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Alex Cabrero reporting Just a couple of weeks after Box Elder County commissioners voted to sell the county landfill, some residents are hoping they get to have the final say.
A petition for a referendum is now sitting on the county clerk's desk. If it's allowed, residents will get to vote on the landfill sale.
Eli Anderson isn't too happy with Box Elder County commissioners. "I want people to have a say, and I think pretty much nobody's wanted to listen to the people, and a lot of questions haven't been answered at this point," he said.
Anderson is a county resident and was at last month's public hearing when commissioners listened to people about the sale of the county landfill. Even though most spoke against the sale, after the meeting the county attorney pulled papers out of his briefcase and the commissioners signed them, completing the sale.
"They went through the formal process of 'Yeah, we had a hearing,' but I think they'd already decided before they heard the statements of the citizens," Anderson said.
That's why, yesterday, Anderson filed a petition of referendum to the county clerk. "This is an option that we're hoping we can get enough signatures and get this put on the ballot, so the people actually have a say in what happens down the road in their county."
Reggie Petersen says he'll sign the petition, not because he's against the two of three commissioners who voted for the sale, but because he feels the public wasn't informed.
"I'm really embarrassed and disappointed that our commissioners didn't do their homework," Petersen said.
When we spoke to commissioners, they said a sale has been worked on for nearly four years. They also said this year they had to take a half million dollars out of the county's general fund for the landfill after two cities pulled out.
Selling the landfill to a regional operator--in this case the Northern Utah Regional Landfill Authority, or NURLA--to them, makes sense.
However, some residents think selling public property should be up to the residents. Petersen said, "This is an opportunity for the people to get involved and to be able to have a say, which I don't think they've had."
The group has to get 2,400 signatures on the petition by the end of this month.
Commissioners say they've also heard from a lot of people who support the sale to NURLA, they just weren't at the public hearing.
