Duchesne rebuts state's bias claims

ROOSEVELT — Duchesne County officials are disputing claims that they discriminated against the clients of a proposed residential treatment center by changing zoning regulations.

A lawsuit filed May 5 in 3rd District Court by the Anti-Discrimination and Labor Division of the Utah Labor Commission contends the county showed a "pattern of discriminatory conduct" against Uintah Mountain Residential Treatment Center because the proposed facility's clients would be "handicapped."

"There are things we take really strong issue with, and one of them is that the facts are not correct," said Duchesne Deputy County Attorney Jon Stearmer.

The suit seeks millions of dollars in damages and lost wages for three siblings who wanted to open and operate the treatment center on property their family owns in Hancock Cove.

The list of potential clients at Uintah Mountain initially included teenage boys who would be treated for depression, obesity, poor performance in school, troubled family relationships, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and low self-esteem.

Two years after the original treatment center was proposed, new applications for permission to operate group homes were submitted to the county by members of the Hancock family. At that time the list of clientele was amended to include youths under age 18 "who might suffer from mental or physical impairments."

Stearmer said the record will show that Duchesne County welcomes business and is not guilty of trying to run off the proposed treatment center or the type of youths it would serve.

"The county's position has always been that these types of facilities are welcome. It is not like we created a small little square somewhere and said, 'You belong here,"' said Stearmer. "This is not a 'zoning out' situation."

According to the lawsuit, John Hancock, a Nevada attorney, his brother Tyson Hancock and sister Brooke Stevens, both of Roosevelt, are owed $43.6 million in actual and punitive damages because the county illegally relegated Uintah Mountain to a commercial A-10 zone.

Stearmer said the county's focus has always been on wise land use and nothing else.

"There's a lot of A-10 in the county, some people look at that as a very desirable place," he said.

The lawsuit asserts that current county commissioner Kent Peatross and former commissioners Larry Ross and Lorna Stradinger didn't want "troubled youth" in an area zoned as residential-agricultural and buckled to "public clamor" after neighbors launched protests.