Group wants Willow Creek to remain unincorporated, start community council

COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS — Rather than annex their bedroom community into 5-year-old Cottonwood Heights, a group of residents in Willow Creek neighborhood wants to start a community council that would operate under the unincorporated Salt Lake County system.

The residents already have formed an ad hoc committee and started making decisions such as requesting a traffic study, but formal elections won't be held until November.

The group banded together after a handful of neighbors began knocking on doors to gather petitions for a proposed annexation into Cottonwood Heights, which has long had its eye on the wealthy neighborhood.

That led to opposition efforts to gather the whole neighborhood, which lies between Sandy and Cottonwood Heights near Highland Drive and Alta Canyon Drive.

"We can't relax, and we can't not be vigilant," community council leader Kent Malone said at a recent organizing meeting.

If created, the new community council would be one of more than a dozen in the county. The community boards follow open-meetings laws but have little fiscal or program control. Rather, they make recommendations to elected officials and department heads, explained Salt Lake County mayor's representative Megan Hillyard.

Annexation supporter Jon Beckstrand said he is always in favor of community involvement but believes talking with closer officials in Cottonwood Heights would be the best option for his neighbors.

Beckstrand's group has collected about 10 percent of the signatures it needs to annex, he said. The next deadline is in July.

Meanwhile, most area residents are unsure whether to stick with the county or to start paying taxes — and receiving services — from Cottonwood Heights.

For resident Nephi Astin, a county public safety fee of about $180 annually is of glaring importance.

"That just rubs me the wrong way," Astin said. "And they're supposed to work for us, in theory."

e-mail: rpalmer@desnews.com