After the Summit and Wasatch county councils discussed asking the state to repeal its preliminary municipality pilot program, Gov. Spencer Cox sent his housing advisor to Heber City with a clear message for the Wasatch Back.
“My message back from our good governor, who cares deeply about these issues, is: Your funding as a county is now at risk, meaning none,” senior advisor Steve Waldrip said at the Heber City Council meeting Aug. 18. “Anything within my power, I will stop. B and C road funds, any other state funding to counties who openly declare war on the state over these growth issues — without being thoughtful, without having discussions, with just saying, ‘We couldn’t care less’ — that funding is now suspended.”
Preliminary municipalities allow landowners to form towns in mostly undeveloped areas, thanks to a 2024 law. The Wasatch Back saw four applications this year, and two in Wasatch County were accepted.
At a joint meeting Aug. 12, leaders from the two counties said they intended to ask state lawmakers to repeal the law. A week later, Wasatch County councilmembers rejected a proposal for 144 units of housing on state trust land east of Heber.
According to Waldrip, both conversations gave Cox the impression the counties are openly defying state law.
“You now have Wasatch County working in concert with Summit County to thwart state law relative to development, and that's not the right message to be sending right now,” he said. “And especially having a county join in with other counties, and they actually stated, ‘We’re also trying to recruit Morgan County to join us to deny preliminary municipalities,’ which is a function of state law.”
Wasatch County Manager Dustin Grabau said his council has not been breaking the law but rather advocating for good public policy.
“I would just like to think that we’re abiding by the governor’s request to disagree better,” he told KPCW.
Waldrip, however, said the counties came across as saying, “Sue us and see what happens.”
Grabau and his counterpart, Summit County Manager Shayne Scott, are each seeking meetings with the governor’s office.
“We just welcome a conversation,” Scott said. “We are obviously a very pro-housing community, and I would say especially affordable housing.”
Grabau said he’s not sure why the governor thinks the counties are flouting the law.
“That’s a little concerning, that they would take such a combative approach when really none of our discourse, none of the public discourse, has actually indicated that that is what we’re doing,” he said. “So, it’s a little bewildering.”
The governor’s office did not immediately respond to KPCW’s requests for comment.
Wasatch County councilmembers are still working on a message to send to state lawmakers about what they see as problems with the preliminary municipality program.
Scott said Summit and Wasatch counties are not the only local governments concerned about the development tool.
“A fair amount of other counties and cities throughout the state of Utah [are] concerned about preliminary municipalities and their ability to maybe usurp local land use by just cropping up in certain areas,” he said.
Morgan County Rep. Tiara Auxier sponsored a bill in the 2026 legislative session that would have given counties a seat at the table for the preliminary municipality incorporation process. It died in the Senate.
The year before, Wasatch County Rep. Mike Kohler was also unsuccessful in his attempt to reform the pilot program.
Summit County is a financial supporter of KPCW.
