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Show CASTLE VALLEY TIMES DUBIOUS TIMES Castle Valley, Utah - Volume 7, Number 7 DISINCORPORATION ELECTION-TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 15th PLEASE MARK YOUR CALENDARS - August 15, 1998 The 1999 POA Board will be elected at the Annual POA Meeting on Oct. 17th, 1998. If you would like to have your name on the ballot, please contact POA Chair Jack Campbell, (435) 259-5542, by Sept. 16, 1998. Candidates names have to be submitt- ed early to be included on the ballot sent out with the Annual POA Mailing. Candidates may also announce their candidacy at the Annual Meeting. To be eligible a candidate must be a CVRR POA property owner in good standing, i.e. the member’s dues account(s) must be paid in full. Residency in the valley is not required, and we are making good progress towards allowing a non—residing board member to participate electronically in POA business. POAANNUAL MEETING SET FOR OCTOBER 17, 1998 The date of the Annual POA Freedom from Reason DISINCORPORATION PROCESS FLAWED Hopes to have the disincorporation POA BOARD ELECTION - election postponed until the general election on November 3rd have had to be abandoned due to multiple errors by the County Clerk, Fran Townsend. The election is still scheduled for Sept. 15th. The County Clerk is responsible for certifying that the signatures on the petition are valid. To be valid the signators must be registered voters in the Town and must also reside in the Town at the time the petition is filed. Another statutory responsibility of the County Clerk is to calculate the numbers of signatures that the petition must contain. This number is 25% of the votes cast in the last congressional election in the Town. The County Clerk has the voting records and is the only person able to make this calculation. Fran filed a statement in court stating that 49 signatures were required for the petition to be valid. She also determined that there were 49 valid signatures on the petition, exactly the number required (after eliminating people who had signed twice and people who weren’t registered in CV). Upon examining the petition at the end of July, we found that there were 3 additional invalid signatures. This reduced the number of signatures below the minimum Fran said was required. The Town filed a court petition (the hearing date was to have been yester— day) to have the petition dismissed based on insufficient signatures. When Fran heard about the court challenge, she reviewed her original calculations, and decided that only 41 signatures were required, thus making the petition sufficient even with the additional invalid signatures. A third substantial error made by the County Clerk was that the county clerk is required by state law to submit a copy of the petition to the Town at the same time as she submitted the original petition to the court. Fran failed to do this. This would have allowed the series of errors to have been discovered and corrected much earlier. Mayor Bruce Keeler, after consulting with the Town attorney, decided not to pursue the issue in court. The net result of all this is that the election will apparently take place as originally scheduled on Tuesday, Sept. 15th. (assuming that no other serious flaws are discovered). —Jack Campbell Meeting has been set early this year to allow members to plan to ahead if they wish to attend. The possibility of amending the Covenants this fall may cause increased interest in this meetmg. OTHER COMMUNITIES SEEK TO INCORPORATE So many other small Utah communities are trying to become Towns and cities that the Utah League of Cities and Towns may have to hire more staff to HUNTING ORD. ADOPTED BY TOWN After lengthy debate at its July 14 handle the extra work load. Why do these communities want to become towns? ULCT representative Sidney Fonnesbeck said these communities are fed up with county commissions not being responsive to what these communities want. The communities are meeting, the Town Council passed an incorporating so they will be able to determine what kind of community they will ordinance restricting hunting and the discharge of firearms within the Town boundaries. The ordinance is printed on page 5 of this issue and Melody Taylor has more hunting info on page 3. The become. Ranchos are off limits to hunting. Hunting is still permitted near Round Mtn. Firearms (except shotguns) can’t be discharged within 600’ of houses. A particularly sensitive issue involves county commissions imposing more growth on these communities than they want. Since small communities rarely have much clout with county commissrons, they are very vulnerable to pro— development commissioners. Developers’ money speaks much louder than their relatively few votes. Sidney said that, unforttmately, many of these communities are considering incorporating after it’s too late to prevent much of the harm they wish to avoid. Harmful projects can’t be stopped once they have been given permits. |
