When 468 residents showed up at a Riverton City Council meeting last December to protest a proposed zoning change favored by the city council and the mayor, the meeting had to be moved to a nearby elementary school to accommodate the crowd.

Nonetheless, the lame-duck City Council met in a special session Jan. 3, the last date it could meet before newly elected council members took over, and passed an ordinance that cleared the way for a large commercial development and multiple-family dwellings in an area previously zoned for half-acre lots.

Arguments can be made that Rose Creek Crossing, the 100-acre regional development that officials say will be anchored by a Super Wal-Mart, will increase the city's tax base and propel the once-rural community into the 21st century.

But the issue here is whether elected government leaders feel the need to consider the public's sentiments or if they feel that once they are elected, they know what's best for everyone and will act accordingly - public opinion be damned.

After the controversial ordinance passed the lame-duck council, one of whom was defeated the previous November in the wake of accusations he was too pro-developer, a citizens committee began gathering signatures on a referendum petition to repeal the ordinance in a special election.

The petitioners were required to obtain 2,844 signatures to qualify for an election. They got 5,567 and, after verification by the Salt Lake County Clerk's Office, ended up with 5,084 that were valid registered voters.

By state law, that should have forced a referendum. But Riverton Mayor Mont Evans, in a letter dated April 14, asked the city planning commission to review the rezoning ordinance and it eventually was broken into four separate ordinances that were passed by the new City Council on May 4.

It then was determined that the referendum petition was moot because it proposed to defeat an ordinance that no longer existed. Referendum proponents were told on May 18 - two weeks after the new ordinances were passed - that they would need to start anew and get the requisite number of signatures on four petitions this time, one to cover each ordinance.

Because petitioners need to have their signatures turned in to the county clerk's office within 45 days of the ordinances' passage, the clock was ticking and organizers already had lost 14 days because of the delayed notification by the City Recorder's Office.

Still, they got 3,500 signatures, surpassing the required number by more than 600. Those names currently are being certified by the county clerk's office.

On Monday, the Utah Supreme Court will hear arguments by the petition advocates that the city violated their rights by conspiring to keep the referendum off the ballot.

Speaking of disenfranchisement: Some legislative leaders purportedly are considering legislation that would ban government employees from serving in the Legislature.

The idea was broached during the June Legislative Management Committee meeting and seems to be championed behind the scenes by some members of the House, although no request has yet been made to the Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel to begin preparing such a bill.

The notion apparently is a result of recent revelations that House Majority Leader Greg Curtis took travel reimbursements from the Legislature despite using his county government-issued gas card as chief counsel to Salt Lake County Mayor Nancy Workman.

That scandal led to press scrutiny of other legislators who work for government agencies, including teachers, school administrators and law enforcement officers, with focus on whether they also took reimbursements from both legislative and local government sources and whether they got paid by their agencies while serving in the Legislature.

If such legislation were to pass, more than a dozen legislators could be affected. About two-thirds of those lawmakers are Republicans, although several Democrats who are public employees are challenging Republican incumbents in this year's election. A majority of the potentially affected lawmakers have voted on the side of credit unions in their ongoing battles with banks over taxation and other issues.

Public employees have been allowed to serve in the Legislature without question since former Utah Attorney General David Wilkinson challenged the legality of state employees also serving as elected representatives. His two targets were Mont Evans, a Republican who worked for the State Corrections Department, and Janet Rose, a Democrat who worked for the State Department of Social Services, in the late 1980s.

The Utah Supreme Court ruled that the Legislature has the right to determine the legitimacy of its own members and to vote whether to seat them in the body.

prolly@sltrib.com