SOUTH JORDAN — The time was set, the signs painted, the kids and parents ready to go. A protest was on, with residents convinced the city was preparing to sell a popular Jordan River park to developers.

Now, instead of a protest, a celebratory picnic and day in the park are planned today.

Residents had scheduled the protest for Wednesday afternoon, and rumors were flying about the park at 11050 S. Riverfront Parkway being converted to warehouses, office space or some other commercial use. City manager Ricky Horst said Wednesday that the city, at the request of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had "looked at" the possibility of selling the 4-acre park. The city owns 233 acres of open space along the Jordan River corridor.

A public hearing on the proposal was planned, although no date had been set, to gather input on the idea of selling the land. But Horst said the city heard those opinions loud and clear before any public meeting could be held.

The residents were mad, a rally was planned — and the city decided to abandon the idea before it even got started. "The city basically caved," said Jim Ackerman, a resident who helped plan the protest.

Horst said the LDS Church had wanted to build a stake center on the property, and the city had been open to the possibility. Under the city's zoning ordinances, the land would have had to be put to a "public use," such as a school, a church or a day-care facility.

"I want to make it clear we were not poised to sell it to the church," Horst said. "If we did sell it, we would have to put it to the open market."

Horst said the city is not disappointed to have dropped the idea.

"It was not a big deal to the city either way," he said. "We just had a request from the church to look at it, so we said we'd look at it, and we did."

But residents were not as indifferent. They were pleased to see their vocal opposition pay off. "Let's chalk it up to the process working," Ackerman said.

The park is part of the Jordan River's open space, an area popular for kids' sports practices, dog-walking, picnics and recreation. "It's a playground for people to go find some peace and solitude," said Janalee Tobias, an area resident.

The land lies near areas that have seen recent rapid growth, including a large commercial development near the river that Tobias and others had fought to stop in its planning stages. The developer, Anderson Development Co., had sued Tobias in March 1998, accusing her of unduly interfering with the plans.

The Utah Supreme Court declared it an illegal SLAPP lawsuit — a "strategic lawsuit against public participation" — and the two sides settled in January. By then, the RiverPark Business Park on 10600 South had been built. In the settlement, Anderson agreed to pay $50,000 toward Tobias' legal fees.

Tobias said the sale of the park would have been just one more encroachment into the "spectacularly beautiful" river bottoms, and she worried the city was indifferent to residents' desires to preserve open space.

"It's so frustrating because that park is a haven for people, and every night something is going on down there," she said. "It's such an outrage. It makes citizens mistrust their city leaders."

---

E-mail: dsmeath@desnews.com