After all, the city attorney told the petitioners that it didn't make any difference whether they submitted the petitions to the city recorder or the county clerk. The city would honor the results either way.

After the fact, the city is claiming in a lawsuit that it did matter. Because the referendum proponents didn't file their petitions with the city recorder, instead of the county clerk, before the deadline provided in state law, their request for a referendum is void, the city claims.

Somehow, that doesn't strike us as fair, especially when the state law that governs the issue is not perfectly clear about which government office should receive the petitions. The benefit of the doubt should go to the petitioners, especially since referendum is a right protected by the state constitution. A procedural mistake should not take that right away.

The Riverton battle has been tortuous. In January of last year, a lame-duck City Council approved a zoning ordinance allowing the development at 13400 South and Bangerter Highway (about 4000 West). Outraged citizens launched a petition drive to submit the ordinance to referendum.

They gathered enough signatures. But in May, a new City Council repealed the previous ordinance and enacted four new ones that, collectively, apply to the same real estate. The city argued that the referendum petition was now moot, because the ordinance it sought to overturn had been repealed. The petitioners asked the Utah Supreme Court for extraordinary relief, but lost.

In the meantime, however, they launched a new petition drive to place the four new ordinances on a referendum ballot. Again, they collected enough signatures. The city eventually said, however, that the petitioners had not met the filing deadline with the city recorder, and the case still is in court.

This project will have a far-reaching effect on Riverton's future, and petitioners have earned voters the opportunity to have a say.