A group of residents in charge of ongoing efforts to incorporate Kearns is considering a lawsuit that the group hopes will invalidate the incorporation of neighboring Taylorsville-Bennion.
Attorney Mark Anderson of Nielsen & Senior confirmed Thursday that a lawsuit is being considered, but he wouldn't identify parties to be named or details of the suit. A recent Utah Supreme Court decision striking down the incorporation law "is part of it," he said.At issue is the timing of action by the Salt Lake County Commission, Taylorsville-Bennion organization efforts and a Utah Supreme Court ruling that threw out Utah incorporation law, saying it is too inconsistent to be used.
"The election was illegal if it was done under a flawed law," said Wendy Brooks, head of the Kearns effort.
Part of the argument centers on a rectangular section of the community between 4700 South and 6200 South and 4000 West and the Bangerter Highway. This area generates about $800,000 in taxes annually, according to Brooks, and is now within Taylorsville-Bennion's city boundaries.
Without tax money generated in this area, which includes a Food 4 Less, Kmart, an RC Willey furniture store and other big businesses, Kearns can't survive, Brooks said.
"We are still hoping to incorporate. The biggest thing is that we want to protect our community," she said. "Without the commercial base, we become a bedroom community."
In this scenario, Kearns residents stand to see their taxes triple, she said.
Brooks said she and others are meeting with Salt Lake County Attorney Doug Short and representatives from the Utah Attorney General's office and hope to work out a resolution, but are prepared to proceed with legal action.
Short said Anderson called him last week to notify him about the potential litigation. Until he sees a lawsuit, Short said it's hard to know how to respond.
"I did advise Mr. Anderson that since there's no formal action for the county to take, there's no reason . . . to sue the county to stop them from taking any action." The county is finished with formal duties in the Taylorsville-Bennion incorporation effort.
A history of incorporation efforts in the midsection of the Salt Lake Valley, boundary disputes and muddy laws that have complicated incorporation efforts of Taylorsville-Bennion, The Cottonwoods, Kearns and Magna all are part of the issue.
Because of the case involving The Cottonwoods pending before the Utah Supreme Court, the county commissioners in late June put all incorporation efforts on hold, except for Taylorsville-Bennion.
In early November, the court tossed out state law, thus postponing all incorporation efforts until the laws can be fixed in the Legislature.
"They were allowed to incorporate and no one else was," Brooks said of Taylorsville-Bennion.
Bruce Wasden, head of the Taylorsville-Bennion Community Council and a new city council member in the state's seventh-largest city, said the city followed all edicts of the law as it existed.
"We had a valid incorporation issue that the commission accepted and the people voted on," he said. "That's why I say I don't believe this is an issue."
Regarding the rectangular area Brooks mentioned, Wasden said the commission and residents in that area have repeatedly stated an alliance with Taylorsville-Bennion over Kearns.
An informal election five years ago showed residents wanted to be part of the Taylorsville-Bennion Community Council. About 90 percent of residents in that area voted in favor of the incorporation, he said.
When the commissioners made their June ruling, Taylorsville-Bennion already had ordered a feasibility study and was well along in the incorporation process. Beyond that, Short said, the county was looking specifically at each of the four incorporation efforts independently and not at the state statute in general.
The county was in dispute with The Cottonwoods over excess money, Short said, and those were not the same issues in Taylorsville-Bennion. Magna's incorporation shared some of the same questions, and Kearns had boundary overlapping Magna's, he said.
"(The Utah Supreme Court) surprised us all by saying the statute was entirely inoperable," he said. "Quite frankly, we're still scratching our heads to see what that means."
Rep. Sue Lockman, R-Kearns, has drafted proposed legislation that wouldn't allow "unmanageable islands" of unincorporated county like Kearns that Brooks envisions. "This is not a nasty, hard feeling kind of thing," Lockman said.
"The bottom line is that if we're going to have wall-to-wall cities, we have to have a logical fair way of forming these. We can't have one with streets paved with gold and another that can't afford garbage service."
The bottom line for Brooks is a hope for Kearns to "protect its borders."
"We don't want to be West Jordan, we don't want to be West Valley."