The Seventh District Court Rules against Grand County

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Judge Lyle R. Anderson has considered the motion filed by Grand County against the Green River City Annexation. Judge Anderson has denied the motion.
Grand County asserts that the annexation or boundary change authorized in the 2000 election but delayed until Jan. 6, 2003, cannot now take place because of a Utah constitutional amendment effective Jan. 1, 2003. The 7th district judicial court has disagreed with Grand County. The constitutional amendment cannot fairly be read to prohibit a change from taking place that, absent this court’s now overruled order, should and would have taken place in early 2001.
Grand County also asserts that the constitutional amendment and subsequent legislation make it even more obvious that the legislation authorizing the boundary change was special and therefore constitutionally infirm.
Since the original legislation conditioned any boundary change on a joint resolution of the legislature, signed by the governor, it would be difficult to be more obvious about the special nature of the legislation. Judge Anderson also asserts that in his view, it was 99.9 percent obvious that the legislature and the governor intended the Grand County-Emery County line to be the only line affected by that legislation. This constitutional amendment and new legislation makes it 99.99 percent obvious, he asserts.
Judge Anderson states that, unfortunately, since the Utah Supreme Court found the earlier legislation not to be special, this court sees little ground to expect that court to take a different view now.
This ruling in case number 0007-103 was handed down on Jan. 13.