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CEDAR HILLS, Utah (AP) -- The City Council has overturned a citizens' initiative approved by voters in 2003 that required any bonds floated by the city to be approved by voters.
The council members voted 4-1 Tuesday to adopt an ordinance allowing the council to issue bonds, repayable by a property tax increase or other methods, without voter permission.
However, the new ordinance restricts the city to issuing bonds only for "basic public services such as water, sewer, irrigation, sanitation, parks, streets or transportation infrastructure, public safety needs, utilities or physical facilities or equipment for the safe and effective operation of city government."
Councilman Jim Parker Councilman cast the dissenting vote, saying any changes to the initiative should be made by a vote of residents, not by the City Council.
"It was the citizens by a fair margin that put it in place and it is only fair that is should be the citizens that remove it," he said.
Councilwoman Charelle Bowman said she believed the 2003 vote was initiated out of residents' fears of "a reckless City Council spending money on things the residents don't want."
She said the new ordinance "gives the City Council the freedom to do what we were elected to do, and it still lets the residents feel protected by the bounds that have been set for us."
Mayor Mike McGee said the city needs the ability to float a bond to drill a new well. The city has only one well and if it fails the city would have no water.
He said money also is needed to fix the city's pressurized irrigation system, and to build a $1 million building to store parts for city infrastructure.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
