The Summit County government is preparing for the state’s implementation of a new wildfire preparedness law in January, but local officials say they’re still unsure of how the program will work or the impact it will have on residents.

Utah lawmakers passed House Bill 48 last year to mitigate the spread of wildfires in high-risk areas across the state, but the program’s implementation was delayed until Jan. 1, 2027, after the state and local municipalities missed a series of key deadlines outlined in the legislation.

The bill requires the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands to create a statewide map of high-risk areas. Each structure within a high-risk area will receive a rating from an assessor based on the property’s fire hardening measures, such as installing a metal roof or replacing wooden fences with fire-resistant materials.

Property owners will then pay an annual fee between $20 and $100, with the amount determined by the level of preparedness and fire mitigation efforts on the parcel, as well as the structure’s taxable square footage. The funds go back to Forestry, Fire and State Lands to pay for the assessors.

County Manager Shayne Scott said the high-risk map is expected to be released next month, and county staff is preparing to meet the law’s requirements in January, even though they’re not yet sure how assessments will work.

“The state is actually supposed to do the assessments, not only the fees and not only the map,” Scott said. “That’s where we’re wondering, ‘How in the world are they going to do that?’ I think that’s a lot of the delay in implementation because they’re not ready to do what they’ve committed to do, and I think they’ll look to us for assistance.”

Summit County’s only involvement in the process, according to the law, is the collection of fees, which County Treasurer Corrie Forsling will be responsible for. However, Scott said it’s possible the county could be asked to help more down the line.

“If we do have the public clamoring for an assessment from the state of Utah (to lower their fees), if that’s throughout the whole state, I don’t know how they’re going to do that,” Scott said. “It’s not necessarily our problem, but it will be something that I’m sure we’ll have to address on some level. … You’ll do that work, and you’ll be wanting that fee reduced immediately, and I don’t know how soon someone could get to you.”

Park City Fire Chief Peter Emery said the program is meant to help residents obtain and keep homeowners insurance despite the wildfire risks in Utah, but he also expressed skepticism about the state’s ability to implement it.

“It’s to help motivate the citizens of the state of Utah to start taking this wildland issue seriously and assessing that fee for it,” he said. “That being said, we’ll see where this winds up.”

Scott also noted the state Legislature’s hypothesis that encouraging fire hardening could protect Utahns from losing their insurance, but he said he’s not convinced it will work as designed.

“I think there are good intentions,” Scott said. “This is just me speaking, but I wonder about an insurance company taking a map like this and using it in the opposite direction, using it to cancel people’s insurance instead of keeping people on there, which is what I think the intent is.”

South Summit Fire Protection District Chief Scott Thorell said he expects to see more legislative changes to the law in early 2027 because of “significant problems” with how the program works.

“One of the primary problems I see is even if you make improvements on your own property, if your neighbor’s abutting property has not made improvements, then you’re still not going to receive a lower score,” Thorell said. “That’s something that’s really going to cause a lot of tension with our residents.”

Lands and Natural Resources Director Jess Kirby, who volunteered to hold educational sessions on the new law as soon as the county learns more information, said she’s also concerned that residents outside of high-risk areas will think they don’t need to be aware of fire mitigation efforts or fire hardening because of the new map.

“We still need to do mitigation efforts to defeat this catastrophic wildfire risk that we have, so don’t let this be, ‘Oh, I’m not in the red, so I don’t have to do anything,’” Kirby said. “There are still mitigation efforts that we need to keep propelling within our community and educating.”

The post Summit County prepares for new wildfire law, but state still hasn’t given details on how it works appeared first on Park Record.

Heber City Finance Director Sara Nagel announced the city’s intent to raise its property tax rate in the upcoming fiscal year 2027, which begins on July 1, during a Heber City Council meeting on Tuesday.

The city plans on increasing its property tax rate by 5.2%. That means an average home — valued at $850,000 — would pay about $19 more in property taxes annually, while a business of that same value would pay about $34 more.

The purpose of the increase is to generate an additional $174,000 for the general fund. 

The city has 27 different funds “to ensure that very specific revenue is being spent in very specific ways,” Nagel explained. The general fund is the largest and most flexible in its applicable use. It supports administration, public safety, planning and general operations. The Heber City Police Department takes the largest piece of the pie, about $7.5 million of the general fund in fiscal year 2027.

The proposed general fund would total almost $19 million in fiscal year 2027, representing over a quarter of Heber City’s $72 million budget. The city budgeted $92 million for fiscal year 2026 but is projected to spend about $20 million less than that by July 1.

Several revenue sources make up the general fund. Sales taxes contribute the most, almost $7.7 million in the fiscal year 2027 budget, while property taxes come in second at about $4.4 million.

In other words, property tax revenue will make up about 6% of the city’s overall budget in fiscal year 2027. Heber City has increased its property tax rate five times in the past 15 years: a 4.1% increase in fiscal year 2011, 32.3% in 2015, 10% in 2022, 8% in 2024 and 9.3% in 2025.

Nagel explained that the proposed increase in fiscal year 2027 is to cover the cost of inflation.

“The city is also impacted by inflationary costs with health insurance, (cost-of-living adjustments), materials, supplies, construction,” she said.

City Councilor Mike Johnston added that regular, smaller increases in the property tax rate prevent larger tax hikes like the 32% increase seen in 2015.

“Inflation over the past two (fiscal) years has been 5.2%. We have to capture that back, or we’re just behind, and we’ve got to start cutting something,” he said. “We can cut somebody’s job. We can cut snow plowing. We can cut lawn mowing. We can cut all sorts of things. You tell us what you want to cut.”

