The uprising began on the night of Nov. 7 when Kasey Bateman scurried around the area in unincorporated Wasatch County gathering signatures. His mission: petition for annexation into the small town of Daniel, south of Heber City.

If annexed by Daniel, he and his neighbors would be saved from something called Aspen, Utah.

Bateman filed the petition with the town of Daniel at 9:30 the next morning - apparently several hours before Dean K. Sellers filed a petition with Wasatch County to create Aspen.

Sellers' proposal would incorporate more than 8,000 acres and include Bateman's house and about 50 others in the developments of Crazy Acres, Storm Haven and Tammy Lane at the mouth of Daniels Canyon.

"Their annexation petition is dead on arrival," Sellers declared Monday, noting he will provide documentation to Wasatch County by Wednesday revealing the petition's shortcomings.

The Arizona developer has trumpeted his planned resort community to the Salt Lake City and Park City news media, saying it will include a world-class ski resort, championship golf course, hotels, and upscale retail and residential development.

His efforts come in the wake of the 2007 Legislature making it easier to create towns in unincorporated areas without county approval. The county only must ensure the incorporation petition meets state law.

Bateman said he doesn't want to stop Seller's Aspen, but he and his neighbors don't want to be included. Their objection: If the Aspen incorporation is successful, the new town can create its own zoning laws, independent of county ordinances.

"He'll rezone it any way he wants," Bateman said of the proposed Aspen acreage. "It's a developer's dream. He can make a bundle off this, and we'll be sacrificed."

Ryan Taylor, who lives nearby, said Sellers has told residents the developer will be in charge.

"He told us, it's his town, and he can do what he wants."

Boyd Thaxton, who lives in Crazy Acres that abuts U.S. Highway 40, said Sellers wants the existing neighborhoods in his new town so he can have highway access to his land up on the mountainside.

Thaxton said Sellers offered to buy him out at less than half of what Thaxton believes his property is worth.

"He could condemn people's homes - all in the name of the city," Thaxton fears.

Sellers also graded a swath across the hillside just south of Daniel, shocking residents who say they found the environmental degradation appalling. The cut is close to Chris Anderson's property line.

"This was just to make us mad," Anderson said.

But Sellers denies the allegations, saying that he has 4 miles of frontage on U.S. 40 without the residents' land and does not want to buy them out.

The grading was ''a little area'' leveled for equipment storage.

''Basically, these people are dealing from an element of fear,'' Sellers said. ''There are those who don't want change. But progress is beneficial to many.''

By creating a town and assuming the power to rezone, he conceded, is necessary. Under present Wasatch County ordinances, Sellers could build only one unit per 100 acres.

"That makes it totally ridiculous and unfeasible to make anything a success."

csmart@sltrib.com

* Wasatch County Clerk Brent Titcomb said he will determine the validity of the Aspen incorporation petition in the coming weeks.

* If any land within the proposed Aspen boundaries is identified to be part of a petition for annexation elsewhere, said County Attorney Thomas Low, the Aspen proposal must be denied.