He said members of the county staff have gone out of their way to treat the temple plans like any other application, possibly giving it even more scrutiny.
In a statement in October, citizen group Save Wasatch Back Dark Skies claimed county leaders who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints could lose their temple recommends if they objected to any aspects of the proposal. County leaders have repeatedly denied those allegations.
Grabau said the LDS church has no undue influence on any county employees.
“I can say, unequivocally, that I or any of my staff have never been pressured by a theological influencer to compromise what we would consider our professional ethics," he said. "To the contrary, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; I have felt very strongly throughout this whole process that my job is to make sure that all legal processes have been followed.”
He said precisely because the temple is a religious building, county staff have taken extra care to avoid giving the plans any special privileges.
“If anything," he said, "we are holding ourselves to a higher standard of transparency, a higher standard of scrutiny, to make sure there’s not any perceived misdeeds or undue influence going on.”
As far as opposition to the temple application goes, Grabau said similar issues – like lighting and dewatering – are at play in other development plans. But a new grocery store, for example, isn’t as controversial to community members as a temple.
“There are not really any significant technical concerns with the project,” he said. “So then it becomes a policy consideration: is this what the community wants, does this match what the community values? Those are the things that the planning commission and the county council as policymakers are intended to weigh in on as elected [and appointed] officials.”
A packed house is expected at Wednesday’s meeting. Grabau said his office has already received hundreds of email comments about the temple plans.
The hearing for temple plans begins at 6 p.m. at the senior center, located at 465 East 1200 South in Heber City.
![[FILE] The Heber Valley night sky and whether stars are visible in it have attracted much attention since the LDS Church announced plans for a Heber Valley temple — possibly with bright lights shing upon it.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/79f0a2d/2147483647/strip/true/crop/5616x3129+0+615/resize/560x312!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fcd%2F7b%2F6b69f8244e3cbaf7be3fdbd0d9ca%2Fadobestock-101203484.jpeg)