Provo • Slate Canyon’s supporters felt Thursday’s night multi-neighborhood meeting gave short shrift to the issue of preserving the canyon for recreational purposes.

"Not enough people were able to voice their concerns," said Brandi Daniel, Provost neighborhood vice chairwoman.

"It was diluted," observed Melanie McCoard, a Provost resident.

In August, the Provo Municipal Council voted to delete recreational purposes from a General Plan clause calling for the protection of Slate Canyon. Thursday’s meeting at Provost Elementary School was billed as a forum to discuss whether the council should reconsider the amendment. Instead, the meeting had the 150 people break into four groups and go to different corners of the school auditorium for presentations on economic development, transportation, parks and recreation and the General Plan, the city’s land-use policy document.

Councilwoman Cynthia Dayton, who made the motion to reconsider Council Chairwoman Midge Johnson’s amendment, said she had hoped the meeting would give her and her council colleagues who came to the meeting — Johnson, Council Vice Chairman Rick Healey and Councilwoman Sherrie Hall Everett — a chance to hear what residents wanted.

But Dayton said the meeting failed to live up to that hope.

Johnson said adding the other topics was the idea of the neighborhood leaders involved in planning the meeting.

Robin Roberts, Provost neighborhood chairman, said, with so many residents coming, it was a good idea to have city officials present some of the other things that are happening in the area.

But the main event was Slate Canyon and Councilman Steve Turley’s plans to build 26 homes on 26 mountainside acres near the mouth of the canyon.

Johnson said she removed recreational purposes from the call to protect Slate Canyon because she felt it was limiting other uses of the canyon. She said she wanted to allow for housing as well.

She said it was Turley who proposed protecting the canyon back in December, when the council first voted on the General Plan. Johnson also accused Dayton of derailing Slate Canyon protection by calling for the General Plan vote to be continued back in December.

But Everett said the purpose of that vote was to suggest a more comprehensive look at the issues in southeast Provo and out near Utah Lake.

Resident Dianne Christensen said the main issue for her and her neighbors was preventing Turley from trying to start up a gravel pit operation in the area.

"I believe Midge had good intentions with her amendment, but one person’s ‘protect and enhance’ is another person’s overreaching development," Christensen said.

Christensen said Turley earlier proposed a reclamation project to replace an old gravel pit with ball fields. However, that plan was scuttled when neighbors found out that instead of removing 350 tons of gravel, Turley was going to extract 1.5 million tons. Now, with his plan to build 26 homes, Christensen wants assurances that it won’t be a subterfuge to start a gravel pit in the name of "grading."

It’s a concern shared by Roberts, the neighborhood chairman. His suggestion: Impose a moratorium on Slate Canyon development until the city can craft an ordinance that clearly defines grading and running a gravel pit.