Summit County Districting Commission forwards new council map; 30-day public hearing begins

The Summit County Districting Commission on Sept. 3 recommended a new map that will divide Summit County into district-based seats for the Summit County Council and formally transmitted that recommendation to the council, starting a 30-day public hearing period, Commission Chair Melina Stevens told the council.

The recommendation responds to House Bill 356, enacted by the Utah Legislature, which requires the county to move from five at-large council seats to fully districted seats. Stevens said the commission met June 16 and Aug. 4 to draw and approve the boundaries and that the plan sought to keep communities of interest together by starting with school-district boundaries.

"This is a little bit of a recap from when I was here several months ago," Stevens said during her presentation. She told the council the commission used school district lines as a starting point because the statute directs consideration of communities of interest and a population standard that keeps districts within 10% of one another.

The commission left South Summit School District intact as its own district and adjusted precincts in and around Park City, moving one Pine Brook precinct (near the Colony/park-mountain area) into a Park City municipal district and pulling some west-side precincts into North Summit to reduce variance among districts. Dave Thomas, the county attorney, confirmed to the council that the commission’s transmission begins the 30-day clock for the council to hold a public hearing and take action: "That starts the 30 day clock."

Council members asked about the population math and process. Stevens told the council the districts are "within, I think, a 3.6 standard deviation of one another" and that the map was drawn to keep districts closer together than the statute’s 10% maximum deviation. Some members raised concern about moving a single Pine Brook precinct out of a geographically and socially cohesive neighborhood; Stevens said the commission debated that choice and decided the population balancing objective justified the change.

Several council members described limited discretion under current state law. When one council member asked whether the council could reject the map, Thomas replied the council may only return the map to the districting commission if a statutory requirement was not met; otherwise the council must hold a public hearing and approve the map.

Council member Janice Hart, who said she had stayed "pretty quiet through this," expressed frustration at how the change reached this point and criticized the process by which the Legislature moved the county from at-large to district representation, but she said she will represent the constituents of whichever district she is assigned.

The council will accept public comment at the required hearing during the 30-day period and then vote on the map. Stevens and other staff said the county will post the map to council members and make it available for public review while the hearing period proceeds.

What happens next: the Districting Commission’s transmittal to the council begins a 30-day public comment and hearing period. The council may return the map only if it finds a statutory requirement was not met; otherwise it is required to hold the public hearing and then approve the map or forward it as provided by state law.