According to the Utah Lt. Governor’s website, 3,214 signatures were verified as of March 25.
March 24 was the Summit County clerk’s deadline to finish counting all the signatures it received to put the county’s development agreement with Dakota Pacific Real Estate on the ballot in November.
Referendum sponsors needed at least 16% of all registered voters in Summit County to sign their petition, or about 4,554 signatures.
Although they appear to have fallen short by about 1,300, Summit County Manager Shayne Scott doesn’t think this is the end.
“I think there will likely be some dispute, whether it be the packets and the numbers of signatures,” he said on KPCW’s “Local News Hour” March 25. “I know that the clerk's office will only verify those signatures that came in valid packets and that may be in dispute.”
KPCW emailed petition organizers shortly after the Lt. Governor’s website updated March 25, and they didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
“Though she has 111 days after the signature deadline to make the call, we expect the clerk to officially declare the petition INSUFFICIENT any day now,” the sponsors said on their website, Protect Summit County. “When she does, we will pursue legal remedy to reinstate the rejected packets.”
Summit County Clerk Eve Furse told KPCW 30 of the 77 signature packets her office received over the past month "did not meet the petition requirements in Utah's Election Code." Full packets contain up to 100 signatures each. Furse said some packets were full, and some had as few as 10 signatures inside.
Furse has cited photos she says show signatures sheets circulating without a 160-page voter information packet, and she said those elements must be bound together before they're signed.
But the seven residents sponsoring the referendum contended they followed the law. They said they turned in more than 6,000 valid signatures by their March 3 deadline.
“The clerk's office no. 1 priority is to protect and implement the processes by which Summit County residents express their political will — regardless of the subject matter,” Furse said. “We can only verify signatures on petitions that comply with statutory packet requirements.”
The sponsors may challenge her decision in court to raise the signature count but hadn’t filed a lawsuit as of early March 25.
Summit County wasn’t set to certify the referendum until June, after a 45-day period for signatories to remove their signatures. The clerks would have also been allowed time to make sure signatures were spread across Summit County as state law requires.
Meanwhile, Dakota Pacific is moving ahead with its controversial plans for a 725-unit neighborhood near Skullcandy’s headquarters.
The Summit County Council approved the development in December and agreed to partner with the developer on additional county-owned affordable housing and an expanded transit center.
As residents sought to reverse that decision, state lawmakers passed a law to give the developer the right to build anyway.
Scott said March 25 that Dakota Pacific has reached out to the planning department at Summit County about the law, Senate Bill 26.
“They haven't moved forward, but they're talking about their next steps,” he said.
Under SB26, which Gov. Spencer Cox signed earlier this month, the company only needs administrative approvals from county staff to build at Kimball Junction.
This is a developing story. It was updated at noon, March 25.
Summit County is a financial supporter of KPCW. For a full list, click here.
