Save Wasatch Back Dark Skies is dropping its lawsuit against Wasatch County filed after the community’s dark skies codes were changed at the recommendation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to suit its Heber Valley Temple project.

Group leader Lisa Bahash had said they planned to submit an amended complaint after the legal group’s lawsuit against the county was dismissed in November. But they, as well as every other plaintiff in the lawsuit, had a change of mind.

On Tuesday, their legal representatives filed a notice of dismissal, stating that their clients were voluntarily dismissing the action.

This is the latest in dark moments for the Dark Skies group.

Late last year, the group urged the Wasatch County Planning Commission to withhold its recommendation of the plans to the Wasatch County Council.

After that failed, the group continued to urge the council itself to withhold approval of the plans. Group members argued that the temple was too tall, too big, in the wrong location and put forward under a state loophole they didn’t consider honest.

Council members and county staff disagreed with their assertions, and the group’s pleas once again did little to prevent the structure and site’s approval. 

Late last month, after months of a referendum effort to stop Wasatch County Council’s approval of the temple plans and instead leave the decision to voters, the group ended up being over 500 valid voters’ signatures short.

“We collected 2,657 signatures — an impressive number — yet short of the 3,235 number we needed to get the referendum on the ballot,” a post the group’s Facebook page stated at the time. “We started with 8 volunteer core members of the Dark Sky team and grew to 79 volunteers who all worked tirelessly in some way towards our goal. But more importantly, we thank the thousands of people who signed the petition. This is not a loss, it is in fact a beginning.”

The post also reminded Wasatch County residents that Wasatch County Council elections will be held this year.

Bahash is running as a Democrat for the council’s Seat B — an at-large position — and has not responded to requests for an interview.

Despite the end of the group’s 9-month-old lawsuit against the county, the council’s decision to approve the temple’s plans still faces litigation.

On Nov. 29, plaintiffs Bruce Van Dusen, Bruce Quade, Shawn Savarino and Dominic Savarino filed a lawsuit alleging that the legislative development agreement of the project was a blatant circumvention of county codes and the building’s construction would constitute personal damages against them through reducing their homes’ solitude and creating more noise, light and disturbances in the area.

“Petitioners’ view of the valley will be obstructed by the Temple,” the lawsuit alleges, and it pushes for the structure’s approved plans to be deemed “invalid, unenforceable, void and of no force and effect.”

The post Lights out for Save Wasatch Back Dark Skies’ lawsuit against Wasatch County appeared first on Park Record.

Save Wasatch Back Dark Skies took to Facebook Monday morning to confirm the citizens’ group had fallen short of the necessary signatures to put The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Heber Valley Temple plans on the ballot.

The referendum, which challenged an unanimous vote of approval from Wasatch County Council members in November, required the group to gather 3,235 signatures from Wasatch County registered voters. Throughout the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024, volunteers set up shop at various locations, hoping those who supported the group’s cause would stop by and add their valid voter’s signature to the effort.

The organization collected several hundred signatures less than what they needed.

“We collected 2,657 signatures — an impressive number — yet short of the 3,235 number we needed to get the referendum on the ballot,” the group’s Facebook post stated. “We started with 8 volunteer core members of the Dark Sky team and grew to 79 volunteers who all worked tirelessly in some way towards our goal. But more importantly, we thank the thousands of people who signed the petition. This is not a loss, it is in fact a beginning.”

Despite the failed attempt on the petition drive, the group claimed the effort was the start of “the silent majority finding their voice who care very much about where we live.”

“We need to hold our council members and the planners accountable for the development approved in our valley,” the post continued. “If they do not feel our dark skies, our water, our safety, our view scapes, our land and animals are important, we are here to remind them that they are.”

The group reminded people that county elections “are right around the corner.”

After hearing the news of the concession, Wasatch County Councilor Luke Searle called it a “victory for religious freedom” and “proof that we live in a society where everyone can practice their religion freely.”

“Let this be a reminder that the people of our county support and value our constitutional freedoms. We are tolerant of others and recognize that our personal liberties matter,” he said. “Due process and the law were the basis of the decision to approve the Legislative Development Agreement. The people have spoken by electing their current leaders, giving input through the process, and by choosing not to sign this latest attempt in opposition. I believe we should and can overcome this divisive time by recognizing that we are still a country based on our founding principles.”

Save Wasatch Back Dark Skies is still pushing against the project through two lawsuits filed in Utah’s Fourth District Court.

The first argues the county did not follow open-record laws correctly when it updated its dark skies code. The second comes from a group worried the temple project will interrupt the views from their homes, cause more noise, reduce the plaintiffs’ solitude, and cause more traffic in their area.

The church recently filed to join the lawsuit as a defendant. It argued it should be included since the county is going to prioritize the county’s interests and it wants fair representation.

The post Save Wasatch Back Dark Skies fails to gather enough valid signatures of voters to put temple plans on the ballot appeared first on Park Record.

Heber City LDS Temple Project: 3. Save Wasatch Back Dark Skies: 0.

That’s the scoreboard version so far of the progress of a petition aimed at overturning the Wasatch County Council’s approval of the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Heber Valley Temple and giving voters the final decision on the large structure.

A petition filed by members of the citizens’ group with concerns about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Heber Valley temple plans seems to have garnered insufficient signatures to pause the county council’s approval and put the decision on the ballot.

Though the Wasatch County Clerk’s Office had not responded to inquiries from The Park Record to confirm its current count is final, as of Thursday afternoon staff members had counted 1,113 valid signatures out of the necessary 3,254 needed to force an election.