The proposed 5.2% property tax rate increase has not been approved. The City Council is in the middle of public workshops to discuss and tweak the tentative budget. The first workshop was Wednesday night, with the next at 6 p.m. on Friday and a third at 9 a.m. on Saturday, if necessary.

City Councilor Yvonne Barney said she was not in favor of raising property taxes 5.2% and hoped to lower or eliminate that increase during the workshops.

“I feel that, for the citizens of Heber City, who are obviously tightening their purse strings, that before we ask for any type of increase, that we need to maybe cut our budget and do what we can first,” she said.

The city was required to publicize the potential increase in the property tax rate by House Bill 236: Truth in Taxation Amendments, which passed during the 2026 legislative session.

Now, municipalities are required to notify the public if they are considering increasing the property tax rate when the finance director presents the tentative budget to the governing body. Previously, that notice was only required before the public meeting when the final budget was adopted.

Nagel explained that the bill reflects the state’s desire to increase transparency and public engagement when property taxes are raised.

“(The state has said), ‘We don’t want you to adopt a tentative budget, and then two months later, the answers are kind of already baked in,’” Nagel explained. “Citizens have said, ‘This doesn’t feel very authentic to me. It feels like you’ve already made that decision, and you’re not giving us a chance to really weigh in on it.’” 

Heber City will hold a public hearing about the tentative budget for fiscal year 2027 on June 2. 

If the city does not raise property taxes, it can approve the budget during the June 16 meeting.

If the city does raise property taxes, it would delay formal budget adoption until August to meet the state’s Truth in Taxation requirements, which include a public hearing on the property tax rate increase. In that case, the city would operate under the tentative budget between July 1 and the final budget adoption the next month.

The post Heber City intends to increase property taxes by 5% appeared first on Park Record.

Mohamed “Moe” Mohamed didn’t think the cryptocurrency ATM installed in his Heber City convenience store, Mountainland One Stop, about a year ago would cause so much trouble. He knew Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were gaining traction, so he thought nothing of signing a three-year contract to keep the machine in his store.

But Mohamed began to notice an influx of people, many elderly, visiting the store to use it as soon as it was installed. Many came with cash in hand, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars, to deposit. 

Mohamed asked these customers what they were doing, and he quickly realized they were being scammed. Unable to get out of his contract, Mohamed implemented a store policy: keep customers away from the machine at all costs.

The Heber City Council gave Mohamed a way out of his contract when it passed an ordinance prohibiting cryptocurrency ATMs on April 7. The operator of the cryptocurrency ATM has 60 days from the passing of the ordinance to uninstall the machine, which is the only one in Heber City.

Police Chief Parker Sever suggested the ban after hearing a presentation about cryptocurrency fraud from the Utah Attorney General’s Office a few months ago and having subsequent conversations with Mohamed.

“There was no intent on the part of One Stop to commit any fraud or to hurt anybody. In fact, they’re actively trying to do the opposite,” Sever said. “When they put that machine in there, they thought it was for a legitimate purpose, as I probably would have at the time, too.”

Cryptocurrency ATMs charge transaction fees ranging from 20% to 40%, while other online methods charge much lower fees, according to a city staff report. Additionally, these machines have minimal oversight and regulatory control, making them popular for fraud and other criminal activity.

Utah Criminal Deputy Attorney General Stewart Young said scammers from other countries often use cryptocurrency ATMs to transfer money across borders. That also makes them popular tools for money launderers.

Fraud involving these machines often involves the scammer convincing the victim to deposit money into the scammer’s account, Young explained. 

Persuasion can take a variety of forms.

For example, “pig-slaughtering” scams involve the scammer targeting a victim online and fattening them up through romance and affection before bleeding them dry.

“The scammer will invariably pretend to be an oil worker working on an oil rig in the Pacific Ocean or something like that,” Young said. “They’ll develop a romance online, and eventually, at some point, they’ll come up with some reason that they need money. It might be, ‘I really want to spend the rest of my life with you, but I can’t get off this oil rig. I want to start my own oil drilling business … and then we can be together forever.’”

Other scammers impersonate law enforcement officials and threaten legal consequences for missing jury duty or not paying a traffic ticket, all while insisting that the situation can be resolved by depositing money at a cryptocurrency ATM.

Another common scheme creates the illusion of investment. After the victim deposits money using a virtual currency kiosk, the scammer will deposit some of their own money into the account to make it look as if the victim’s investment is earning interest, Young explained. The scammer will convince the victim to deposit larger and larger amounts before withdrawing the money and shutting down the account.

Young estimated more than 90% of cryptocurrency ATM transactions are related to fraud or other criminal activity. 

That’s one reason the Utah House of Representatives passed House Bill 72 during the recent 2026 legislative session. The bill, sponsored by Republican Rep. Ryan D. Wilcox, who represents Weber County, creates statewide restrictions on cryptocurrency ATMs.

The bill requires operators of cryptocurrency ATMs to display a fraud prevention warning in English and Spanish and provide a toll-free, 24/7 customer service line. The machines also must print receipts, including transaction information and the relevant state law enforcement or government agency for reporting fraud.

The bill also makes it illegal for a cryptocurrency ATM to accept transactions over a certain amount. The machine cannot accept more than $2,000 per day during the three days following the customer’s first virtual currency kiosk transaction. After that period, the machine cannot accept more than $5,000 from a single customer per day.

These provisions go into effect on Wednesday.

