This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Speakers in favor of turning the Mountain Accord into the official Central Wasatch Commission to manage the nearby canyons faced a steep uphill slope at a public hearing Tuesday night.

The Salt Lake County Council called the hearing to gather public comment before it votes on Nov. 22 on creating the commission.

The proposed commission, which would include the mayors of Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Sandy and Cottonwood Heights, would take over the business of the Mountain Accord in striking a balance between multiple stakeholders' interests in the canyons.

Over the course of the 90-minute hearing, where each speaker was allotted three minutes, the opponents far outnumbered commission supporters.

Among the minority was Joan Degiorgio from The Nature Conservancy. Degiorgio had planned to come to the hearing to listen, not to speak, but wanted to defend the proposal amidst a barrage of negative feedback.

"It's been this great effort," Degiorgio said. "It's not perfect, but what is the alternative if we don't do this? How do we move Mountain Accord forward?"

The opposition came on in full force.

Drew Weaver, a member of the Granite Community Council, introduced a theme that threaded through the whole meeting: secrecy. Weaver said that when he studied the interlocal agreement, there was no mention about how the commission would be financed.

"Because it doesn't mention that, that's bad governance. That alone should have you all vote against it," Weaver told the council.

An attorney for the council interjected that the issue at hand actually covered two interlocal agreements: the one that had been distributed to the public and a second that dealt with financing.

The room erupted into angry grumbles and shouts of "we've never seen it."

After council Chairman Max Burdick called the crowd to order, an aide left the meeting to make enough copies of the document to give to every person before the meeting adjourned.

George M. Edwards Jr. expressed concern at the Mountain Accord's lack of public meetings and cast doubt on the group's response that, despite exemption from those laws, it generally followed the spirit of the law.

"If I went into court and tried to use that terminology, I'm guilty," said Edwards. "So maybe we should hold our elected officials to the standard I'm held to."

Edwards performed a dramatic reading of the letter he received in response to an open records request, stating that no records were available since the Mountain Accord wasn't a governmental entity.

Many citizens rehashed an old argument: that the objectives of the Mountain Accord were admirable, but four mayors sidestepping public processes to put themselves in charge of it was unacceptable.

The crowd applauded when Elizabeth Barker listed a slew of undemocratic elements of the Central Wasatch Commission, including that members won't be elected to the commission and there is no formal way to challenge its conclusions.

"They have designed this commission and are appointing themselves to govern it," said Barker. "Seems like a good old boys club to me."

William Clayton, speaking on behalf of Granite Community Council, said the council tried to "amend the heck out of" the proposal to constrain the commission to a minimalist entity that it was comfortable with, but failed.

"If it's a bad idea, it's not too late to stop it," said Clayton. "You can be Superman. You can step in front of this train and stop it."