A judge dismissed the group’s original lawsuit in a ruling Oct. 31, the group’s co-founder Lisa Bahash said.
But she said despite this week’s legal setback, Save Wasatch Back Dark Skies will continue to fight the lighting code, including filing a new complaint and jumping into action if or when the county council approves temple plans Nov. 8.
“We expect that the council will… approve the LDA [legislative development agreement],” she said. “So we are preparing for our next steps based on that approval – which will likely include a potential other legal complaint and an establishment of a referendum to take it to a ballot proposition for all Wasatch County residents to vote on.”
The group submitted an amended petition to review the Wasatch County outdoor lighting code – just enacted in April – amid last week’s public hearing about the LDS temple plans.
The group, whose members have been vocal participants at public meetings about the proposed Heber Valley temple, said it has new information to support its allegation the county passed the new lighting ordinance illegally.
In the filing, dated Oct. 24, it argued the county violated the county land use act, obstructed free speech and violated due process.
The group said the county saw its “real agenda” as opposing the temple specifically.
Dark Skies members asserted the county withheld public information about the lighting code from those it views as against the temple project, in what they said amounts to a religious test. They argued their free speech rights were violated in the spring – when the new lighting ordinance was first approved – because the county did not answer its records requests quickly enough for the public to weigh in.
At the public hearing Oct. 25, while describing lighting rules for the temple, deputy county attorney Jon Woodard said he thought it was unlikely the Dark Skies group would win its lawsuit.
“We do have a pending lawsuit going on in regards to the exterior lighting ordinance. We wanted to ensure that even if that lawsuit were successful -- which we do not think it will be -- but if it were successful, we wanted to be sure that the temple still applied under that code.”
Even though it won’t make a difference in how the temple would be lit, Bahash said she hopes the new litigation will expose flaws in the county’s approval process for the project.
“They’re more or less basically enabling the project, as opposed to ensuring that it meets the community’s requirements, the zoning laws and the general plan,” she said.
Final decisions about the temple plans will be made at a public hearing Nov. 8. As for Save Wasatch Back Dark Skies, the group says its work is far from over.
