Thanks for taking a minute to see what I have to say

The reasons I give below are based on facts as far as I know.  I am not interested in trying to make a point with hyperbole or half truths.  (or bald face lies).  The other side seems to have a monopoly on those methods.   If you think I am wrong, have something wrong, let me know.  I edit this page and my letters all the time when errors are pointed out or when I learn new things.  Not interested in making a point via deception.  Chuck McCown chuck@go-mtc.com

This has been the only articulatable reason I have ever been given for starting a City of Erda from the sponsors.  Not to improve services, not to bring new nice things to the community, not to fix things the County is currently failing at doing.  The sole purpose is to advance a narrow ECA (Erda Community Association) vision of zoning that incorporates economic redlining.

Odd that Kyle Matthews and family appear to be real estate developers.  (See the evidence here)  The founder of the ECA is in fact one of those "greedy developers" that the ECA was founded to combat.  Transferring water from Grantsville to Tooele, planning super density housing and the whole 9 yards.  How rich...

Most, if not all, of the sponsors live on lots created by developers.  But now they got theirs, they want to prevent others from getting to live in Erda.  There have been 1 acre lots in Erda for more than 30 years.  But all of a sudden, newcomers think that is "high density".  To me that is a very selfish position.       

Historically, redlining was done by financial institutions and planners to suppress and prevent home loans from going to "the bad side of town".  Generally racially motivated.  An economic version of this is happening here in Erda.  A refusal to acknowledge inclusionary zoning is creating a defaco redline preventing lower class, starter homes, new families, single parent families  etc from obtaining property.   Read more about it here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusionary_zoning  

Now that the City of Erda actually did a reasonable thing and adopted the Tooele County ordinances as a good starting place, the ECA is talking about doing a referendum against the City of Erda adopting those ordinances.   They do not believe in a representative form of government.  They only believe in their own centralized autocratic viewpoint and the suppression of all opposition.  (That is also the definition of fascism BTW. )  QED

Utah State Law requires a feasibility study to start with a map.  10-2a-208 (2) (f) This map must be prepared by a licensed surveyor.  That was never done.  The feasibility study should have never been accepted by the Lt. Gov office.  

Larger property owners inside a proposed city must sign a portion of the feasibility study.  The sponsors altered this document after the fact making it look like there were signatures for Six Mile ranch when in fact the owners of Six Mile ranch never signed the document.  This pen and ink revision is tantamount to forgery.  If you look up the various legal definitions of forgery, on  The Lt. Gov's office was alerted to this in the days prior to the election but they did not halt the election.  

The sponsors had a couple of years to perfect their boundary map but they failed to do so.  They just tossed the mapping problem in the lap of the newly elected city council.  They had 30 days to get a perfected and approved map to the Lt. Govs Office.   10-2a-217 (1) (a) (iii)   They failed to do so.  This is Utah State Law.  It is a date certain and they failed to get an approved map filed.  

Sponsors submitted a defective map.  The law says the county surveyor Jerry Houghton has to approve the map.  He was not able to approve the map due to imperfections. Two of the ECA backed councilmen, against the wishes of the full council,  personally sued Jerry and the county.  Before the hearing judge Debbie Gibbons asked Jerry if he could comply with an order to approve. Her mind was already made up.

Even though I imagine a Chicago Mob - Sopranos style of pressure was applied to Jerry Houghton, he did his elected duty with honor, honesty and the utmost of integrity.  Check out his statement here.  But in the end, again the ECA attorney  -  with a friendly judge forced Jerry to sign.  

The ECA and the city sponsors are essentially the same group with the same stated goals.  As such the Chairman Jess Bird has been open and vocally praising and thanking sponsors in official City Council meetings.   The ECA attorney represented two of the five councilmen on their personal lawsuits against the county.  If the ECA paid for the legal representation or if the lawyer did it for free, the  Bird and Martin received illegal financial help to act contrary to the wishes of the full council

Remember, the ECA prevented the Temple from being built in Erda.  Are these the people you want in control?  To me, that empty field is a wound that will never heal.  

What do we get with a new city?  No new services.  Same garbage, police and roads brought to us by the County.  So same stuff but just filtered through a new layer of bureaucrats.  This will not enhance anyone's life, nor will it save money.  I have asked ECA people what will the city actually do for me?  I have never received an answer.  Not one time.  

So we have to hire a city attorney, recorder, clerk, build a city hall and will probably end up with a dog catcher, weed measurer and cow counter....  (being facetious there)  Do you really think the county will bill you less?  They still have to have their attorneys, recorder, surveyor etc.  We are not decreasing their expenses.  We will have to pay our fair share of the county expenses and now the duplicated City expenses.     

If a service is resold like County solid waste or building inspection, there is more internal process in the county for billing the city.  You can be assured that the County will not lose money.  They will determine what it will cost to provide Erda a service then they will pad it a bit to make sure they are not getting hurt and then they will add administrative overhead expense for the billing and accounting.  This will add up to more than what it currently costs.

For some reason, the sponsors included all the land on the East side of Erda from the RR tracks clear up to the top of the mountains.  Clear to the ridge line.  Probably expecting to get the PILT money  (payment in lieu of property taxes) from BLM.  But the North Tooele County Fire District has first dibbs on the money because that mountain catches on fire almost every year.  Perhaps it was part of the scam to qualify for the ballot.  That acreage probably qualified as "contacting a certain perc

What is one good thing that can come from having a City of Erda?  How does this help anything other than to further pit half of our community against  the other half.  Remember, the community incorporation vote of almost 2000 votes was turned by 32 votes.  If 32 people had switched votes we would not have this situation.  And I believe that there are more than 32 people that were not aware of the sneaky way this whole thing was done.  

With the city council currently considering adopting ordinances from Morgan Utah, we could end up with "no weeds higher than 6 inches" and "2 horses per acre".  Things like "no unlicensed vehicles" on the property are also in the Morgan City code.  While it is not certain Erda will adopt Morgan, they certainly can include code like this.  More rules, more restrictions, less liberty.  I like how it is now with Tooele County.  Do we need more rules?  I don't want to live in the ECA HOA.  

We have had two of the council members go rogue and sue the County claiming they were doing so on behalf of the City of Erda.  Now there is a new lawsuit on the docket for discussion to sue Six Mile Ranch.  They want to force, against their will, under color of law, Six Mile Ranch to stay inside of Erda.   Anyone remember the Berlin Wall?  Or North Korea?  Of course Janet Conway makes money coming and going on these lawsuits.  

This ECA Group has done multiple lawsuit.  I think against Tooele County, Tooele City and Grantsville City.  Not totally sure about these but I do believe this is correct.  More to come, on the docket for 1/4/2.  Is this the type of City you want to life within?  Solve all problems with litigation?  How well did that work out for Tooele a few years ago.  They lost $20M against the developers of Overlake.  Win lose or draw, lawsuits cost the city money and kill any chance of friendly relations.  

As of this writing, 1/4/22  the ECA backed  rogue council members are pushing hard to intervene in the Six Mile Ranch desire to annex into Grantsville.  Why not let Six Mile determine their own fate?  Bird claims to be a libertarian?  Interesting, libertarian when it comes to his home and property, but it appears that is where his libertarianism ends.  Heck, even the Taliban have claimed to have banned forced marriages... (sorry for the sarcasm)