Starting July 1, local law enforcement agencies are required to have at least one officer undergo specialized cryptocurrency investigation training at least once every three years.

Some cities have banned cryptocurrency ATMs altogether. Layton was the first city in Utah to do so, which it did in March. Heber City was the second and modeled its ordinance on Layton’s.

Two states, Indiana and Tennessee, have passed legislation banning cryptocurrency ATMs. Both states’ respective governors signed bills during this year’s legislative session. 

Undersheriff Josh Probst said there are no other cryptocurrency ATMs the Sheriff’s Office is aware of in Wasatch County.

In Summit County, Park City Police Department Lt. Danielle Snelson and Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Skyler Talbot said they were only aware of one cryptocurrency ATM, located at Top Stop Chevron on the side of S.R. 224. They were unaware of plans to propose any bans. Snelson said no issues with the machine had been reported to the Police Department. 

Mohamed feels “terrible” that the cryptocurrency ATM was ever installed in Mountainland One Stop and is grateful for Heber City’s ban.

“It’s been the worst thing I’ve ever put in a business, and I’ve owned my own business for 22 years,” he said. “I would advise every city, every county and state to ban these.”

The post Heber City becomes second municipality in Utah to ban cryptocurrency ATMs appeared first on Park Record.

The Summit County government is touting this year’s general session as a victory for the Wasatch Back, but the celebration isn’t for successful legislation. Instead, county officials are praising the failure of specific bills, with hired lobbyists describing the session as an exercise in defense.

The state Legislature met in general session from January to March, filing, passing and rejecting a record number of bills for the second year in a row. In Summit County, the County Council, county staff and lobbyists from Foxley and Pignanelli met on a weekly basis to discuss proposed legislation, determine the county’s stance and plan talking points for those slated to testify in committee meetings.

“We want to understand the Legislature and their goals and priorities, and we want them to understand us,” said Deputy County Manager Janna Young, who spearheads the county’s involvement in state politics. “In order to be effective, it also takes coalition building. We often work on building relationships even outside of legislators, with our county partners and other entities who share a lot of our common values and goals, as we can’t ever get anything done on our own.”

Young and a handful of representatives from Foxley and Pignanelli, a government relations firm based in Salt Lake City, spoke to the County Council about the general session last week. They shared stories of the county’s success this year, as well as bills and issues that may be revisited in the interim session.

“We’re honored to represent Summit County,” said Frank Pignanelli, who co-founded the firm in 1997. “This was an interesting session with a record number of bills. We had to play both the zone and person-to-person defense, mostly playing defense.”

Pignanelli said the county’s history of conflict with state lawmakers didn’t appear to play into conversations and proposals as strongly this year as it has in the past. Young attributed the change to an intentional shift in how the county approaches the state Legislature, with local officials now prioritizing interpersonal relationships with representatives.

“We could go and talk to lawmakers, but it’s critical to have the County Council members and your elected officials actually speak in committee,” Pignanelli added. “That resonantes.”

Steve Styler, a partner with Foxley and Pignanelli, said one of the county’s wins this year were modifications to House Bill 323, which dealt with the disposal of solar panels. He said this is the second or third general session in a row to focus on incentivizing fossil fuels instead of renewable energy sources.

H.B. 323 was of particular concern to Summit County because of the government’s emphasis on sustainability. The original version of the bill would have imposed a tax of $1 per each square foot of solar panel slated for disposal.

“Imagine a 300-megawatt solar farm and what $1 per square foot of solar panel would actually add up to,” Styler said.

Rather than implementing the proposed fee, the Utah Department of Environmental Quality is working on what Styler called a “reasonable budget” to govern how solar panels are replaced.

“It’s not urgent because most of the largest commercial solar farms are only about five to 10 years old, with panels that are rated for 20 to 25 years, so we’ve got about five to 10 years to really figure out where we’re going to dispose of these panels,” Styler said. “It got watered down into a very simple bill, and all of the real issues were removed from the bill before it was passed.”

Pignanelli also pointed to H.B. 184 as a bill that would have “caused some real problems in Summit County” despite its intent to help create starter homes for young families. 

The bill would have changed how the administrative process works for new developments, essentially allowing any request that conforms with the county’s land use map to become a permitted allowance within 45 days as long as there is no outright denial from the local planning commission.

“It would have really gutted our public process and the planning commissions and even the council’s role in some of the decision making, so we were happy to see that fail,” Young said. “We anticipate something like this coming again because starter homes are a big initiative of the governor’s as well.”

Summit County also lobbied against H.B. 231, which would have repealed the restaurant tax and replaced it with another, “broader” tax designed to generate the same amount of revenue. Young called the bill’s failure a “great victory,” but she told the County Council she expects the bill to return next year.

“In a lot of other places in the state, there was some data that the legislator sponsoring this had that said that locals are the ones eating in the restaurants, so the locals are paying this tax,” Young said. “In Summit County, as well as Washington County and others, it’s not the case. A lot of visitors are paying this tax.”

Young said the county didn’t want to take a program that was meant to target tourists and apply it to residents, especially because the generated revenue currently goes toward a grant program often utilized by local nonprofits. She said the county is studying the restaurant tax in the interim session to build a case showcasing its value for the Wasatch Back.

State lawmakers in May will start to meet on the third Wednesday of each month for the interim session, according to Pignanelli. He said the Legislature currently plans to study the cost of elections, water issues, annexations, incorporations, growth and tax increment financing before the next general session begins in January.

The post Summit County’s ‘defense’ leads to a successful general session for the Wasatch Back, say officials appeared first on Park Record.

