The referendum to repeal the rezone for high-density development on a parcel in Stansbury Park may be invalidated if an investigation reveals too many signatures were improperly verified, according to Tooele County Attorney Scott Broadhead.
“The county’s position is that if a signature was not personally witnessed by the person signing the verification statement on the referendum packet, that signature is not valid and can not be counted toward the minimum signatures required,” Broadhead said.
Broadhead said he returned from vacation Monday morning and found the report on the alleged improper signature verification by the Tooele County Sheriff’s Office on his desk.
“County Clerk Marilyn Gillette has until Wednesday to certify or not certify the referendum,” Broadhead said. “We will review the report and an announcement on the referendum will be made on Wednesday.”
Volunteers collected 3,428 signatures for the referendum that would repeal the county commission’s decision to rezone 5.38 acres of property on the southwest corner of Clubhouse Drive and Country Club Drive from commercial shopping and single-family residential to R-M-15. The change allows for high-density development of up to 15 housing units per acre.
A total of 629 signatures were disqualified by Gillette. The bulk of the disqualified signatures — 533 — were invalidated because the person who signed was not a registered voter.
Another 49 signatures were listed as unreadable, 35 were duplicate signatures, two had bad addresses, one had a signature that did not substantially match the signatures on file, and nine were disqualified for other reasons, according to a report by Gillette.
That left 2,799 valid signatures. With 2,749 signatures needed, signature gatherers were ahead of the required number by 50 signatures.
However, Derald Anderson, the applicant for the rezone who is the subject of the petition, informed county officials that he had evidence that showed some of the signatures on the petition were not personally witnessed by the person who signed the verification statement on the packet that contained the signatures.
State law requires that all signatures on a referendum to be personally witnessed. The witness must sign a statement at the end of the signature packet that reads, “All the names that appear in this referendum packet were signed by persons who professed to be the persons whose names appear in it, and each of them signed his name on it in my presence.”
It is a Class A misdemeanor for any person to sign that statement that did not witness the signatures, according to state law.
Because of the potential criminal nature of the complaint, the Tooele County Sheriff’s Office was asked to investigate Anderson’s complaint.
If a county clerk determines the number of signatures for a referendum to be insufficient, any one of the referendum sponsors may demand a recount of the signatures to be completed in the presence of a sponsor, according to state law.
State law also allows any voter may apply to the state Supreme Court to compel a county clerk to accept and file a referendum that has been refused by the clerk.