Save Wasatch Back Dark Skies’ last volunteer signature-gathering event took place Wednesday evening next to 100 South, where people holding bright neon signs tried to pull traffic into Southfield Park’s parking lot for a drive-through signing. People with clipboards there were ready to give drivers who qualified as Wasatch County voters the paperwork they needed to fill out for their signatures to be validated.

Some of the volunteers — including Alicia Stockman — had been supporters of the Dark Skies group since the beginning, when its focus on opposing the church’s proposition was on changing Wasatch County’s dark skies code.

“It’s been a pretty busy day,” she said. “I started setting up at 11:45 and we had the first car at 11:59. We were ready to go.”

At the time, she said she was hopeful enough signatures had been collected, but wasn’t sure. The labor demand of counting pen-to-paper signatures from each of the packets the group filled out had not yet been met, and the signatures were turned in to the county Thursday morning.

“So much of this process is manual that it’s just really hard to say,” Stockman said. “We have a stack of these binders with handwritten signatures and we have 78 volunteers, so it’s just a matter of doing the legwork.”

Stockman said she became involved in the citizens’ group out of concern for the dark skies ordinance, which the county has updated to more closely fit the church’s recommendations, the first of many decisions county officials would make that would upset group members.

She said she looked at the post-signature gathering phase with excitement as some of her time would free up and anxiousness that their efforts would end up being insufficient to generate a referendum.

If the Clerk’s Office count is final, it might mean Save Wasatch Back Dark Skies has lost another battle, though they showed no indication of surrendering the war.

There are currently two lawsuits in Utah’s Fourth District Court against the county related to the project. The first was filed last year after the County Council voted to update the dark skies code, and the second came in late November shortly after the temple plans themselves were approved through a legislative development agreement.

Earlier this week, the church filed a motion to join in the second lawsuit, which claims the construction of the temple as approved will damage petitioners’ views and subject them to “noise, light and disturbances.”

In their petition to intervene in the lawsuit, the church’s attorneys argued the county’s biggest interest is in protecting the county, not the church. 

“The Church owns the Property and desires to build the Temple,” the legal documents read. “It therefore has an interest in defending the Development Documents that the Plaintiffs seek to reverse.”

The court has not yet ruled on the church’s motion.

The post Temple referendum hopes dim as petition drive ends; count of valid signatures lags what is needed appeared first on Park Record.

To sign or help gather signatures for the referendum drive to put the Heber Valley Temple approval to a vote of the people, contact the group at SaveWasatchBackDarkSkies@gmail.com.

Printouts of petition form copies will not be accepted by the Wasatch County Clerk’s Office as valid. In order for signatures to be counted, they need to be written in official packets provided to referendum organizers by the Clerk’s Office.

Representatives of Save Wasatch Back Dark Skies have reached out to The Park Record with concern that people are individually collecting voters’ signatures after printing off the referendum’s information package.

The post Only official petition forms can be counted in Temple referendum drive appeared first on Park Record.

The first legal complaint filed against Wasatch County by several members of the Save Wasatch Back Dark Skies Group may be off the table, but litigation between the group and the county appears far from over.

The lawsuit was filed May 19, about a month after the Wasatch County Council voted to update the community’s dark skies code when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints nudged them to do so while planning for the Heber Valley Temple.

SWBDS was listed as a petitioner, as were community members Laurie Brown, Richard Getz, Julie Levinson and Randy Schroder.

The complaint claimed that the county did not follow state open-record procedure when community members requested details about the code change and that the code change itself set rules inconsistent with those a dark-skies consultant recommended.

On July 10, the county representatives filed for a motion to dismiss the complaint and — according to SWBDS member and spokesperson Lisa Bahash — on Halloween their wish was granted in an oral ruling.

Bahash said though the legal battle may appear to be lost, the war isn’t over for SWBDS and their concerns over the county’s decisions.

“We have some follow-up conversations with our attorneys,” she said. “We had already written and basically submitted … an updated complaint, and the judge said she would like to rule on the motion to dismiss first before she accepted an amended complaint.”

After representing SWBDS re—dot some i’s and recross some t’s, the county could soon find itself looking at a similar, refined set of legal allegations.

And even if the lawsuit centered around the county’s dark skies code proves frivolous, that won’t prevent SWBDS from legally taking on the county through other avenues, pending the approval of the temple.

On Oct. 25, final plans for the temple went before the Wasatch County Planning Commission in what became a five-and-a-half hour meeting rife with public opinion, legal discussion and heavy contemplation. Eventually, the commission recommended the Wasatch County Council approve the controversial plans.

Before the discussion even started that evening, however, the county received at least two letters from law firms all but threatening to sue if the temple plans are approved.

Attorneys with Ray Quinney and Nebeker, the same law group currently representing SWBDS in their litigation against the county, sent a letter addressed to county officials rehashing their arguments over the dark sky code as well as alleging the project does not fit the county’s general plan and urging the legislative development agreement approach to its approval be abandoned.

“Under no circumstances should the Planning Commission favorably approve and recommend the Development Agreement,” the conclusion of the letter states. “The legal risks to the county attendant to entering this Development Agreement are high. This process appears to have been fatally flawed.”

A letter from attorney Robert Mansfield with Mitchell Barlow and Mansfield was also sent to the Planning Commission citing similar arguments and concluding in a similarly ominous manner.

“The Legislative Agreement, adopting the Heber Valley Temple Project, does not comport with the General Plan and is illegal,” the letter states. “Approval of the Legislative Agreement will lead to further litigation to enjoin its enactment and to seek declarations from the Court as to its illegality.”

The County Council is scheduled to discuss and possibly approve the project plans at 6 p.m. Nov. 8. The meeting will be held in the Wasatch County Senior Citizen Center.

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