When Gov. Spencer Cox signed Senate Bill 127 into law in 2022, Utah set a goal: to have 70% of third graders statewide reach proficiency on the state-administered Acadience reading assessment by July 1, 2027.

Sixteen months before the deadline, a study by the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute showed the Park City School District was the only school district in the state to meet the goal in 2025, with 70.1% of students proficient. Meanwhile, the Wasatch County School District ranked 30 out of 41 public school districts, with less than 50% of third graders proficient. 

But those statistics are no longer accurate because a new law changes how the state defines reading proficiency. 

When the institute performed the study, the state defined reading on grade level as scoring above the benchmark on the Acadience reading assessment. Therefore, the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute’s data only included “blue” Acadience scores. 

“The way Acadience works is you get a certain score, and then you’re either a blue, which means you’re above grade level; you’re a green, which is on grade level; you’re a yellow, just below grade level; (or) a red, which are the kids we’re really concerned about,” explained Superintendent Garrick Peterson. 

Sixty-nine percent of Wasatch County School District third graders received a blue or green score on the Acadience assessment in 2025, according to Stacey Moore, the district’s chief of staff.

The state’s definition of reading proficiency changed to include both blue and green scores, those above and at grade level, after Cox signed S.B. 241 into law last week.

The law also supplants the old third-grade literacy goal for Utah: instead of 70% of third graders reading on grade level by July 1, 2027, the law shifts the goal to 80% by July 1, 2030. 

Republican Sen. Ann Millner, who represents Davis, Morgan and Weber counties, introduced the bill during the legislative session. 

The third grade is the only grade in which students take two reading assessments: the Acadience reading test, which is administered in kindergarten through grade three, then optionally grades four to six, and the RISE assessment, which stands for Readiness Improvement Success Empowerment, the state-administered test that students take grades three through eight each year.

Acadience focuses on fluency and accuracy, the speed at which students read the text and whether they make mistakes in reading it, while RISE focuses on comprehension, students’ understanding of the text. 

“That RISE test is supposed to mirror what a kid should be able to do if they were college-ready for their grade level,” Peterson explained. 

He said RISE is more rigorous than Acadience, so the district focuses on RISE scores when measuring reading proficiency.

“In our district, we choose, especially after first grade, to really focus on comprehension, … because that’s the end game with reading. Can I read the comprehended text and make sense of it, use it for different purposes?” he added.

The reason for the state’s change in definition for reading proficiency is that S.B. 241 creates a requirement to hold back third graders not reading on grade level, “except in cases of certain good cause exemptions.” In lower grades, retention must be considered but is not required.

Peterson provided examples of good-cause exemptions, including students with learning disabilities, English language learners and students who are making “great growth toward being on grade level.” 

“(The bill) is asking us to really take into account each kid and what’s best for them, and to consider that retention piece as a tool that can be used,” he said.

Peterson said holding a student back can be detrimental socially, but that reading proficiency is an equally important component of a child’s development. 

He added that the decision to hold back a student comes down to both the school and the students’ parents or guardians.

During a school board study session on Feb. 24, before S.B. 241 had passed, board member Brad Ehlert expressed reservations about retention.

“My son was held back in first grade. It was the worst decision we made as parents, and it affected him. He was not an IEP kid, and he became one because of that. That’s a problem,” he said. “The idea that we’re moving the majority of the group forward at the expense of some does not seem to be appropriate. If the goal is to collectively move as many people forward as we can, having a threat over somebody’s head is not how you do that.”

School Board President Kim Dickerson agreed. 

Peterson’s view is that retention will not occur as long as the school district can meet the challenges set by S.B. 241.

“We need to accept responsibility to get that individual reading plan in place and show progress, period. That’s on us. And so, if we do that, then no one should be held back,” he said. “Our principals know where this is. They know the challenges ahead. It is a hefty one. We’d always talk when we do work around this, that we’re messing with kids’ lives. If we can get them on grade level, then all the options of life are opened up to them. We build their confidence.” 

There’s now a flip side to that, Peterson said. 

“If you can’t do that, you could destroy that kid’s life forever.”

S.B. 241 takes effect July 1. Andrea Brandley, senior education analyst with the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, noted that the institute will likely release a follow-up publication in the next few months to incorporate the state’s new definition of reading proficiency.

The post Wasatch County School District hopes to prevent retention in wake of new legislative requirement appeared first on Park Record.

The Utah Legislature’s 2026 general session ended earlier this month, and Summit County officials are celebrating the passage of key legislation intended to bolster child-care services for working families.

“We’re really thrilled that House Bill 190 passed,” said County Deputy Manager Janna Young. “What this bill does is it responds to the County Council’s requests because each time I come before them and ask for more money for our child-care scholarship program, they ask, ‘What is the state doing? What are our businesses doing?’ … This bill shows the state has skin in the game.”

The county’s legislative committee collaborated with Rep. Jason Thompson of Cache County and Sen. Heidi Balderree of Salt Lake and Utah counties to create H.B. 190, as well as the Early Childhood Alliance, Park City Community Foundation, Policy Project and Park City Municipal.

The bill mirrors federal legislation that encourages businesses to offer employer-sponsored child-care benefits in return for a tax credit of up to 50%. Young said the county hopes the bill will help smaller companies to provide child-care relief to employees rather than rely on private facilities or scholarship programs.

“We also wanted to expand it beyond just the construction of facilities,” Young said before the general session. “For instance, if they decide to contract with a provider at a subsidized rate for their employees or if they hire an intermediary to help them navigate these different tax credit opportunities, then we wanted them to qualify for that.”

