Salt Lake County goes to court Friday to seek a preliminary injunction blocking recent West Jordan and West Valley annexations after a proposed settlement with West Jordan fell apart Thursday.
The Salt Lake County Commission held a public hearing Thursday to get input on West Jordan's proposal to annex Oquirrh Shadows if the county continued to provide services to the neighborhood for three more years.But no one got that far.
Angry Kearns residents accused the commission of letting West Valley and West Jordan grab desirable pieces of the Kearns area before Kearns could go forward with its incorporation petition.
"Kearns will be nothing," said Kearns area resident Russ Meyers. "All the best property is being grabbed by West Jordan and West Valley before the new incorporation law takes effect."
"We are not allowing West Valley to plunder or West Jordan to plunder," Salt Lake County Commissioner Brent Overson said.
But after more than an hour of diverse testimony marked by shouting, booing and applause, the commission concluded the community was too divided for a settlement and decided to go forward with its lawsuit against West Jordan and West Valley.
There is currently a temporary restraining order against West Jordan's annexation attempts.
The commission gave residents on the west side until Sunday night to come up with a proposed settlement with West Jordan or West Valley. If the matter can be settled before the new incorporation law goes into effect Monday, the county will try to find a judge Sunday night to lift the injunction the county hopes to get against the West Valley and West Jordan annexations.
But a furious West Jordan attorney said he wouldn't even discuss a last minute negotiation.
"There is no settlement," attorney Greg Curtis told Salt Lake County Attorney Doug Short after Thursday's hearing. "We just got set up so badly by the county commission I won't even have the decency to sit down and talk to them between now and Sunday night."
West Valley attorney Paul Morris said he would be willing to talk, but he made it clear that West Valley considers its annexation "a done deal." Some three dozen people at the hearing talked about Kearns' plans to file a township petition Monday morning to protect its boundaries until it can decide whether to incorporate.
West Valley had promised to give the annexed land back if Kearns incorporates. But it won't turn it back for a township, Morris said. "A township is not an incorporation."
People hoping to preserve Kearns were angry over a hearing West Valley held last week on another parcel of land the city hopes to annex. Kearns already has a petition for incorporation - why is the commission letting neighboring cities violate that petition by annexing prime pieces of land, Meyers demanded.
"The annexations are only a land-grab out of an already established incorporation," said incorporation proponent Wendy Brooks.
"The people who own the property want to be in West Valley. They have rights," Overson countered.
West Valley's hearing last week was on a parcel of vacant property east and west of 7200 West between 6600 South and 6200 South. The city wants to see a gravel pit there, Morris said.
West Jordan's City Council was poised to adopt an ordinance and OK a contract letter at a special afternoon meeting Thursday.
For months, West Jordan has been deliberating with the county about who will pay to provide services for Oquirrh Shadows' 10,000 residents. The subdivision takes in homes between 6200 South and 7000 South and 4800 West and 5600 West along West Jordan's current border.
West Valley and West Jordan have been fighting over a larger piece of commercially viable land between 5600 West and U-111 and 6200 South and 7000 South until several weeks ago, when city officials in both cities agreed to split the space. With this decision came West Jordan's decision to abandon efforts to annex Oquirrh Shadows.