First, there was the fight to get an incorporation bill, now there's the fight to save it.
Lawmakers and community leaders summoned the press to the Capitol Friday to pitch Utah's controversial incorporation bill as a bill of the people.That's why "power brokers" are asking Gov. Mike Leavitt to veto it, said Rep. Dave Ure, R-Kamas. Powerful people in the county are "doing land grabs, without the will of the people," Ure said, referring to local cities annexing plum commercial developments into their boundaries.
The new bill gives people the power to protect their communities by forming townships, he said.
Ure, six other lawmakers and proponents of several incorporation petitions announced their support for the bill at Friday's press conference. The Salt Lake County Sheriff's Association and the Salt Lake County Firefighters have also thrown their support behind the bill.
The sheriff's association supports the bill partly to save deputy sheriffs' jobs. Communities that incorporate often start their own police departments, forcing county cutbacks. If communities create townships, they will still rely on the deputy sheriffs for public safety, said association spokesman Perry Buckman.
But the Salt Lake County Council of Governments - com-prised of area mayors and county officials - has voted unanimously to ask Leavitt to veto the bill, calling it a Frankenstein's monster.
Ure and other lawmakers who crafted the bill in a last-minute compromise in the final hours ofthe session say it gives people a power over their destiny that county officials don't want them to have.
"This gives them a choice," said Rep. Sue Lockman, R-Kearns. "They aren't forced to form a township, annex or incorporate. They have a choice."
If Leavitt vetoes this bill, "what we will have then is chaos and more court cases. The people won't know where they are going," Ure said.
Rep. Dan Tuttle, D-Salt Lake, condemned cities opposed to the bill. "They are always complaining about state and federal mandates, yet it's OK for them to grab in these annexations."
The Utah Supreme Court last fall struck down Utah's incorporation law because it was unconstitutionally vague. More than half a dozen incorporation petitions were put on hold until lawmakers could come up with a new law.
Lockman's first draft was repeatedly shredded and redrawn during the session because proponents for various incorporation efforts lobbied their lawmakers hard for favorable amendments.
Midway through the session, a Senate version appeared.
Lawmakers were deadlocked on two bills until the last day of the session. Pressured by the prospect of no law, they drew up a compromise bill that contained components of the House and Senate bill.
Unexpectedly, the final version created townships, a new form of local government in Utah.
Opponents to the bill say it allows a small group of people to put incorporations, annexations and development on hold by hastily creating a township. Once a petition to create a township has enough signatures, it goes to a general vote, putting all other proposals on hold.
Salt Lake County officials are unhappy about turning planning and development over to the small planning and zoning boards in various townships. Officials in various cities are worried that plans to annex property near their borders could be scuttled by townships.
But some people like it because it gives them a greater voice in annexation. The bill allows property owners to opt out of an annexation if 50 percent of the property owners in a voting district, holding one-third the value of real property in that district, decide they don't want to be part of an annexation.
Bob Strang supports the bill for that reason. He is under contract to buy some land that would be part of the Oquirrh Shadows annexation into West Jordan. He and several property owners don't want to be part of West Jordan, he said. The new bill gives the property owners a way out.
"It gives the citizens a few more choices. It gives us more freedom and take away some of the power cities have."