Young said the county is celebrating other wins from the general session, too, but those successes stem from bills that failed to pass. She specifically mentioned H.B. 231, which would have repealed the restaurant tax the county uses to fund one of its grant programs and replaced it with another sales tax.

“We wanted to keep the restaurant tax in the restaurants because in our community, unlike others in the state, about 72% of our patrons in restaurants are visitors, so they’re the ones paying that tax,” Young said. “The economic philosophy of the bill’s sponsor was, ‘We want to reduce the rate and expand the (tax) base,’ which works in a lot of situations, but it would have been detrimental.”

If implemented, the sales tax would have raised prices on essentials, like diapers and toilet paper, for Summit County residents. Young said that was not a move the county supported, considering that the County Council has already authorized two new local sales taxes in the past two years.

“We were concerned about putting the burden on our residents, particularly because the funds from that tax would have still been restricted to the same things the restaurant taxes are restricted to, which is focused on tourism,” Young said. “Why are we charging our residents for programs that are to encourage tourism? We were happy to see that fail.”

Young also said the county was glad H.B. 457, which would have classified Summit County as a “metropolitan growth county” because of its proximity to Salt Lake City, did not pass, saying it would have created more work for the Planning Department.

“From that perspective, we’re happy that we don’t have to be labeled a metropolitan growth county and create urban reserve areas in our general plans and do all these assessments and analysis and planning,” Young said.

However, Young said the state Legislature will likely study the bill in depth during the interim session later this year because Ivory Homes and the bill’s sponsors want to require cities and counties to plan for future growth.

“It makes sense to understand what our limitations are in terms of infrastructure, water and sewer,” Young said. “It is probably a useful exercise, but what we wouldn’t want it to do is require us to facilitate development in a way that doesn’t work with our general plans or our codes or the strategic priorities of the County Council.”

Young said the biggest disappointment of the session for Summit County was H.B. 510, which failed to pass in the state Senate by one vote. Rep. Tiara Auxier, who represents parts of Summit County, sponsored the bill as an attempt to place guardrails on the preliminary municipality process.

Preliminary municipalities can transition to, and incorporate as, a town under a state law that went into effect in 2024. The law amended the Utah Municipal Code to provide for a pilot program for the incorporation of a preliminary municipality, giving “all the powers and duties” of a town, including zoning and land-use decisions.

The law applies to land privately owned by three or fewer people who intend to develop it with at least 100 people while meeting certain affordable housing benchmarks in the first five years of the preliminary municipality’s existence.

Dakota Pacific Real Estate last year filed for a preliminary municipality in Summit County, dubbed Park City Tech, as a safeguard for its planned development in Kimball Junction. Ivory Homes similarly submitted a request in January to explore a preliminary municipality in Browns Canyon, but the Lieutenant Governor’s Office ultimately declined to move forward with the proposal.

H.B. 510 would have required the sponsors of a preliminary municipality to work directly with the county where the development is being proposed, especially in regards to the mandated feasibility study, which determines whether the municipality would be financially successful enough to proceed.

“The challenge is if their town fails, then it falls on the county,” Young said. “Her bill would have included the county in applications earlier in the process. Applicants would have had to notify the county if they were interested in doing this, and they would have had to work in good faith with us on various things. There were also some warranty and bond provisions that would have protected the county if the town should fail.”

Young said development companies and the Lieutenant Governor’s Office, which oversees the preliminary municipality process, had concerns about H.B. 510. She said there were also changes to the bill’s language regarding short-term rentals that the county did not agree with because of how many stakeholders participated in negotiations.

“I was impressed that the representative was able to get it as far as she did, and we were disappointed that it failed,” Young said. “In general, it probably would have been a pretty positive thing for counties, so we’ll have to see if she brings it up again next session.”

The interim session typically occurs over the summer, but no specific dates had been announced as of Tuesday afternoon.

The post Summit County officials celebrate general session wins, failed bills appeared first on Park Record.

Valeria Cruz, the assistant manager of the Christian Center of Park City’s Heber City food pantry, doesn’t consider herself a very political person. 

“I get to sit here and watch the world play out totally differently than what the media tells me to believe. And it’s watching our community respond quickly and bring donations and be here and serve the community as volunteers. That’s what I get to see,” she said. 

Despite her apolitical nature, Cruz watched the Utah legislative session with interest after several of the food pantry’s volunteers notified her of House Bill 88, introduced by Republican Rep. Trevor Lee, who represents Davis County.

The bill would have required those above the age of 18 to verify their immigration status to receive public benefits, including non-emergency medical health care, food assistance and tuition assistance. 

After receiving pushback from some Republican representatives, the bill died when the legislative session ended on Friday.

That afternoon, Cruz shared some of her concerns about how the bill could have impacted the Christian Center of Park City’s food pantries in Summit and Wasatch counties.

During the government shutdown in October and November, the state allocated up to $4 million to Utah Food Bank, a portion of which was distributed to the Christian Center of Park City’s food pantries. 

Cruz believed requiring verification of citizenship status to receive public benefits would have had adverse consequences for the pantry and its patrons, both documented and undocumented.

“It would affect the way we have been able to respond to crisis, like … when the government shutdowns happened, when COVID happened. When we don’t have to require so much of you, when we don’t have to send you back to bring proof of who you are and where you were born and stuff, that keeps the flow going, and it allows us to respond in times of crisis,” she said. 

