Summit County and the town of Hideout are at odds once again, this time over an alleged settlement agreement regarding Hideout’s attempt to annex Richardson Flat.
Summit County sued Hideout on July 31st over the town’s vote to annex the Richardson Flat land East of Park City. Both Summit County and Hideout have confirmed to KPCW that settlement negotiations began shortly after the initial August 10th hearing in Utah’s 4th District Court.
Janna Young is Summit County’s Assistant County Manager and told KPCW on Tuesday that Hideout’s legal counsel approached the Summit County Attorney’s Office in mid August and the two sides entered into settlement negotiations.
“The county had an opportunity, we had the town of Hideout reach out to us, wanting to work on a settlement agreement and it was during those negotiations that we made it very clear we are interested in doing regional planning with them and coming up with a solution that was mutually beneficial to both of our entities,” she said.
Summit County claims an agreement was made, Hideout says their town council never saw it in writing.
KPCW has obtained a copy of the settlement agreement, which was signed by Summit County Attorney Margaret Olson and County Manager Tom Fisher on August 18th. The agreement would have ended Summit County’s lawsuit against the town and also halted any annexation efforts by Hideout into Summit County without the county’s permission prior to the end of the 2021 General Session of the Utah State Legislature on March 5th.
The agreement would have also set up “good faith efforts” to cooperate on regional planning in the area, requiring officials and planning staff from both parties to meet no less than once per month in order to keep the discussions moving forward.
Summit County said after the agreement was signed by Olson and Fisher on August 18th, it was sent to Hideout for their signatures. Young claims Hideout then rejected the settlement.
“We actually got to the point where our County Attorney, Margaret Olson, signed that agreement, Tom Fisher, our County Manager signed that agreement, but when it went back to the town of Hideout, they reneged and decided they didn’t want to go forward with that,” Young said. “We’re back in this position where we’re trying to continue to preserve our authority on lands within our borders and follow through on carefully planning those areas with our elected officials and our citizens. This is definitely an issue to spend a lot of time on and a lot of focus.”
Hideout Town Councilmember Chris Baier paints a different picture. Baier told KPCW Tuesday afternoon that Hideout’s town attorney was asked to work with Summit County to pursue a possible settlement agreement. Baier said the Hideout Town Council decided to not settle with Summit County under the terms described by the town attorney.
Baier said the council did not find it acceptable that the agreement would have taken away Hideout’s ability to pursue any legal cross-county annexation until after the conclusion of the 2021 General Session.
Baier also claims the Hideout Town Council never received any written settlement agreement from Summit County, and never saw any signatures from Summit County officials.
Baier added that at the time of that decision, it was also unclear whether or not House Bill 359, which enabled Hideout’s initial annexation resolution on July 9th, would be repealed by the Utah State Legislature. House Bill 359 was repealed on August 20th.
In a written statement to KPCW, Baier said, in part:
“Summit County has appeared intent on shutting Hideout down using as many outrageous allegations in their complaint as they could think of … From my perspective, Summit County appears to be a bully who is not making any substantive effort to settle with their neighboring local government. That’s a real shame. Hideout would like to work cooperatively with Summit County, as well as Wasatch County and Park City, in regional planning. We want to ensure that the best interests of the current and future population of the Jordanelle area are represented by local government.”
Hideout has until October 19th before the repeal of House Bill 359 goes into effect. If the town chooses to pursue another annexation, Summit County has said they will do whatever is necessary to keep current county land under their jurisdiction.
