Thank you for your article illuminating the expansion of the proposed inland port next to Great Salt Lake. I attended the Jan. 2 Weber County Commission meeting to learn more about this issue.
Surprisingly, even after attending the two-hour meeting, I had no idea the scope of the proposed expansion. It wasn’t until I read your article, “Weber County wants inland port next to Great Salt Lake to be 10 times as big,” that I learned the project was increasing from 900 to 9,000 acres.
Here’s the language from the meeting agenda, made available to the public mere minutes before the meeting began: “Request for approval of a resolution of the county commissioners of Weber County requesting that the Utah Inland Port Authority adopt certain land into its project area and adopt a project area plan for such land.”
I listened for an hour — the time allotted for public input — as citizens pleaded with the commissioners to reject, or at least postpone, this rushed resolution. I listened as presenters Stephanie Russell, Chris Roybal, and Ben Hart defended the project and its expansion. I listened as the commissioners asked the presenters a few pacifying questions. What I never heard from a single presenter was clarification on the resolution’s vague term “adopt certain land.” How much land are we talking about? Not one presenter disclosed this information. Not one commissioner asked for it. Yet all three commissioners voted yes.
I now believe this expansion was intended all along, and the commissioners were complicit. It was easier to get 900 acres approved and then, at a later date, rush through a tenfold expansion without providing citizens enough time or information to challenge it (while claiming we already had our chance to speak up when the project was only 900 acres). How disingenuous.
Jane Pearce, Midvale