She added, “Not only does it limit how fast we can serve you, it also could have the potential for us tracking more of your information: who’s coming in, who’s going out, who received what.”

Cruz said many patrons value their privacy and the fact that the food pantry does not ask many questions of them. She believed some patrons, not just undocumented immigrants, would have stopped coming to the food pantry if H.B. 88 had passed.

Since child nutrition services would not have required citizenship verification under H.B. 88, it would not have impacted Christian Center initiatives like the backpack program.

The program sends food insecure students, identified by school counselors and teachers, home every other Friday with a backpack full of food. The program operates throughout the school year and distributes 600 to 640 bags of food every other week in the Wasatch County School District and 500 bags every other week in the Park City School District.

But Cruz believed children whose parents were unable or unwilling to receive food assistance would have been impacted by H.B. 88. 

“I don’t think children should suffer hunger based on who their parents are or where they came from, if we can avoid that” she said.

Even without H.B. 88, Cruz said some Latino families with members who are undocumented or in the process of becoming citizens are not coming through the food pantry’s doors as frequently due to fears about immigration enforcement.

Cruz has seen heightened tension around the issue has come to Summit and Wasatch counties in other ways. She heard from a patron of the food pantry that, when the patron had made a complaint about their work schedule to their employer, they were accused of being undocumented, despite the fact that she is not. Cruz did not know the name of the employer but said that they were based in Park City.

“Everything that is going on in the country will kind of affect our small community,” Cruz said. “I think it is limiting who feels comfortable coming through our doors, and not necessarily because of the Christian Center because I think we have always made it a safe place for anyone and everyone to be and come in and be served.”

Cruz hopes that atmosphere never has to change.

“I think I can speak for 99% of the people that walk through those doors. They honestly don’t want to be here. They don’t want their children to have to be here. They don’t want to have to receive this food,” she said. “What we want to do is continue to be here and serve those that come through our door, so that regardless of what’s going on, you know you have a neighbor that loves on you and wants you and your children to thrive and our community to thrive.”

The post Wasatch Back food pantry breathes sigh of relief as citizenship verification bill dies appeared first on Park Record.

State lawmakers last week passed a bill that appears to force Francis to accept a four-story hotel in its town center despite the City Council’s previous decision to codify a three-story limit.

Senate Bill 284 was sponsored by Sen. Lincoln Fillmore of Salt Lake County and Rep. Jill Koford of Weber County. The legislation focused on general laws relating to local land use, but a modified version of the bill contained language requiring Francis to allow certain four-story developments.

The last day of the general session was Friday, and it was unclear that morning whether the bill, which was being held in committee, would pass by the end of the day.

But lawmakers proposed another modified version of the bill shortly after 9 p.m, and the updated legislation quickly passed the state House in a 61-7 vote. The state Senate similarly passed the bill in a 24-3 vote around 11:45 p.m. — 15 minutes before the 2026 general session ended.

Gov. Spencer Cox has not yet signed the bill into law, but it is scheduled to go into effect on May 6, assuming it is not vetoed.

The bill stated a municipality may regulate the number of habitable stories a structure may contain, as well as its overall height. However, it also specifically said that if a land use application for a “commercial lodging structure” was approved before Sept. 1, 2025, then “the land use authority may not limit the number of above-ground habitable stories the land use applicant builds within the maximum overall height that the land use authority approved for the structure.”

“It sure seems to be narrowly tailored to include the Francis situation, specifically the hotel that is being built in the town center,” said Francis City Planning Commission Vice Chair Rich Christiansen in an interview with The Park Record last week. “What the language of the bill appears to do is make it so that, as a city, Francis is unable to regulate the number of stories in that structure and shifts any regulation of that to the state.”

The Francis City Council previously approved changing its maximum allowable building height in the town center from 40 feet to 45 feet, which is tall enough to accommodate a fourth story. However, the City Council passed a three-story ordinance after a months-long back and forth among the Planning Commission, city councilors and developers regarding the aesthetics of the hotel, Christiansen said.

“We didn’t want a situation where we had four-story buildings with flat rooflines and rather ugly profiles,” he said. “We’re trying to make Francis a beautiful city, a place where people want to be, and this kind of thing shifts that ability from the citizens of Francis to control how their city develops and pushes it to people in the state who frankly probably don’t care how Francis develops.”

Christiansen said the situation is also frustrating because the city increased its maximum building height to encourage developers to make interesting architectural choices. The 45-foot allowance should let developers build three-story structures with sloped roofs and unique features, but that isn’t physically feasible with a fourth story included.

“Once you put in that fourth story, you’re eliminating that benefit completely,” Christiansen said. “If you look at the difference between places that are well-developed versus not, it seems like the beauty of structures and their design features play a big part, so we want to push Francis in that direction. We don’t want to become a shoebox exurb of any other city. We want to create a city that on its own stands as something beautiful and worth visiting and worth living in.”

Christiansen said Francis has a population of around 1,800 people, which is why the bill took him and other city officials by surprise.

“That’s not a significant voting bloc for anybody outside the city of Francis,” he said.

Christiansen said it was also concerning to him that the Legislature’s trend of codifying controversial developments at the state level is now affecting the Wasatch Back’s smaller municipalities.

“This seems to be a continuation of the state’s politics, with respect to the Dakota Pacific development over in Park City,” he said. “It seems like this trend may continue. I’m hearing some noise that similar pressures are being applied to a development in Browns Canyon, so it seems to be increasingly the case that the state is intermingling themselves with what should be purely local matters.”

