Five residents are suing the Summit County Clerk’s Office over its rejection of signature packets aimed at overturning the approval of the Dakota Pacific Real Estate project.
Angela Moschetta, Reed Galen, Dana Williams, Ruby Diaz and Brendan Weinstein filed the 82-page complaint on Thursday. The group claims that County Clerk Eve Furse erred in declaring the petition challenging the adoption of Ordinance 987, which approved the amended Tech Center development agreement, null. They’re asking a Third District Court judge to issue an order that the petition is legally sufficient.
Diaz and Weinstein are two of the seven original community members who sponsored the referendum application, organizing under the name Protect Summit County, which allowed the process to proceed if certain standards were met. One of the requirements for putting the issue on the November ballot was receiving 4,554 verified signatures, the total number of which needed to make up 16% of voters countywide, plus 16% from three of the four voter precincts.
The petitioners said they followed the appropriate steps to challenge Ordinance 987, including meeting the signature requirement. They asserted that they obtained the “requisite number of signatures in the requisite locations” to put the referendum on the ballot, but Furse did not verify all signatures.
In February, the Clerk’s Office rejected dozens of packets because of “improper circulation” under Utah Code. At the time, she said there were three-hole punches that indicated the signature and voter information sheets may have been separated.
The group argues the county clerk was incorrect and that her interpretation of the binding requirement is “unsupported and contrary to” the state law. If the signatures in the rejected packets had been counted, the sponsors said the referendum would have enough signatures to satisfy the requirement to be eligible for the general election.
“Instead, she categorically rejected thirty bound packets of signatures and, based on that, determined that the Ordinance Petition was insufficient,” the complaint states. “Specifically, the County Clerk stated that she ‘was not able to verify a number of packets’ because according to her ‘they had not been bound as a unit throughout the petition process.’”
The lawsuit argues the Summit County Council’s 4-to-1 approval of the development project in December will have “profound adverse impacts on residents … and the public infrastructure,” inspiring the referendum challenging Ordinance 987.
The approved amended development agreement allows Dakota Pacific to build 725 housing units and other commercial amenities. Summit County would also enter into a public-private partnership with the developer to create 165 additional county-owned affordable housing units as well as amenities like a new transit center and underground parking.
Deputy County Attorney Helen Strachan in January declared the referendum was “legally referable to voters,” and the Clerk’s Office emailed the referendum petition packet documents to the sponsors. The lawsuit alleges Furse calculated the deadline for signature packets to be returned based on a Jan. 16 start date, although the referendum sponsors hadn’t signed an agreement with the Clerk’s Office until the following day — “shortening the sponsors’ and petitioners’ time to gather valid signatures.”
Referendum sponsors said they prepared 30 packets for collecting signatures using three-ring binders for the initial packets, but the packets were rebound using spiral binding before submitting them to the Clerk’s Office for review. An additional 47 packets were prepared for collecting signatures until March 2, the day before the deadline, according to the lawsuit.
The sponsors submitted most of the initial packets to the Clerk’s Office on Feb. 18 and received a letter from Furse the following day informing them she would not accept 21 of the packets because of the hole punches. The remaining nine were also rejected when they were turned in.
Photos showed signature pages from several referendum packets separated from the rest of the referendum packet, which is required to provide information to voters about the ordinance. However, the sponsors said the pages were separated from the packet so people could read the referendum and then decide whether or not to sign the petition, but maintain they were presented as a single unit in compliance with state law.
“The County Clerk incorrectly concluded from those photos that the signature pages from all the three-hole punched packets were ‘being circulated without being in a bound packet,’” the lawsuit said. It continued, “Contrary to the County Clerk’s concern, none of the pages from the Initial Packets were separated or circulated apart from the Initial Packets.”
The sponsors in a Feb. 20 email to Furse said the initial packets that had been rejected complied with Utah Code and asked her to verify and count the signatures. She responded later in the day, according to court documents, saying staff have started processing the packets they can, and the rejected packets will be maintained but not counted. The sponsors were encouraged to ask people who signed the rejected petition packets to resign, but Protect Summit County did not heed the advice.
The Clerk’s Office had until March 24 to finish verifying the signatures, with initial counts adding up to 3,214 or about 70% of what was needed. The formal certification would come on June 23.
In another correspondence with Furse on June 18, the sponsors sent a letter explaining that the initial rejection was unfounded. They cited state code stating packets are prepared by “binding a copy of the referendum petition with the text of the law that is the subject of the referendum and no more than 50 signature sheets together at the top in a manner that the referendum packets may be conveniently opened for signing.”
Still, the Clerk’s Office declared the referendum petition insufficient five days later.
The petitioners said that unless the court intervenes, thousands of Summit County voters will be disenfranchised. They argued for a judge to order the Clerk’s Office to accept and verify the signatures in all referendum binders and put the referendum on the ballot if the petition then satisfies the requirements. Protect Summit County estimated it collected about 6,000 signatures in total.
“We are disappointed that circumstantial evidence, arbitrary invalidation of packets, and clear misinterpretations of both code and case law are disenfranchising 2,687 Summit County voters,” the group said in a statement last month. “People signed packets in good faith and with a clear will to put Dakota Pacific and Ordinance 987 on November ballots. As the clerk has confirmed it’s her duty to do, she should be validating Summit County voters and not succumbing to pressures of the developer or the lieutenant governor and Legislature who are working in Dakota’s favor.”
Protect Summit County launched a GoFundMe after the formal declaration to help cover research, an in-person meeting with the clerk and the appeal filing. The group had raised $4,728 of its $6,500 goal through 25 donations at the start of the week. It plans to raise the fundraising goal to pursue a higher court review if needed. Any surplus will “support voter outreach to ensure turnout in November.”
Summit County had not responded to the lawsuit as of Tuesday morning. A court hearing had not been set either.
“Throughout this process, the Clerk’s Office has followed state statute as interpreted by our attorneys and the Lieutenant Governor’s Office,” Furse said in a statement. “My office is ready to follow whatever determination is made.”
It’s unclear how legal action could affect the development project as Dakota Pacific has submitted a new agreement for the property under Senate Bill 26, a new law that essentially guarantees the project will be built with — or without — Ordinance 987.
S.B. 26 did not mention Dakota Pacific or Summit County by name when it was approved during the general session, but the specifics of the mixed-use project described are nearly identical to what the developer has proposed in the Kimball Junction area. The law also prevents a county from taking any action or enforcing an agreement, ordinance, regulation or requirement that would interfere with the development.