| OCR Text |
Show Clearfield Rejects Burn Plant Petition By MARK FOTHERINGHAM TI EARFIELD -- Court action regarding the proDavis County Resource RecovejV Plant is looking more and more like ly CkarfieUJ city officials rejected a petition last week from the citizen's group opposed to the plant. THE PETITION asking for a city-wide vote was sought by opponents after the city planning commission approved a conditional use permit for plant developers last month. Although the city has accepted a written appeal to bring the conditional use permit before the city council, coun-cil, opponents felt that the issue should be decided de-cided by the citizens of Clearfield. THE GROUP had earlier threatened court action ac-tion if their petition was denied. They are currently cur-rently consulting with legal counsel as to their next move. The problem, according to Clearfield City Manager Gayle Starks, was that the group followed fol-lowed "improper procedures" in pursuing a referendum. re-ferendum. "On the advice of our city attorney, we couldn't accept the petition," he said. HE EXPLAINED that City Attorney Alf Van Wagenen considered the petition illegal because it was attempting to overturn an administrative action (the conditional use permit approval) which by law is not subject to an inititive petition. peti-tion. "An initiative petition is used to establish a new law or amend an old one," said Mr. Starks. "We can't just arbitrarily put something on the ballot." ANOTHER problem stemmed from a disagreement dis-agreement on procedure. City attorneys had asked for a copy of the petition to read before the city decided whether or not to accept it. The citizen's group, however, refused to give them a copy thinking that acceptance should come first. In just a few days time, the group had acquired ac-quired and certified the names of 562 people on their petition, more than enough to qualify a valid petition for a referendum. "WE ARE concerned with protecting the rights of these people right dovsn to the wire' said Mr. Starks. "But we've got to stay within the ordinances regarding referendums." He added that a public hearing had been set for July 26 where the city council would consider appealing the conditional use permit issued by the planning commission. Even though the petition was rejected, it may have done sonic good for the opposition group. "We were called a small, unrepresentative group, but this proves our support is city-wide." city-wide." said group member Kenneth Reed. MR. REED added that the majority of names on the petition were of people who did not lic near the proposed plant location. |