Rusty Webster, the developer spearheading the hotel slated for construction on the corner of S.R. 35 and Spring Hollow Road, initially presented plans for a four-story building with commercial space for retail businesses and restaurants in addition to the actual hotel, dubbed The Stonewright, in early 2025.

Developers at the time hoped the City Council would approve a proposed ordinance increasing the maximum allowed number of stories in the town center from three to four, but councilors were ultimately against the change.

Webster said the decision wouldn’t affect his team’s proposal because they had a backup plan — a three-story building with the fourth story converted into an attic instead of another floor for hotel rooms.

But councilors said they were worried the building wasn’t actually a three-story structure when developers appeared before the City Council with their revisions. The updated plans showed balconies on the fourth floor, and the interior plan showed walls and doors, similar to the lower floors intended for hotel rooms. The City Council denied the design in a 3-2 vote and asked developers to return with new blueprints at a later date.

Webster then submitted another proposal showing he had removed the attic balconies and non-structural interior walls and added shutters over the attic windows. The developer’s legal counsel also sent a memo to the City Council outlining the definition of an attic and claiming the three-story limitation “does not apply to the attic” or the rooftop deck.

But the City Council wasn’t convinced and denied the architectural plans for a second time, spurring Webster’s decision to file a lawsuit in July. The city and the development team engaged in an informal mediation as part of the litigation, and the intermediary involved in the case subsequently issued an informal opinion siding with Webster.

The City Council approved the architectural design for a three-story hotel with an attic in return for the lawsuit’s dismissal. However, councilors were clear that they still disagreed with the building’s design and said they believed the developer was no longer considering the town’s residents when making decisions or working with the City Council “in good faith.”

The post Bill passes in last moments of legislative session that forces Francis to allow four-story hotel appeared first on Park Record.

The state Legislature is giving local officials more time to implement a wildfire preparedness law that originally went into effect in January after municipalities and counties across the state struggled with the legislation.

State lawmakers passed House Bill 48 last year in an attempt to mitigate wildfire risks in wildland urban interface areas, or WUIs, which refer to zones where human developments meet or “interface” with wildland, or open spaces relatively untouched by humans.

However, the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands, which was responsible for publishing an updated statewide map of “high-risk WUIs,” is still in the midst of creating the program despite the law including multiple deadlines for municipalities and county governments at the local level.

As a result, some cities and counties across Utah have technically been out of compliance because local officials didn’t have the information they needed from the state to follow the law.

“It’s been difficult for us to know how to implement it because there hasn’t been a lot of information coming out from the state agency who’s regulating it,” said Summit County Deputy Manager Janna Young. “They haven’t even issued their rates yet, so we’re very happy to get another year to work on this.”

Young told the Summit County Council on Wednesday that H.B. 41, which has passed in both chambers and is now headed to the governor’s desk, extends the deadline to comply with last year’s law to Jan. 1, 2027.

The wildfire preparedness legislation requires city governments to approve an ordinance adopting specific building codes for new developments in WUIs. The ordinances would force new builds to use fire-resistant materials for structures in addition to ensuring a robust enough water system and roadway for fire crews to access the area in the event of a wildfire.

Under H.B. 48, the state can refuse to pay for the costs associated with damages and large-scale responses if the city were to experience a large wildfire without an ordinance in place.

The bulk of the law is directed toward homeowners, though, not city officials.

It established a new annual fee between $20 and $100 for homeowners within a WUI, with the specific amount determined by the taxable square footage of the property. The funds will go back to Forestry, Fire and State Lands to pay for assessors, who will evaluate properties within the WUI to decide whether homeowners are complying with the building code.

The code encourages homeowners to “harden” their properties against fires by installing metal roofs, replacing wooden fences with fire-resistant materials, clearing roadways of brush and debris and other preventative measures.

H.B. 48 also incentivizes homeowners to undergo assessments conducted by a certified Forestry, Fire and State Lands employee. The lot assessment will provide “mitigation actions” for the property, and homeowners who complete those mitigation actions will pay a reduced fee in return.

The Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands said assessments are not necessarily required, but a homeowner who does not obtain one will automatically be charged the highest fee and “considered to be at the highest risk.”

Summit County Fire Warden Bryce Boyer previously said the state passed H.B. 48 to prevent insurance companies from refusing coverage to homeowners in high-risk areas. Insurance companies instead need to refer to the state’s WUI map to determine whether a property is in a high-risk area, and homeowners are able to have their homes classified as lower risk, or bumped off the map entirely, by complying with the home-hardening measures.

“We were starting to see insurance companies not insuring in the county and significantly raising people’s rates,” Boyer said in a meeting with the Kamas City Council in January. “Part of House Bill 48 is to try to head that off, requiring insurance companies to primarily use our mapping to point out where the highest risk areas are. It’s also a way for us to say, ‘Look, we’ve been working on this, and we are continuing to work on it with our homeowners and property owners to have them reduce their risk.’ We’re trying to ensure that folks can still get home insurance and be able to afford it in this state, not just this county.”

Boyer said it was a good move for local fire departments, too, because it’s been difficult for local officials to enforce home hardening measures without state oversight.

“We’ve only had a carrot, and there was no stick in the past to get people to do defensible things, like structuring hardening,” he said. “This puts a little bit of a stick in it because if you’re not (doing it), you’re going to be hit with a higher premium.”

Homeowners can check whether their property is considered high-risk by going to wildfirerisk.utah.gov and typing their address into the Utah Wildfire Risk Assessment portal.

