Amateur hour at the Hideout town council

I have followed local government for a long time. Sometimes you hate the outcome but often you respect the people involved and the process. People throughout Summit County and Park City governments are generally competent. They know the game and are respectable.

Tonight I listened to a special meeting from the Hideout Town Council about annexing land in Summit Country. They are the ones that want to annex a whole bunch of land in Summit County and build hundreds of units and hundreds of thousands of square feet of retail by Quinn’s Junction. Their first attempt to annex the land was placed on hold by a judge and they seem to be driven by some force to try again. Tonight’s meeting was an attempt to restart a new annexation plan.

The meeting began with a cover-your-ass session that was enlightening. The Hideout town council voted to agree that the developer, Nate Brockback, was liable for any legal fees incurred from their first attempt to annex parts of Summit County. What? The fact that the town won’t accept the legal responsibilities, and the developer will, tells you everything you need to know about this. How can it be anything but developer-driven? Does Hideout want this or does Nate Brockback and Josh Romney want this?

Then the town council members spoke, well at least two out of the three. One couldn’t be there because he was flying. It was one of the most important moments in Hideout’s history and a third of the town council wasn’t there. That left two members of the council and the Mayor. Given that, any decision had to be unanimous to go forward.

The town council discussed rescinding the original annexation agreement. One member hoped by rescinding the annexation that Hideout, Summit County, and Park City could all work together going forward. Yet, about 15 minutes later the town council was discussing a different plan to annex land in Summit County.

Finally, Ron Winterton and Tim Quinn, from the Utah Legislature came on the line and told them that the intent of the legislature is that this annexation shouldn’t take place right now. Yet, it sounds like they may try again on Thursday to approve annexing pars of Summit County.

What I think is going on is that Hideout has Napoleanic disorder. They are small but they don’t feel small. Members of the Town Council repeatedly said they wanted a seat at the table to influence what is going on around them. They said that they felt more like Park City than Heber and they wanted to influence where they lived.

Unfortunately for Hideout they are what they are. They have 900 people (maybe). They are in Wasatch County. The folks in Heber do control their actions. It has been that way since way before Hideout became a town in 2007.

The way to garner support from Park City and Summit County is not a land grab that costs tax payers thousands of dollars in legal fees. For the Hideout town council person that said, “we just want to get along”, that time has passed.

To put it bluntly, I frankly can’t believe your process. The Snyderville Basin Planning Commission puts in more thought into the grade of a driveway than it seems you have into this idea. Tonight you were asking the developer about traffic impacts and it sounded like you took their answer at face value. In the Snyderville Basin there would have been five meetings about this with the Planning Commission before it ever got to your level. Do you know how long the debate was in the Snyderville Basin Planning Commission about whether there should be a roundabout at Whole Foods?

You are out of your league. I don’t trust you. I don’t trust the developer. This isn’t good for our community.

If we need development there, I will trust Summit County to build it. I don’t always agree with Summit County Planning Director Pat Putt, but I know he is competent. We can at least have a fair discussion about it.

After listening to tonight’s discussion with the Hideout Town Council, I wish I could say the same for them. They appear to be led at the nose by their developers. That never works out well.

If you want to listen to the meeting, click here.