Sandy group pushes for a referendum on gravel pit

A group of Sandy residents is pushing back after a contentious City Council vote last week opened the door to a big-box development on the city's 107-acre gravel pit.

Members of the Save Our Communities group submitted a petition for a citywide referendum Friday to reverse the city's zoning change to allow a Wal-Mart and Lowe's at 9400 South and 1300 East.

If the city allows the referendum to move forward, the group would need to collect roughly 9,500 signatures to take the question to a vote in a special election. City spokesman Ryan Mecham said he is unsure what steps city leaders will take next or if the petition for referendum will even be granted.

Resident Gary Forbush, who presented the petition to the city recorder, said the referendum was a last resort because city leaders did not listen to an outpouring of opposition to the development.

"I'm willing to live with what the citizens decide rather than what the City Council decided," Forbush said. "I thought the citizen input would receive more weight than it did. That's disappointing."

A referendum, Forbush said, may be the only way to get city leaders to listen to residents.

Richard Bickel also signed the petition for a referendum, saying he had originally wanted to get a vote to recall the council members who had voted for the zone change.

"The mayor and the City Council aren't our parents. They can't tell us what to do," Bickel said. "We dictate to them what we would like."

Councilman Scott Cowdell, who voted for the zone change, said he believed there would be enough support to put the referendum on a ballot, but he was unsure how the item would fare in a citywide vote.

Cowdell said discontent with the council's decision has been largely exaggerated by a group of outspoken opponents. Though every public hearing on the Boyer development was dominated by residents against the zone change, Cowdell said he still did not think the opposition was representative of the city's 90,000 residents.

"It was the same 200 or 300 people. Is that vocal few a real calculator of the overall public? I don't know," he said.

A storm of criticism unleashed after the council's 5-2 vote prompted several letters to the Deseret Morning News calling on Sandy residents to show their frustration with the council by voting them out of office in next November's election.