Summit County attempts to save Park City from one of the barabrians at the gate

You have to love Utah. Rich, entitled developers manipulate the legislature to make up rules that can make them millions. One of their last names is Romney.

Such is the case with the town of Hideout.

Hideout is a town of about 900 people, near the Jordanelle Reservoir, on your way to Kamas. I knew of it, from a few years ago, as a place where you may live if you couldn’t find anyplace else to live. It seems the town wants to grow up, but like most adolescents, it is doing it in a stupid way. Hideout is trying to add land, that they can control, which isn’t adjacent to the town. They want to annex parts of Summit County, that don’t touch Hideout, whichare actually in Summit County, even though Hideout is in Wasatch County.

It would be like if Park City wanted to annex the Kennecott Copper Mine near Herriman. “Dude, can you imagine the money we could make if we annexed a mine?!!!!! Eff- Yeah!”

So, with joy, I read the motion Summit County filed in the 4th District Court to stop Hideout’s abomination. Summit County wants to stop Hideout from annexing parts of Summit County and laid it out in real terms. I’m often at odds with what Summit County does, but in this case, their filing is an absolute treasure.

The motion opens with the following: “Plaintiff Summit County will be immediately and irreparably harmed unless the Court enjoins and restrains the Town of Hideout in Wasatch County from taking any action to annex portions of Summit County over the objection and without consent of Summit County.” That’s standard legalese that says that our county has standing to object to annexation.

Then they go for the jugular immediately, “The Town of Hideout, a nefarious and arguably unconstitutional hamlet of 900 persons located on the eastern banks of Jordanelle Reservoir in Wasatch County is seeking to annex non-contiguous lands located in neighboring Summit County which until just weeks ago was prohibited by law.”

The motion then says, “Much like the scheme used for the creation of Hideout in 2007 through special-purpose legislation, Developers Nate Brockbank and Josh Romney through surreptitious and deceptive means , spearheaded the passage of HB 359 in an amended form during the 2020 General Session of the Utah State Legislature.”

They are basically saying that the entire town of Hideout is some forsaken spawn of power and the legislature.

Then they say, “Knowing that the Governor and Utah Legislature potentially intend to repeal that deceitfully obtained provision during the 6th Special Session currently scheduled for August 20, 2020, Defendants have initiated and hope to complete a 700+ acre cherry stem annexation and thereafter grant to Developers Romney and Brockbank, a high-density urban level development ten time the size of the current town and landing the monstrosity on the doorstep of Park City, Utah.”

Basically, Mitt Romney’s kid wants to take advantage of “a mistake” and get entitlement rights while he can, knowing that in a couple of weeks, those rights will probably go away.

You can read through the 105-page motion to draw your own conclusion, but as a local, political junky, I love it. Here are some highlights from Summit County’s motion:

“On information and belief, Romney and Brockbank intentionally sought to thwart the Utah Open and Public Meetings Act, Utah Code §52-4-101, et. seq. (the “Open Meetings Act”) by meeting with individual members of the Hideout Town Council, so that their meetings, discussions, negotiations, deliberations, and decisions with respect to the Annexation would be in secret and not subject to public scrutiny.”

“According to Romney, he concluded that ‘there was no hope to getting something done in Summit County, because the Chair of the Summit County Council was not willing to meet with him secretly and outside the public process.”

I’m not sure which chair that was, but if that was Kim, Chris, Glenn, Doug, or Roger … good on you — whoever it was. You REPRESENTED.

Then came the following in the motion, “On information and belief, Romney, Brockbank and their attorney Bruce Baird (“Baird”) used lobbyist Michael Ostermiller (“Ostermiller”) for the purpose of influencing the Utah Legislature to unknowingly adopt tailored-made special purpose legislation which benefited Romney and Brockbank in their Enterprise.”

It continues, “Based on Romney and Brockbank’s interactions with Hideout during this same time period, Plaintiff believes the Application to Summit County was a subterfuge to redirect the focus of Summit County away from Hideout, all the while waiting for the legislative scheme to unfold which would allow them to proceed with the Annexation over the anticipated objections of Summit County, Wasatch County, and Park City Municipal Corporation.”

“Hideout, Romney and Brockbank seek nothing less than to overturn decades of careful land use planning and community development: with non-contiguous land in Summit County they do not own.
The import of this cannot be overstated. From the available information, which is scant, Romney and Brockbank intend to put its North Park development, a high-density mixed- use development on approximately 655 acres of land in Summit County near the junction of State Route 248 and US-40 (Quinn’s Junction) to attract thousands of additional residents and workers. Part of the stunning scam in HB 359S1was that it removed the ability of counties to withhold consent and protest annexations under Utah Code §10-2-418(3) to the Boundary Commission”

So let’s review some of the terms and phrases used by Summit County to describe what Hideout is doing:

• Nefarious
• Unarguably unconstitutional
• Scheme
• Until just weeks ago was prohibited by law
• Through surreptitious and deceptive means
• Chair of the Summit County Council was not willing to meet with him secretly and outside the public process
• Benefited Romney and Brockbank in their Enterprise.

Of course, I’m only citing from Summit County’s motion against Hideout. I don’t believe Hideout, Romney, or Brockbank has responded. So, I will leave it up to you the reader to imagine their responses to this.

One last statement from Summit County’s motion is important. “Hideout does not have the current capacity to provide municipal services to the Development Parcels and does not currently provide for itself the following municipal services: water, sewer, law enforcement, fire and ambulance, transit, animal control, public health services, justice courts and prosecution services, recreation, or libraries.”

What that means is that Summit County would need to provide these services to Hideout — whether we want to or not. Our tax dollars would fund essential services for people who don’t live here, while millionaire’s children get richer.

That may be the Utah way, but it is not the Summit County way.

For the counter argument, please read Hideout Mayor Phil Rubin’s Editorial in the Salt Lake Tribune.

My opinion is that Hideout should go to Hell. You’re a parasite attempting to suck on the success and tax dollars of a successful community. You are trying to benefit from either a knowing or unknowing Utah Legislature that provided developers with an advantage to enrich themselves at the expense of us regular people.

Hideout, I hope you disappear into the sands of time.

For those who are/were part of Hideout,

Margaret Olson, David Thomas, and Jami Brackin, I salute you.