some sort of a metal roof with patinas. Stone floors and hardwood floors. Venetian plasters on the walls. A nice, exposed, big-timber ceiling. There will be a restaurant, a lounge for people to have a glass of wine at night. A ski shop and a sales office.”

That’s just to kick off. “This whole flat area you see up here” — with a finger he lassoes several acres of snow and fir — “this will all be the Village Center” — a 40,000-square-foot main lodge. Spa. Boutiques. Tennis courts. He throws his arms wide to embrace, well … nothing but brooding spruce. “This is going to be the heart of the resort, right here.”

Oh — but he’s nearly forgotten the golf! “The golf course surrounds this part of the resort,” Jenson adds, spinning. Afterward, as we motor around, he’ll point out black and green PVC pipes that periscope from the snow, marking future tees and landing areas: the schematics of a dream.

And yet something else lingers in the air besides Jenson’s vision and the nip of frostbite. A closed ski area is a melancholy thing. Snow drifts in the doorways of vacant lift shacks. A sign for a ski run called “Rocky Raccoon” dangles forlornly. But it’s more than that: There’s a curious, low-humming tension. It’s fed by the flame-red placards — “Private Property — Mt. Holly Club — Members Only” — that are nailed to most vertical surfaces, and by the memory of the people back at the clutch of slopeside condos. None of them smiled or waved as Jenson and his colleagues arrived.

Almost no one is making new ski areas anymore. The slopeside dirt of the established Vails and Tellurides? Gobbled up long ago. If you’re an entrepreneur daring to dream an outsized dream — say, building a posh country club on snow for the world’s richest people — you need a blank canvas upon which to boldly sketch your gilded ambitions. But what happens when you find such a place, only to discover that not all the natives share your passion for superlatives, your awe of stardust? Well, then you have two choices. You can woo the people until they swoon. You can shower them with goodwill and understanding, and bond with them over the contested dirt until the sweet-smelling lily of compromise blooms.

This is a story about the other choice.

Beaver, Utah, seems an unlikely exit for Shangri-La.

Beaver, population 2,500, is the seat of Beaver County, a tongue-depressor-shaped county in basin-and-range country. Here, a vast landscape that John McPhee once called “a delirium of sage” spraddles beneath southwest Utah’s parched sky, interrupted only by sudden cardiac jags of mountains. Located almost exactly halfway between Las Vegas and Salt Lake City, it is a place in-between: the kind of spot where an industrial hog farm relocates when it doesn’t want to bother anyone. Talk to residents and you get the sense that many of them love this place precisely because of this in-between-ness — because it is neither Here, nor There. It is a county one-third the size of New Jersey with just 6,500 residents and not a single traffic signal. But it does possess one troubled ski area.

Eighteen miles east of town, up a twisting canyon where heat-loving piñon pines yield to water-loving aspens, lies the modest ski hill long known as Elk Meadows. Skiing first began there 35 winters ago, and struggled nearly from the start. Some five different owners came and went; at least three of them declared bankruptcy. Observers often blame the absence of a large nearby population centre.

“It’s essentially become a running joke with residents because nobody’s lasted,” said Gene Gatza, who was general manager when the mountain closed for the final time in late 2002. “There have been all kinds of promises,” said Gatza, who still owns a cabin by the slopes.

“You’re always going to hear this: ‘There’s huge potential up there.’ ”

The latest to see potential were the Jenson brothers. Steve Jenson, the president and CEO of the Mt. Holly Club, is the former president and CEO of NStar Inc. and North American Lighting, a lighting and electrical company that engineers projects like Mobil refineries and service stations. Marc Jenson, 48, is Steve’s older brother and director of marketing. He has a reputation in Utah as a hard-money lender, offering short-term, high-interest loans, or bridge loans, to individuals and companies. In 2002, he extended one such loan to Elk Meadows’ cash-strapped owner, who defaulted and declared bankruptcy. Mt. Holly Club investors later acquired the property from a lender.

I met Marc Jenson a week before Christmas in the Salt Lake City suburb of Holladay, in a post-war rambler that he’d bought several years ago. He’d had it completely remodeled and now preferred that visitors call it the Cottage. An artificial creek holding brook trout coursed through a yard with a high fence. Inside, the Cottage felt like some European nobleman’s alpine hunting cabin — thick wooden ceiling beams the color of bitter chocolate, refinished pine floors, 19th century Henri Schouten pastorals on the walls. In a bedroom a duvet cover of Egyptian cotton bore the logo of the Beverly Hills Hotel. Jenson explained that potential Mt. Holly Club buyers could come here before heading to Beaver to get a taste of the club’s rustic sumptuousness.

