Editors Note: This column was originally published in the Jan. 17, 2024 issue of the Chronicle Progress.
Can a Millard County community avoid a January 6th insurrection?
I’ll try to be brief: A dad sold his ⅓ acre building lot, to a son and his new wife next to his lot and home, (that was built forty five years ago, under a city council that approved it and ten other lots of ⅓ acre zoning).
Dad has worked in the Title Insurance profession, real estate sales, and litigation, and a member of Planning and Zoning of a local town. Dad had no doubt as to the authenticity of the lot as a building lot. Later, the son and wife changed their mind and listed it to sell. A buyer applied to the city for a building permit but was denied. Its ⅓ acre zoning status was put in question.
In government, changes happen; zoning gets changed to ½ acre, City council members ending service, new members inducted, planning and zoning has a new chairman, who is also on city council, and is the land use authority for the city as well.
An appeal was made to the land use authority but was denied. An additional appeal was made to the city council, but one dissenting vote (with absence of a full council presence) the appeal was denied.
The mayor is the executive administrator, responsible for seeing the rules and ordinances the city council has approved and legally passed are enforced. He is obligated to support the “Land Use Authority,” decisions. Each was doing their job.
Enter the problem.
Son’s entire money is invested in the lot that he needs to sell to move to another state.
The lot dad sold to them now appears to be a bag of rocks! Not a genuine building lot,
Dad’s integrity is at stake to assure the lot is a bonafide building lot. Having no success with the Land use Administrator-Authority, or with the city council, dad consulted a seasoned civil engineer experienced in such areas and was assured he would win in a court case… without question.
The dad lives in this community. He likes his community, his neighbors, his friends. Lawsuits are vile, would take longer, cost money to him, son, and city, and in addition offend friends in the city government.
Where does one turn? The state of Utah has a web site delineating the process to obtain redress from the government. I checked it out. It comes under the “Board of Appeals.” It states the “Land Use Authority,” (administrator) cannot be the Board of Appeals, or a member of it. The denied lot qualified in all five categories of criteria for an approval… if a Board of Appeals had existed to contest the denial.
The P & Z chairman, (who is also the Land Use Authority) proposed a resolution to fix the problem, for it and the other ⅓ acre lots being affected. It took months for all the changes, information gathering for the resolution to be ready to present to the city council. As months passed, the economy worsened, interest rates rising, optimum time to sell missed, and anger increasing. During which time dad and son had no resolution to the problem, with no end or completion date in sight.
Can you feel the moment? Is dad going to have to mortgage his home or sell it to refund his son? How will his integrity be restored if he doesn’t see this through to the end? He wants to storm the castle, demand something, anything, to get this question resolved quickly. There’s nowhere to go for redress but district courts. Bad option!
And now my first point: This is what happens when there is no “Board of Appeals!” This could have been addressed if they had been able to appeal to a town’s “Board of Appeals.” Doing so would not have impeded or prevented the P&Z chairman from pursuing his good intentions to solve the problem of fixing all the ⅓ acre lots in one fell swoop. It could have calmed feelings and frustrations of nowhere to go, but to the courts…which they loathed to do. (All are grateful it was eventually resolved, brought to a satisfactory conclusion, without courts involved)
Now my second point: The above story is true. It is a microcosm of what happened on January 6th, 2020. There was no BOARD OF APPEALS for election discrepancies or the challenges to them! It’s my opinion why most, if not all, but a few, showed up at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. They were frustrated and wanted their concerns of corruption looked into, what they felt was not being addressed in a timely way. They remembered the broken “chad” ballot problem of a previous election in Florida, (which took a while to resolve). It’s not like we don’t think crap can’t happen in an election that can change the course of events in a major way!
Congressmen, where is our Board of Appeals when it comes to our national (or State) elections? Where is the space between… where challenges can be addressed by UNBIASED MEDIATORS? If any can be found? Our country, our treasured Constitution hangs in the balance. Are you like our founding fathers, able to put aside securing your future, and put God, country, and fellowman, ahead of your selfish interest? Are You the Stewards of our Freedom? Or Not?
It’s time-past time to act. Establish a “Board of Appeals” and protocol for following it.
—L. Darwin Starks
Lynndyl