The post Wildfire preparedness deadlines moved to 2027 as state, municipalities work to comply with new law appeared first on Park Record.

State lawmakers may force Francis to accept a four-story hotel in its town center despite the City Council’s decision to codify a three-story limit last year.

Senate Bill 284 is sponsored by Sen. Lincoln Fillmore of Salt Lake County and Rep. Jill Koford of Weber County. The legislation focuses on general laws relating to local land use, but the latest version of the bill also includes language that would require Francis to allow certain four-story developments. The legislative session was scheduled to end at midnight Friday, and it was unclear Friday morning whether the bill would pass.

The proposed bill states a municipality may regulate the number of habitable stories a structure may contain, as well as its overall height. However, it also specifically says that if a land use application for a “commercial lodging structure” was approved before Sept. 1, 2025, then the city “shall allow the land use applicant to build as many habitable stories within the approved structure as permitted under the State Construction Code.”

“It sure seems to be narrowly tailored to include the Francis situation, specifically the hotel that is being built in the town center,” said Francis City Planning Commission Vice Chair Rich Christiansen. “What the language of the bill appears to do is make it so that, as a city, Francis is unable to regulate the number of stories in that structure and shifts any regulation of that to the state.”

The City Council passed the three-story ordinance after a monthslong back-and-forth between the Planning Commission, city councilors and developers regarding the aesthetics of the hotel, Christiansen said.

“We didn’t want a situation where we had four-story buildings with flat rooflines and rather ugly profiles,” he said. “We’re trying to make Francis a beautiful city, a place where people want to be, and this kind of thing shifts that ability from the citizens of Francis to control how their city develops and pushes it to people in the state who, frankly, probably don’t care how Francis develops.”

Christiansen said Francis has a population of around 1,800 people, which is why the proposed bill took him and other city officials by surprise.

“That’s not a significant voting bloc for anybody outside the city of Francis,” Christiansen said.

He said the situation is also frustrating because the city increased its maximum building height from 40 feet to 45 feet to encourage developers to make interesting architectural choices. The 45-foot allowance should let developers build three-story structures with sloped roofs and unique features, but that isn’t physically feasible with a fourth story.

“Once you put in that fourth story, you’re eliminating that benefit completely,” Christiansen said. “If you look at the difference between places that are well-developed versus not, it seems like the beauty of structures and their design features play a big part, so we want to push Francis in that direction. We don’t want to become a shoebox exburb of any other city. We want to create a city that, on its own, stands as something beautiful and worth visiting and worth living in.”

Christiansen said it was also concerning to him that the Legislature’s trend of codifying controversial developments at the state level is now affecting the Wasatch Back’s smaller municipalities.

“This seems to be a continuation of the state’s politics, with respect to the Dakota Pacific development over in Park City,” he said. “It seems like this trend may continue. I’m hearing some noise that similar pressures are being applied to a development in Browns Canyon, so it seems to be increasingly the case that the state is intermingling themselves with what should be purely local matters.”

Rusty Webster, the developer spearheading the hotel slated for construction on the corner of S.R. 35 and Spring Hollow Road, initially presented plans for a four-story building with commercial space for retail businesses and restaurants in addition to the actual hotel, dubbed The Stonewright, in early 2025. 

Developers at the time hoped the City Council would approve a proposed ordinance increasing the maximum allowed number of stories in the town center from three to four, but councilors were ultimately against the change and declined to adopt the ordinance in a 3-1 vote.

Webster and his team said the decision wouldn’t affect their proposal because they had a backup plan — a three-story building with the fourth story converted into an attic instead of another floor for hotel rooms.

But councilors said they were worried the building wasn’t actually a three-story structure when developers appeared before the City Council with their revisions in April. The updated plans showed balconies on the fourth floor, and the interior plan showed walls and doors, similar to the lower floors intended for hotel rooms. The City Council denied the design in a 3-2 vote and asked developers to return with new blueprints at a later date.

Webster then submitted another proposal to the City Council in June showing he had removed the attic balconies and non-structural interior walls and added shutters over the attic windows. The developer’s legal counsel additionally sent a memo to the City Council outlining the definition of an attic and claiming the three-story limitation “does not apply to the attic” or the rooftop deck.

But the City Council wasn’t convinced and denied the architectural plans for a second time in another 3-2 vote, spurring Webster’s decision to file a lawsuit in July. The city and the development team engaged in an informal mediation as part of the litigation, and the intermediary involved in the case subsequently issued an informal opinion siding with Webster.

The City Council approved the architectural designs in August for a three-story hotel with an attic in return for the lawsuit’s dismissal. However, councilors were clear that they still disagreed with the building’s design and said they believed the developer was no longer considering the town’s residents when making decisions or working with the City Council “in good faith.”

“We’re not trying to be stubborn. We told you what we wanted, and I think we all know what was presented,” Francis City Councilor Clint Summers said to Webster at the time of the vote.

City Councilor Sam Hunter said he voted to approve the architectural plans to save the city and its taxpayers from dealing with the financial repercussions of fighting the developers in court, but he similarly criticized Webster for how his team handled conversations with the city.

“I do not like the outcome,” he said. “They’re forcing a four-story building down our throats. … I feel it’s our duty as council people to do what’s best for the city. To keep denying this, forcing us into a lawsuit, ultimately, the state Legislature will probably side against us, and it’s going to cost the city money needlessly.”

The 2026 general session ends Friday at midnight. If the bill were to pass, it would go into effect on May 6.

The post State lawmakers may force Francis to allow a four-story hotel despite local ordinance appeared first on Park Record.