A group of local residents opposed to the construction of a 69-acre office park west of the Jordan River wants to take its case directly to South Jordan voters - but it's going to be an uphill haul.
City Council members informally agreed Tuesday night not to take action on the group's application for a referendum petition challenging a Dec. 16 council decision that granted a 120-day zoning extension for the controversial RiverPark office complex.Councilman Thomas Christensen said Wednesday that a confidential legal opinion from City Attorney Mike Mazuran, which was briefly discussed during an executive session prior to council meeting, indicated the referendum application was legally flawed.
And the council's non-action will mean that city staffers will not prepare a petition for circulation among residents asking for signatures of people who want to have the extension nullified.
Christensen said City Manager David Millheim was directed to contact SOS, an acronym for Save Our South Jordan River Valley, to advise them the application the group filed last week has "fatal" deficiencies and that no referendum petition will be issued.
However, since Mazuran's legal opinion was marked confidential, the deficiencies have not been disclosed, and the document is protected by attorney-client privilege unless city officials agree to make the material public.
SOS spokeswoman Janalee Tobias said Wednesday that based on discussions with the state lieutenant governor's office, which has jurisdiction over Utah election laws, her group thinks the city has erred in not issuing the petition.
Tobias said she hopes clarifications by state officials will resolve the matter, but added her organization may have to get an attorney if the city continues to block the referendum petition request.
"We have done everything legally, and there is no reason why we should not proceed with a referendum," she said. "We are allowed to do this as citizens, and we should not be denied our due process."
The South Jordan woman said local residents should have the opportunity to overturn the Dec. 16 council vote that gave developers more time to work out complex issues surrounding the proposed office park.
The 5-0 decision prevented some 85 acres, which was rezoned from agricultural use early in 1996 to office service use, from reverting back to the original zone.
It also gave developer Gerald Anderson until April 28 to meet a stiff set of requirements laid out by the City Council when the property was rezoned early in 1997.
Those requirements include completion of a development agreement, a conceptual site plan and a traffic impact study.
But Tobias' group wants local voters to reject the four-month extension, triggering the reversion clause in the ordinance that rezoned the ground in the first place.
State law provides for such referendums, she said, but SOS would first have to gather at least 1,200 signatures representing 10 percent of South Jordan's registered voters in order to call for a public vote.
While the law stipulates properly petitioned referendums should be voted on by the next local election, Tobias said the city won't vote on municipal officers again until 1999.
"We hoped to ask the city to hold a special election as soon as we have enough signatures," she said. "We need approximately 1,200, but we wanted to get about 1,500 or 1,600 in case some of them aren't valid."
Tobias said that if local voters would support SOS' efforts to overturn the zoning extension, the property south of 10600 South and west of the river likely would "revert back to open space."
But the city has been proceeding cautiously on this issue because of the legal implications.
Anderson, who estimates he has invested some $2 million in a good-faith effort to develop the property, has made it clear he will take legal action to protect his financial interests.