House Bill 356 forces Summit County to draw five voting districts from which to elect its county council, which is currently elected at-large. The new law takes effect May 7.
Lawmakers are expected to revise the bill during a special session soon, after inadvertently roping Wasatch County into the same requirement to draw districts.
HB356 is also written to allow current councilmembers to serve out the rest of their terms. But most of Summit County’s mayors don’t want to wait.
A letter to Utah’s House speaker, Senate president and governor obtained by KPCW shows four of the six mayors want the bill changed into “its strongest possible form.” That means holding an “immediate special election” for all five Summit County Council seats.
“HB356 is a critical step in ensuring fair and equal representation for the residents of Summit County,” the letter states. “It seeks to do something that should already be fundamental: make sure every councilmember represents a distinct geographic area.”
The letter KPCW obtained May 6 was signed by Mayor Kay Richins of Henefer, Mark Marsh of Coalville, Matt McCormick of Kamas and Jeremie Forman of Francis. Zane Woolstenhulme and Nann Worel from Oakley and Park City, respectively, did not sign.
The letter is dated April 14 — one day before the county held the first of two public comment sessions about HB356.
At the April 15 meeting, many of the mayors indicated they’d spoken with their constituents after the bill passed. And most of the residents who spoke at the meeting voiced support for five districts.
“From my perspective as mayor of Kamas, I'm 100% in favor of the bill as it's currently written in every form. I want to be clear about it: in every form,” Matt McCormick said April 15. “I have a lot of people come into my office who live outside of my city limits. I'm sure all the mayors do.”
Under HB356, a committee of all the mayors and one unincorporated resident will work with the Summit County clerk to draw the five districts. County officials have complained that doesn’t fairly represent unincorporated Summit County, where the majority of residents live.
But Summit County’s mayors assert that they can faithfully represent people who live near their towns, even if they didn’t vote for them.
Woolstenhulme and Worel supported putting an additional unincorporated resident on the districting commission, but the mayors didn’t vote on it.
“I also agree, that said, that none of the mayors are going to try to do anything unfair about [drawing districts],” Woolstenhulme said April 15. “I think we are fair people.”
The Oakley mayor said at a city council meeting last month he’s in favor of districts for county council seats but disagrees with how HB356 was passed “basically without any hearings and input from the public.”
The letter signed by four of the other mayors accuses Summit County of being unfair, of making “active efforts to circumvent the spirit and letter of this legislation.”
None of the mayors who signed the letter responded to KPCW’s requests for comment May 6.
From the perspective of Summit County staff, County Manager Shayne Scott told KPCW he was “disappointed to read the letter” and “can only speculate” about what is meant by the county trying to circumvent HB356.
“If asking that the legislation be changed to allow at least one at-large member of the council, to have more representation on the districting committee than one member of the unincorporated county…and to allow current councilmembers to serve out their terms in the area where they currently reside is circumventing,” he wrote in an email, “then we are guilty as charged.”
Scott continued: “In my more than two years here in the county and until HB356, I would consider our working relationship with each city in our county as constructive and collaborative. We do so much together. I am disappointed to read the letter that was sent. Any meeting about HB356 between Summit County and the mayors of the cities, of which I am aware, was instigated by Summit County. The county would have appreciated, nay relished, the opportunity to collaborate with our residents and the leadership of the cities in our county. But we were completely left in the dark.”
The letter contends that allowing the current councilmembers to finish their terms “under a system that was never intended to be permanent, fair or representative only prolongs the inequity HB356 is designed to fix.”
Speaking on KPCW’s “Local News Hour” about how many unincorporated residents should sit on the districting commission, County Councilmember Canice Harte said some mayors don’t want the council involved in boundary-setting.
McCormick, of Kamas, had said HB356 was not an appropriate topic of discussion for the Council of Governments, which consists of the six mayors and three members of the Summit County Council. He said it “isn’t a COG issue” because the law only mentions the mayors.
“The reason when they — we were at the Council of Governments — they pushed back, and they were like, ‘No, we really want this,’” Harte said April 24. “They're mostly just afraid that the council is somehow going to water it down, that we’ll dilute it or somehow make it play out in our favor. It's kind of a trust thing.”
Marsh and McCormick both said HB356 is about geographic representation and not about Republican or Democrat. However, local Republicans said back in January that members of their party drafted the bill.
Since it started meeting in 2009, the Summit County Council has always had one or two eastern Summit County residents. They’ve been a mix of Republicans or Democrats, although currently all councilmembers are Democrats.
Municipal elected offices are nonpartisan.
The special session of the Utah Legislature, which has a supermajority of Republicans, is expected to happen later this month.
Summit County is a financial supporter of KPCW. For a full list, click here.
