Consider it a Christmas play, with the Salt Lake County Commission cast as the Spirit of Christmas and Salt Lake County Attorney Doug Short playing Scrooge.

In Act II, Short has once again blocked the commission's effort to proffer a kindly handful of cash to another political group - this time the organizers of the failed Cottonwood incorporation effort."It's Taylorsville-Bennion deja vu all over again - in the words of Yogi Berra," said Salt Lake County Commission Chairman Brent Overson.

But Act II is much shorter than Act I. Short said "no" at a County Commission meeting Monday, and the commission capitulated. The county will not pay a $32,000 legal bill incurred by incorporation supporters in their legal fight with the county over the constitutionality of the state's murky incorporation law. The Utah Supreme Court ruled last month that the law is too confusing to enforce.

Incorporation organizer Tom Nelson said his group is "shocked" by the commission's refusal to pay the bill. Neighbors for The Cottonwoods, organizers of the incorporation, sent the county a bill for the $32,000 last fall.

In Act I, Short said the commission couldn't give Taylorsville-Bennion $75,000 in start-up money to help the new town get on its feet. The commission and Short warred in public meetings and in front of the media for several days before the commission gave up the plan earlier this month. Instead of the getting a gift, Taylorsville-Bennion officials took out a bank loan.

Act II was briefer and much friendlier than Act I because Short was issuing a legal opinion about litigation, Overson said. That's his job as a county attorney.

But Overson's compliance is tinged with bitterness. He personally promised incorporation organizers that the county would pay the group's legal expenses. Now he can't honor his own word.

"I'm afraid to say anything to anybody for fear it's illegal," Overson said.

Overson didn't have the power to bind the county with his word, Short said. "In order to bind the county, the whole commission must vote on it. It's unfortunate that he misled the people."

Forcing the organizers to pay their own attorneys fees for the fight over the state law is "big government against the little citizen," Overson said. "It's like saying, `We're going to take you to the wall, and you are going to have to pay whatever the costs are, including attorneys' fees, and we are going to take your tax dollars to pay our costs.' That doesn't sound fair."

Nelson said the county has broken its word to the organizers. The offer last spring to pay attorneys' fees "was a one-to-one commitment made to me and (organizer) Trisha Topham. . . . Now the court case is over; we are simply asking them to keep their promise."

Overson may have offered to pay attorneys fees regardless, but the county's similar offer was contingent on the organizers settling their lawsuit against the county, Short said.

He notified organizers' attorney Kent Linebaugh in April that if the Neighbors for The Cottonwoods didn't accept one of the three proposals the county made for sharing revenue from Cottonwood Mall, the county would not pay any attorneys' fees.

"Maybe their attorney didn't tell that to organizers," Short speculated.

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In an April 19 letter to Linebaugh, Short wrote, "There has apparently been some misunderstanding regarding whether the county will pay reasonable attorney fees, and when. The offer to pay reasonable attorneys' fees is, of course, contingent on a satisfactory settlement of the entire matter. If no agreement is reached, and the appeal proceeds, any claim for attorneys fees would necessarily be denied by my office since they are not expressly allowed by statute and they were not requested below."

By "below," Short meant that that organizers failed to ask for attorneys fees at the trial-court level. By not doing so then, "they waived any claim for attorneys fees," Short said.

Could the organizers pay the bill on their own? Yes, if they had to, Nelson said. "We couldn't pay it today," he said. "But I've never worked with any group ever where there is a greater commitment to a cause than our battle to incorporate. My feeling is that people will make whatever sacrifices they need to make to get this incorporation completed. There isn't any stone we will leave unturned."

Or bill unpaid.

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