Jenson himself seemed of a piece with the Cottage — attuned to the finest things, and out of place with the neighbourhood. Charismatic and intense, with a close-shorn head, he wore fashionable green boots, a heather purple cashmere sweater neatly tucked into True Religion jeans, an oversized gold Dolce & Gabbana belt buckle. On one wrist a chunky gold watch demanded attention. “It’s Richard Mille,” he told me when I asked about it. “It’s very expensive.”

Jenson grew effusive as he spoke about his vision for the Mt. Holly Club. A master plan calls for 1,204 homes and luxury condominiums spilling across 2,000 acres of revamped ski slopes (Ted Ligety, who clinched the 2008 overall World Cup giant slalom skiing title in mid-March with a Mt. Holly Club sticker on his forehead, is the club’s director of skiing) and along the new fairways of a Jack Nicklaus Golf Club, one of just 25 in the world. Would-be members will pay $250,000 just for the privilege of buying dirt at Mt. Holly, plus $25,000 annually, and are required to purchase property immediately. The first piece of the first phase — 21 “estate lots” averaging about an acre and bordering Fishlake National Forest — was approved by the county in November. Prices start at $1.5 million. Jenson said he expected those prices to go up over time. The club expects many of its memberships to be bought by the very affluent from the coasts.

Though Marc Jenson said he and his brother had been thinking about a private club for a decade, he was quick to acknowledge a debt to the Yellowstone Club in Montana, the paragon of the genre. Yellowstone members must pay $300,000 and buy property in order to enjoy 2,200 acres of the club’s trademarked “Private Powder.” Bill Gates, Tiger Woods and Dan Quayle all own property there. Existing homes for sale start at $4 million. Jenson added that a lot at the Yellowstone Club recently sold for $16 million. “We thought, ‘We can do that.”

Is this what the ultra-rich want? I asked.

“We have a philosophy that people of means are largely urban, but they have this wilderness fantasy,” he said. Once they have their daily hike or swim in the Great Outdoors, “they want to go back to a lodge and have a glass of wine and tell their friends about the bear they saw.”

The Mt. Holly Club will be more like a resort than a home in the woods, he explained, offering abundant nature (national forest wraps the property) without depriving affluent clients of the comforts and amenities they expect, even at an altitude of 10,000 feet — including a movie theater, no tee times, and “the kind of service that you get at the world’s finest hotels.” The club said that it had sold more than five memberships in the first few weeks after opening. A spokesman declined to provide updated membership numbers except to say that “there has been significant interest.”

Entrepreneurs who’ve aped the Yellowstone Club have met with mixed success. In mid-2005, a group of investors led by Bob Foisie bought Vermont’s Haystack Ski Area and soon announced the creation of the Haystack Club, a private resort with a plan to build 450 townhomes and condos, and a heli-pad for people coming from Manhattan. Today, all that remains are a gatehouse and a few townhomes. The club’s treasurer, Tom Cross, blamed last year’s lack of snowfall.

Outside Plymouth, Vt., investors bought long-dormant Round Top Mountain and opened the Bear Creek Mountain Club to the first private skiers in 2001. Today, 47 families pay up to a $25,000 membership for a chance to use the postage stamp-sized ski area and its clubhouse.

Even the Yellowstone Club hasn’t been without troubles — most dramatically, a lawsuit by Tour de France winner/investor Greg LeMond, and an increasingly bitter divorce between club founder Tim Blixseth and his wife. In the process a picture has emerged of a club that’s a financial mess, albeit a gilded one. At press time, Tim Blixseth had reportedly agreed to sell his stake in the club to his soon-to-be ex-wife as part of the divorce settlement, and give Edra Blixseth full control of his erstwhile dream.

Still, the idea of the private ski area remains very viable, argued David Dillon, former president of the Vermont Ski Areas Association and former marketing director of the Haystack Club.

“There’s always a market for exclusivity,” said Dillon. In fact, this past winter the Florida-based Ginn Company gained approval to build an exclusive community of 1,700 high-end homes and condominiums and a private, 1,000-acre ski mountain on 5,300 acres of land adjacent to the mining burg of Minturn, between the world-famous resorts of Vail and Beaver Creek. Wolf Creek, a small ski area and resort in Utah’s Ogden Valley, about 45 minutes from Salt Lake City, announced in April that it has transitioned into a private club and resort, with real estate.

