And now the Salt Lake County Council and Utah County Commission must decide what to do about it.

Public nuisance? No. Colbert is an upstanding citizen. In fact, he's a Draper councilman and a newly elected member of the Utah Board of Education preparing to move into his dream home on the top of South Mountain.

Problem is, a proposed shift in the county line would squeeze his house into Utah County, making him ineligible for the school board seat.

Colbert is vowing to hold onto his address and, therefore, his seat.

"I've made a commitment to the voters of District 11," he said Wednesday. "I cannot move into the house if it moves into Utah County. I simply cannot do it."

It may not be that easy.

While the Salt Lake County Council is inclined to do some creative mapping, current proposals call for the line to be drawn along existing roadways.

"I just don't see how we can jog around a single house," said Clyde Naylor, Utah County's public works director.

Initially, South Mountain's ridgeline was to provide a tidy marker for the county boundary in Draper, which straddles Utah and Salt Lake counties.

But subdivisions - sprouting like weeds on the slope since the late 1990s - have wreaked havoc for officials, who want the line delineated for tax assessments. It also helps to know which cops to send if a crime occurs.

Besides harassing Colbert, the county line currently cuts through living rooms and crisscrosses the lots of roughly three dozen Suncrest neighborhood homes, according to Naylor.

"It doesn't make a lot of sense to have the front of your house in Salt Lake County and the back of your house in Utah County," Utah County Commissioner Gary Herbert said. "[The boundary] was not thought about and not addressed the time this development occurred."

Though all residents in question would remain in Draper, a switch to Utah County provides some incentive. In addition to a lower certified tax rate, Alpine School District offers busing to schools while Jordan School District does not because of the steep grade.

Colbert doesn't mind paying more to stay in Salt Lake County. But depending on the boundary change, he could be the only elected official to lose his seat to makeshift gerrymandering after he won the election.

"I'm one in a million," Colbert said. "I don't know if that's good or bad."

djensen@sltrib.com