Lawmakers should not use their powers to settle local-government disputes that already are winding their way through a fair process. That much should be obvious, and yet Utah's legislators seem ever-willing to try.
For two years now, Salt Lake City and North Salt Lake have been locked in a battle over 80 acres that lie open and undeveloped on the foothills in Salt Lake City's north end. North Salt Lake owns the land, which it acquired many years ago in order to obtain water rights. Salt Lake City has zoned it as open space, something the city correctly feels should be preserved because the land is one of the last pristine portions of the ancient Bonneville shoreline.
But now North Salt Lake wants to allow developers to build on part of that land. City officials would like to remove it from Salt Lake City and annex it into their own city, which would allow them to change the zoning. Salt Lake City, obviously, objects. The dispute has landed in court, as do most de-annexation attempts that are rejected by a city.
Rather than wait for the courts, however, North Salt Lake has turned to the Legislature. Sen. Dan Eastman, R-Bountiful, is sponsoring a bill carefully worded in such a way as to allow North Salt Lake to take the land. The bill, SB130, affects only land a city has owned for at least 30 years and which sits on its borders. And, if passed, it would be valid only for a specific time period.
It is, in other words, a gigantic time-waster for lawmakers who ought to be concerned about weightier matters. It also may reap unintended consequences. Who knows how many other Utah cities own land under similar circumstances?
A couple of factors are at work here. One is an obvious dislike for Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson, which exists among many lawmakers but specifically those from Davis County. The other is the very real possibility that North Salt Lake will lose its case otherwise. Even if North Salt Lake successfully disconnects the land, the Salt Lake County Council has said it will stand in the way of attempts to annex it.
And the county wants the land to remain as open space.
That ought to be the overriding issue here. This is sensitive land that needs to be preserved. For state lawmakers to circumvent a fair process would be irresponsible. If Congress were to impose itself on Utah this way, lawmakers would be correctly outraged.