The concept of private ski areas is hardly new to North America, though there have never been many, and the motivation behind them has changed, said John Fry, author of The Story of Modern Skiing (2006; University Press of New England). Originally, scarcity drove their creation; ski clubs started them simply in order to have a place to make tracks, said Fry. Ski areas designed purely to be exclusive evolved later.

That trend dismays Fry, former editor of Ski magazine. “It just seems like a different type of spirit is coming into skiing, with this $25,000 to have a parking space next to the lifts, or a private dining room in the lodge,” he said, mentioning amenities now available even at “regular” upscale resorts. “It’s a reflection of our broader society, a greater divisiveness between the poor and the wealthy” — or in skiing’s case, he corrected himself, between the merely affluent and the own-their-own-jet set.

Next week: Unlikely Shangri-La Part II — Winning over the residents of Beaver

Seattle writer Christopher Solomon writes frequently about the intersection of recreation, culture and the environment. He is a former Seattle Times reporter.

This story first appeared on August 18, 2008, in High Country News (www.hcn.org), which covers the West's communities and natural-resource issues.

[stefan]

SB53 overturned
Utah Supreme Court strikes down law curbing land-use initiative campaigns
By Cathy McKitrick
The Salt Lake Tribune


No matter the dispute - whether about pigs in Kanosh, a power plant near Sigurd or a posh resort outside Beaver - a recent state law shut the door to Utah residents seeking to settle those spats at the ballot box.

On Friday, the Utah Supreme Court flung that door wide open again.

A unanimous seven-page ruling tossed out SB53 as unconstitutional and empowered Utahns to take on land-use decisions through the time-honored practice of gathering enough signatures to force a public vote.

The issue came to a head when some die-hard Sevier County residents launched a grass-roots push so voters could weigh in on a proposed coal-fired power plant near Sigurd.

"When we started out in February 2008, we believed we were doing a countywide right to vote," Sevier County resident Elaine Bonavita said Friday. "We now can say we played a part in restoring the right to vote to all Utahns across the state."

SB53, sponsored by Sen. Brent Goodfellow, D-West Valley City, barred voters from launching initiatives dealing with land-use ordinances. The bill breezed through the 2008 Legislature, got signed by the governor and took effect in May.

Bonavita led a successful effort to get the 299-acre coal-fired power plant on next month's ballot. However, attorneys for Sevier Power Co. pointed to SB53 and argued that Proposition 1 should be removed. A 6th District judge agreed.

Early last week, Utah's high court ordered the measure back on the ballot and, on Friday, issued its full opinion.

"This direct prohibition of the subject of an initiative brought otherwise within the conditions, manner and time restrictions imposed by law is beyond the power of the Legislature to enact," Justice Michael Wilkins wrote.

With that, the court upheld the people's power to initiate legislation on any subject, including land use.

In March, land-use attorney Jeff Owens called SB53 a loss for Utahns.

He ultimately argued Sevier County's right-to-vote case before the high court.

"They let me gravy-train my way to a Supreme Court win," Owens said, crediting the grass-roots residents for "doing the hard work."

SB53's reversal took Goodfellow by surprise.

"It was never my intent to take away the power of the people to petition their government," he said.

"My intent was to protect the integrity of master plans, private property and land-use documents."

Sevier Power's co-owner, Bruce Taylor, hoped for a different decision.

His efforts to get the required approvals for a proposed $600 million facility have spanned eight years.

Farther south, Beaver County resident Margaret Wellman, who took part in the fight against the exclusive but embattled Mount Holly ski-golf resort, applauded the ruling.

"It affects the whole state," she said, "so we're happy for everybody who does not want to see unlimited, big development."

Kanosh resident Steve Maxfield, a Millard County Commission candidate, also rejoiced.

Maxfield has pushed for a referendum on his town's new land-use document that bars residents from owning pigs.

"Kanosh is a great town that has been around for over 150 years," Maxfield said. "We've chosen to be neighbors. If our neighbor wants to have a pig, that's OK."

[oldno7]

So if I read this right---- The local people(county level) will be able to decide on environmental issues through referendum? I love the idea, but it flies in the face of Environmental organizations who think all land should be managed from Wash. DC.
Could this possibly even be used on state levels to put Wilderness on a referendum?