Hey, today is 2-23-2023! Do you believe in numerology? 🙂
You can tell the legislative session is heating up as things move quicker, get more interesting, and the press writes more about them. We have several pieces from the press about bills we are following. I’ll run through them.
A piece in the Trib yesterday about the mining bill prompted by the proposed quarry in Parleys Canyon. The bill is HB527 – Mining Operations Amendments. Salt Lake County officials and area residents are pretty ticked off about this bill.
On Tuesday, the County Council voted unanimously “hell no,” in opposition to HB527. “The bill could potentially have devastating impacts on local air quality, critical watersheds, enhanced wildfire risk, our region’s ongoing drought crisis, cherished recreational opportunities and historic sites, potential impairment to a successful Olympic bid, and other major economic and quality of life concerns,” she said. “Salt Lake County should continue to have the right to exercise its legitimate land use authority to address health, safety, and community concerns within its borders. That is what local jurisdictions do best.”
The quarry proponents have set up their own information website. It’s late in the session, at this point the bill has not been scheduled for any committee hearing, but if it has leadership support, it could move very quickly. Keeping an eye on this one.
Next is an opinion piece in the Trib by Robert Gehrke about the Dakota Pacific/Summit County issue, related to SB84 – HTRZ Amendments, demonstrating that this imbroglio has made its way into the awareness of the main media. As well as describing what’s been going on, Gehrke notes the unprecedented action in subsuming local land use authority by quoting the Summit County Council Chair:
“This horrible assault on local communities’ rights of self-determination is a blemish upon fair, open and transparent government,” county council chair Roger Armstrong said after the bill’s passage. “The Utah Legislature should be ashamed.”
A couple of pieces on Short-Term Rentals (STRs) highlight the prominent attention being paid to this issue by local officials (cited numerous times during the Growth Workshops held last fall), and now in the legislature – one an opinion piece in the DesNews and the other a story in the St. George News. The bills in reference are HB291 – Short-Term Rental Amendments (circled on the House 3rd Reading Calendar, awaiting a vote with a proposed amendment), and HB496 – Short-Term Rental Enforcement Revisions (which has not moved). The opinion writer says,
A stable neighborhood with familiar neighbors shouldn’t be a luxury, but something seniors can count on when picking a community to settle down in. A revolving door of strangers at a short-term rental does not create the sense of community that Utah seniors deserve. That’s why Utah lawmakers must avoid any state law that implements a top-down approach to these new challenges related to unregulated short-term rentals. Utah residents, and especially seniors, are counting on local control to confront this issue moving forward.
The St. George news article notes of HB291:
Musselman said his bill is circled and on pause while he fine-tunes it, and then he expects it will go to a vote in the House of Representatives this week. If it passes, then short-term rentals would need to be licensed by May 3.
Referenda were mentioned several times in the Growth Workshops last fall as well, usually in the context that when local officials try to enact measures to enhance housing affordability, they sometimes are stymied by their own residents through the referendum process. In Tooele County, where there have been some ugly battles over referenda, a Tooele Transcript Bulletin story about SB199 – Local Land Use Amendments noted:
On the Senate floor, Mckell again argued that the referendum process has become “weaponized” and was hindering efforts to provide affordable housing and interfering with private property rights. He also said that in a constitutional republic the true referendum process is found in local elections where members of legislative bodies are elected.
As might be expected, some members of the public have a different view.
Jackie Larson, Spanish Fork, who described herself as “a farmer’s wife” who has sponsored a local referendum, said she was opposed to the bill. “The people have the right, guaranteed by the state constitution, to use referendums,” she said. “The referendum process protects people. Our constitutional right should not be taken away.”
That sentiment was echoed in last Monday’s League Legislative Policy Committee meeting when this bill was discussed, with several local elected officials voicing their opinion that the constitutional right to referenda should not be messed with. The feeling is that support for HB199, while it passed easily with only 2 negative votes in the Senate, is much less assured in the House. That may have been reflected when the House committee passed the bill out favorably yesterday, but only on a 5-4 vote. It now awaits a vote on the House floor. You can see more details about the issues with this bill by going back to my Feb. 9 blog post.
The session ends a week from tomorrow. It’s going to be one heck of a show!