In an email to the Summit County clerk, the referendum sponsors said they plan to seek an injunction from 3rd District Court to force the Summit County Clerk’s Office to accept 21 signature packets it rejected Feb. 19.
In the meantime, they’re taking to social media warning residents who’ve signed not to sign again. The sponsors believe that submitting two signatures for the referendum invalidates both.
“If you signed for the referendum please don’t sign again, it will invalidate your signature,” sponsor Ruby Diaz wrote on Nextdoor. “If you are a registered voter and have not signed, we need your signature.”
Petitioners need 4,554 signatures by March 3, or the challenge of a controversial Kimball Junction development won’t make the November 2025 ballot.
Clerk Eve Furse rejected all but four of the 25 signature packets the sponsors submitted Feb. 18 because of how they were bound.
They all came spiral bound, but the rejected packets were also three-hole punched.
Based on news photos of signature-gathering events, Furse believes any of the three-hole punched sheets may have been separated from the 160-page voter information packet. Citing state code and judicial precedent, she said that’s against the rules.
The sponsors disagree and have said they’ll seek “a formal injunction.” They believe rejecting the packets isn’t one of her duties as clerk and that current law doesn’t support her conclusion.
Two months ago, the Summit County Council OK’d 725 residential units and a mixed-use plaza and transit center for the land around Skullcandy’s headquarters in Kimball Junction.
The developer, Dakota Pacific Real Estate, has funded a political issues committee called Wasatch Back Future to oppose the referendum effort. But it has also filed to form a town on its land, which could circumvent county zoning for its development.
