Reader comments
Renew the township law

A fundamental error in this editorial is the statement "lawmakers stepped in and passed a law allowing unincorporated areas to form townships."

It is, in fact, the county commissioners who form the townships; in the case of Cottonwood Heights township, over the objections of the residents (I know; I attended the meetings). The law allows the county commissioners to form townships wherever they desire without the input of the residents of those townships.

Some of the reasons that new cities have been incorporated is specifically because the county is slow to listen to their needs. Additionally, we in Cottonwood Heights, got tired of subsidizing other unincorporated parts of the county including Millcreek and Olympus Hills.

If current residents are happy to be in townships, then that is great. We just need to be aware that there are other aspects to the issues of incorporating and living in townships.

The Trib's assertion that cities want to annex townships is tenuous, except perhaps in the case of Millcreek. Does anyone honestly believe Sandy wants the donut hole White City? Decrepid infrastructure, no tax base, high cost of service. Granite is pretty much the same. Let the county deal with their problems. Don't pawn them off on the cities.

Mayor Corroon has already floated the idea of special service districts (read higher taxes) for each township to address their infrastructure needs. He can take the political heat for raising taxes far higher than those paid by Sandy City residents. Townships are free to remain unique communities. At some point, however, the piper must be paid to keep the street lights on, the roads paved and the Sheriff at the ready.

There are pockets of neighborhoods in townships that also don't want to belong to the Townships they were assigned to. My neighborhood, for example, was marketed as being in West Jordan, when the homes were being built five years ago. Too many trusting home buyers bought there, only to find out they had moved into Kearns. Shame on the home builders, and also shame on the buyers for not doing more research--I guess.