Hideout Town Council delayed a vote Wednesday night on annexing property in nearby Summit County. Fourth District Court Judge Jennifer Brown ordered the council to wait until she makes a ruling Thursday afternoon about whether the annexation violates the temporary injunction she’s already ordered.
Following a 90 minute hearing Wednesday afternoon on Summit County’s Order to Show Cause, Judge Brown said she needed more time to consider the arguments before making her ruling that could determine the future of Hideout’s annexation plans.
During the hearing, Hideout’s attorney, Robert Mansfield, said Hideout has corrected all of the mistakes it made when it approved the first annexation resolution and pre-annexation agreement in July. He says Summit County doesn’t have a right to object to the annexation now being considered. Hideout’s annexation, he said, is being done under the law that was approved by the state legislature in a special session, and that law doesn’t repeal the opportunity that allows Hideout to move forward with a second annexation. Mansfield said this is a new and separate annexation, which the judge ruled that they could do. He added that Summit County has no cause of action. Mansfield claims the action Hideout is taking with its second annexation resolution is proper, doesn’t violate the court’s temporary injunction, and is within the law.
However, Summit County deputy attorney Jami Brackin argued that the rescission of the first annexation resolution and pre-annexation agreement doesn’t cure the problem. She said there has never been a time when what she called, “this pre-cooked decision,” hasn’t been in place. Brackin claimed the second annexation effort is still tainted: it’s the same property, it is the same town council and just because the first resolution was rescinded, doesn’t change the fact the whole effort started illegally behind closed doors. The Hideout Town Council, she said, purposely hid what they were doing from Summit County, Park City, Wasatch County as well as the public. Brackin also said moving forward with an annexation that was mis-represented to the state legislature, who has since made it very clear that allowing a municipality to annex property from another county was never the intent, she said, hasn’t fixed the original problem.
Saying that she needed more time to think, Judge Brown said she would make her ruling Thursday afternoon at 4 pm, just hours before the Hideout Town Council has noticed a meeting to possibly approve the annexation.
In the meantime, the judge agreed to Summit County’s request that an order be put into place that the Hideout Town Council not act on the annexation until after she makes that ruling.
