House Bill 356, sponsored by South Jordan Republican Rep. Jordan Teuscher, was passed at 11:57 p.m. It was the third-to-last bill pushed through before the 2025 General Session's midnight close Friday, March 7.
It requires Summit County to elect its councilmembers from five voting districts. Currently, all the seats are at-large.
On KPCW’s “Local News Hour” Tuesday, Deputy Summit County Manager Janna Young called HB356 a “shameful political stunt with no integrity to community involvement or transparency.”
She claims county officials were assured the bill was “dead” before it was revived in the final days of the session.
“We were never told who was behind the effort or their connection to the bill sponsor. We now know that the Summit County Republicans were behind the bill and working with our legislators behind our backs. Even though our legislators purported to be helping us, we were wondering why hide it from us,” Young said. “We could have had a conversation about it, studied it with our community, engaged other voters and possibly come up with a collaborative bill together.”
HB356 initially would’ve reverted Cache County back to a three-member commission as well, but that provision was dropped. The bill that ultimately passed only deals with Summit County’s form of government.
Tory Welch, the Summit County GOP’s representative to the state central committee, says the county Republican party did not take an official position on the bill.
“I don't think there was any formal position on it, but informally, I think for the most part, everybody was quite supportive of it,” Welch told KPCW. “There were some individuals who are not necessarily associated with the party, as far as leadership or executive team or anything like that, that were certainly pushing for it.”
Welch and Ari Ioannides were the main Republican challengers to the westside Democrats who won the November 2024 election. Both men live in northern Summit County.
Ioannides received cheers at the 2024 county GOP convention when he raised the idea of three districted and two at-large seats.
HB356 is written so that all five seats would be districted, and Ioannides told KPCW it’s “a good thing for the people of Summit County.”
“Summit County is the only county in Utah using the council form of government that is not districted,” Ioannides said. “This bill will assure that the makeup of county councils in Utah are more representative.”
Teuscher agrees that it’s about giving eastern Summit County a voice.
Currently, all but one county councilmember live in the Park City area, and all are Democrats. The rural eastside tends to vote red, and tended to vote against changing the three-person, at-large commission to a five-person council in 2006.
“It's really easy for the large urban area to overpower all of the rural area, and the rural voice just doesn't get heard,” Teuscher said on the House floor Feb. 28, before sending the bill to the Senate.
Welch also says HB356 means it will cost less to run for council because candidates need only campaign in their district, rather than the whole county.
“The previous system kind of created perverse incentives,” the former council candidate said. “People who were either very wealthy or very well connected, made it a lot easier for them and a lot more difficult for your average citizens.”
But Young thinks the bill is caving to special interests, not casting them aside.
“I think regardless of your preference or personal philosophy on this issue, it feels wrong that a small group of voters with connections to the legislature have the power to decide this issue for the entire community,” she said.
Young didn’t get called on during public comment when HB356 was being reviewed in the House Political Subdivisions Committee. It got pulled from committee in the Senate, so no one got to weigh in then.
Before the Senate passed it at 10:45 p.m. March 7, Salt Lake City Democrat Sen. Jen Plumb said she had just received emails from concerned Summit County representatives.
“When they made the decision to go to all at-large in 2006 that had been a voter decision, and they didn't feel particularly great about us, kind of, usurping that,” she said on the floor.
The Senate then passed the bill in a mostly party line vote, and the House concurred an hour later at 11:57 p.m.
Summit County’s Republican Sen. Ron Winterton voted against the bill, and GOP Rep. Mike Kohler, representing the Park City area, abstained or was absent in the House. Eastern Summit County GOP Rep. Tiara Auxier voted for the bill.
“We often brush off late night surprises on the last day of the legislative session as, ‘Well, that's just politics, or that's how things are done in the legislature,’ but it's not right, it's not ethical, it's not transparent government, and we should expect and demand better from our elected representatives,” Young said.
HB356 is on the desk of Gov. Spencer Cox, who had not vetoed a single 2025 bill as of March 11.
At first, the bill would have ended current councilmembers’ terms in 2026. Now, they may serve the rest of their current terms, but which district they represent will be decided by a lottery.
If the law takes effect May 7, a districting commission to draw the five voting areas must be up and running by June.
The commission would include Summit County’s mayors, one resident of the unincorporated county and the county clerk.
County officials have pointed out that districts would need to be roughly proportional in population, which may mean including westside neighborhoods in eastside districts.
