Gibby files suit in permit reversal

MAPLETON — Wendell Gibby has filed yet another lawsuit.

This time he's suing the Mapleton Board of Adjustments, who Gibby claims demonstrated bias when the board overturned the city's issuance of two grading permits for his controversial Maple Mountain property.

"The decision of the Board of Adjustment was arbitrary, capricious and illegal," Gibby's legal attorney Dayle Jeffs wrote in a legal brief filed Feb. 14 in 4th District Court.

City Attorney Eric Todd Johnson disputed Gibby's accusations of biased proceedings.

"(Gibby) seems to claim bias anytime a decision-making body doesn't give him everything he asks for," Johnson said.

Gibby did not return a call seeking response, but Gibby has previously said allegations that he uses lawsuits to get his way are nonsense.

The Board of Adjustment decision in question goes back to last year when a group called Friends of Maple Mountain Inc. disputed the City Council's decision to rezone Gibby's 120-acre Maple Mountain property from a critical environment zone to a planned development zone. The upgrade would allow Gibby to build 47 homes instead of 23.

Friends of Maple Mountain wanted the rezone brought before the public in a referendum and circulated a petition that gathered more than 1,000 signatures. But city administrators said the issue wasn't referable. The group then obtained a temporary restraining order barring the city from rezoning the land until a judge heard the case.

Meanwhile, the city issued two grading permits Oct. 15, 2007, to allow Gibby to relocate power poles that transversed his property. Work crews started to plow a road through the property, but Friends of Maple Mountain obtained yet another restraining order Oct. 19, 2007, to halt the excavation until the Board of Adjustments reviewed the issuance of the permits.

The board convened Nov. 13, 2007, but Gibby protested the proceeding because two the board members — Joyce Clifton and Boyd Adams — had signed the Friends of Maple Mountain petition. Adams had excused himself from the meeting, but Clifton was still present, which Gibby didn't feel was appropriate.

"You should, out of an abundance of conscience, recuse yourself," he told Clifton at the time.