Two Referendums, Zero Votes: How Utah's Biggest Development Deals Have Escaped the Ballot

1. Box Elder County: The Referendum That Never Got a Signature Sheet

On May 4, 2026, the Box Elder County Commission approved Resolutions 26-11 and 26-12, authorizing a project agreement with MIDA for the "Stratos" data-center project. Residents organizing as the Box Elder Accountability Referendum (B.E.A.R.), led by Brenna Williams, filed referendum applications on May 8 and May 11, 2026.

• May 4, 2026County Commission approves Resolutions 26-11 and 26-12, the MIDA/Stratos project agreement.
• May 8 & 11, 2026B.E.A.R. files two referendum applications with the County Attorney.
• May 28, 2026County Attorney rejects both applications, ruling the resolutions are administrative acts, not legislative ones eligible for referendum.
• June 4, 2026B.E.A.R. appeals the rejection to Utah's 1st District Court in Brigham City.
• July 30–31, 2026Box Elder County and project investor Kevin O'Leary move to dismiss, arguing only the Utah Supreme Court can review the matter; B.E.A.R. separately asks the court to also weigh whether the commission violated the Open and Public Meetings Act. (See editor's note below.)
• Sept. 15, 2026Salt Lake Tribune reports the case remains open, turning on the administrative-vs-legislative question. No ruling yet.

2. Summit County: Signatures Gathered, Then a Technicality — Then Moot

Summit County's fight traces back to 2023's S.B. 84 (sponsored by Sen. Wayne Harper), which let developer Dakota Pacific's Kimball Junction project bypass the county's own zoning approval. In January 2025, seven residents filed a referendum against Ordinance No. 987, the county measure implementing that override.

• 2023S.B. 84 (Sen. Wayne Harper) lets Dakota Pacific's Kimball Junction project bypass Summit County zoning approval.
• Jan. 2025Seven residents file a referendum against Ordinance No. 987, the county measure enacting the project. Days later, Dakota Pacific executives Marc Stanworth, Steve Borup, and Scott Swallow form a group called Wasatch Back Future that urges residents not to sign, or to withdraw signatures from, the petition.
• By March 3, 2025Sponsors submit 6,000+ signatures across 77 packets against a 4,554-signature threshold.
• June 23, 2025Summit County Clerk Eve Furse disqualifies a large share of the packets for failing the Election Code's physical-binding requirements, certifying only ~3,214 valid signatures — short of the threshold and short in 3 of 4 required precinct areas. The referendum is declared insufficient.
• July 2025Referendum sponsors sue the Clerk's office, seeking to revive the rejected signatures.
• March 2025 (concurrent)The Legislature passes S.B. 26, independently codifying the same zoning changes at the state level.
• Aug. 26, 20253rd District Judge Richard Mrazik rules the case moot: S.B. 26 already granted the disputed changes regardless of the referendum's outcome, so "neither the court's decision nor the referendum will have any practical effect."
• Sept. 2025Summit County Council repeals the now-moot Ordinance 987.
• Oct. 23, 2025All related litigation dismissed by consent of the parties. (See editor's note below.)
• March 23, 2026The rebranded project ("Altus," developer "Six Ridge Partners") receives Housing and Transit Reinvestment Zone approval from the state (GOEO).

3. The Common Pattern: Neither Vote Happened, and Neither Failed on the Merits

These are two different legal mechanisms producing the same outcome. Neither community's referendum was rejected by voters — both were stopped before a vote could happen, through separate procedural routes.

The five steps a local referendum must pass to reach the ballot — and the step where each effort stopped.

flowchart TD
  A["1. Sponsors file
an application"] --> B["2. County attorney:
can voters
refer it?"]
  B --> C["3. Sponsors gather
signatures"]
  C --> D["4. Clerk verifies
signatures"]
  D --> E["5. Question goes
on the ballot"]
  BE["BOX ELDER
stopped here
(May 2026)"] -.-> B
  SC["SUMMIT
stopped here
(June 2025)"] -.-> D
  classDef stop fill:#fbeee6,stroke:#a8431f,stroke-width:2px,color:#1c1c1c;
  classDef never fill:#eeeeee,stroke:#8a8a8a,stroke-dasharray:5,color:#4a4a44;
  class BE,SC stop;
  class E never;

Neither effort reached Step 5. Box Elder never got to Step 3, because the county attorney ruled the resolutions were “administrative.” Summit County passed Steps 1 through 3 but fell short at Step 4 after packets were disqualified over binding rules; a judge later ruled the lawsuit over that decision moot because S.B. 26 had already approved the project.

4. Where Eagle Mountain's Referendum Fits — and Where It Doesn't

Eagle Mountain's ongoing referendum fight against Resolution R-62-2026 (see the companion case file) is a related but genuinely different animal. It targets a straightforward property-tax rate increase, not a MIDA project agreement or a zoning override tied to tax-increment financing — and unlike the two cases above, Eagle Mountain's city attorney has already determined the referendum is legally referable. Its unresolved fight is over whether the city is providing required materials and using a lawful election date, not over whether residents have the right to a vote at all.

The connection worth watching: Eagle Mountain's own CRA/RDA finance history shows the same tax-increment mechanism at the center of the Box Elder and Summit County fights — sending a fast-growing amount of property tax to redevelopment project areas. If a future Eagle Mountain referendum ever targeted one of those CRA/RDA resolutions directly, rather than the general tax rate, the administrative-vs-legislative fight seen in Box Elder could become directly relevant here too.

People in this record

Everyone below is named in this page’s sources. “Also in the Hive” links only to other Hive case files where the same person appears, checked by reading the other page and matching role and place. Being listed here does not suggest wrongdoing.

How this was checked: each name was searched across local copies of the Hive’s repos (candidates2026, committees, PIDS-Utah, followthedeed, Public-Lands, Data-Centers, Bill-Tracker, Unelected-Power, Transparency and others) on Oct. 1, 2026, and each match was read in context. The seven Summit County residents who filed the referendum are not named on this page.

Questions Worth Asking

• Ask Box Elder County or B.E.A.R.'s counsel: what is the current docket status of the 1st District Court appeal, and when is a ruling expected?
• Ask Utah's campaign finance disclosure office (disclosures.utah.gov): pull Wasatch Back Future's actual itemized expenditures directly to confirm or correct the previously reported $94,435.50/"In the Field LLC" figures before republishing them.
• Ask Summit County Clerk's office: for the specific binding-format requirement that disqualified the Kimball Junction referendum packets, and whether that requirement has since been clarified or changed for future petitioners.
• Ask B.E.A.R. organizers: to confirm or correct the ~29,000-signature figure that has circulated publicly, and clarify whether it refers to a formal or informal petition.
• Ask the Summit County Clerk’s office: why the Lt. Governor’s referenda list shows two separate Ordinance 987 entries (one titled “Hole-punched”), and what each one was.
• Ask the Box Elder County Attorney’s office: what written test it used to decide Resolutions 26-11 and 26-12 were “administrative,” and whether that analysis is posted with the county’s referendum page.