March 2025 Update

Dear friends & neighbors, 

Spring has sprung, the warm weather is here. It’s a beautiful time in the Valley! 

Heber City Annexation Map

March brought some battles I really had not anticipated to be completely honest. The first item to note was the discussion about the proposed expansion of the Heber City Annexation map. This expansion would incorporate several thousand acres east of our current boundary (East of Red Ledges), also known as The Highlands development. This was very much contested, as a portion of this property is owned by the State Trust Lands (SITLA) – we needed some in depth discussions with them to decide if annexation was the right course of action. Through these discussions, we determined that there was a big misunderstanding pertaining to affordable housing. The developer that had won the contract just assumed that we wanted more affordable housing and smaller lots in this area and that the city would jump all over the prospect of more density. This was completely untrue, as the density of the project was the first alarm to those of us in the city. We would never have gotten to the bottom of this misunderstanding without this discussion. 

Once SITLA had stated they did not need high density and that their main goal was to develop the property to get their money out of it, that was a very different discussion. The city and the county also came together to discuss opinions between the two agencies and settled on whether this development would be better suited in the county with lower densities and potential impacts on public infrastructure. If that changes in the future, we would hope that the county would approach us so that we can make sure the developers pay for any upsizing of infrastructure necessary for their project. I applaud all who worked on this agreement with the county and truly spoke to the problem in finding workable solutions. It’s been one of the highlights for me in the last 3 years on the council, and a proud moment! 

This is exactly why I ran for city council in the first place – to be able to work together for better outcomes for our home. The growth of our Valley is here and continues to come in droves – we cannot turn back the clock or take away property rights to stop this growth. It’s imperative that we continue to work with the county and the special service districts to provide better outcomes for stakeholders and neighbors, guiding the growth and keeping Heber amazing. I’m confident that we are making large steps in that direction.

Rank Choice Voting

The other item that surprised me with its controversial nature was the discussion pertaining to rank choice voting. We have used rank choice voting in the last two city elections, and I’ve always found this method very user friendly – for me personally, it’s always allowed me to vote for the people I wanted to see in office. I have since discovered that not all parties felt the same as I did. There have been allegations of misdeeds in the voting process and intentional acts to deceive or manipulate the process. Those opposed to rank choice voting have voiced concerns over the complexity of the process and how confusing the ballot can be. This has been such a heated topic that it dominated two meetings this month and with more vigor than most development discussion – that said, it has my attention. I did some research pertaining to the topic, as we will need to make a decision at our April council meeting on whether or not we are going to use rank choice voting for the 2025 election cycle.

What I’ve found is quite polarizing. Because this has been a pilot program in the state of Utah for the last few election cycles, all of us are just learning about this style of voting and forming opinions. This holds true for others in the state as well. UVU was asked to do a survey of peoples’ experiences in cities where Ranked Choice Voting had been used in the past. This survey showed that a majority of those polled liked ranked choice voting and wanted to use it again. These are the reasons I am leaning to be in favor of ranked choice voting:

• Less expensive

  • In the last election in 2023, there were 11 candidates for 3 open seats on the City Council. We would have had a primary with those 11 candidates to narrow the field to 6, and then you would have voted for our top 3 in the final election. The process of having a primary extends the election cycle and uses city resources to officiate the election only to hold another election a few months later. I personally see this as an unnecessary expense, and there are better uses of our time and resources.

• No primary election

  • This is good for those running for office and for those voting. Sometimes, it feels like we are always in an election cycle in the United States. With presidential elections every 4 years and City and congressional elections every 2 years, there is always someone running for something. With a primary, the election cycle begins in June for City elections – with Ranked Choice Voting, the election cycle begins in August. In a city election that is non-partisan, this makes all the sense in the world to me. We do not have parties at the municipal level. In a partisan election, like the county council, I believe RCV could be more problematic. Not to mention campaign signs – wouldn’t we all prefer to see them just once a year all over town, not twice?

• All candidates are on the Ballot

  • Because there is no primary, all candidates that register are on the ballot. This allows everyone an opportunity to vote for their candidate.

• You must have 50% of the vote to win

  • This is a big key point to me. The winner in RCV is not declared until they have reached at least 50% of the vote so it really is the will of the people.  

• You can vote for as many or as few candidates as you would like

  • If you only want to vote for one candidate, you can. If you want to rank 3, 4 or 5 candidates you can. In the case of 2023, if you wanted to rank all 11 candidates you could have. The only thing you can’t do is skip rounds in the ranking process.  If you vote for someone in round one and not in round two, then vote for someone else in round 3, this could invalidate your ballot. You must rank your choices in consecutive rounds for each of those rounds to go toward the totals of your preferred candidates.

• It allows for better campaigns

  • Because of the nature of ranked choice voting, if a candidate is not your first choice, they definitely want to be your second choice and therefore, will be trying to get your vote. This makes for a better campaign season. With ranked choice voting, there is a lot less of trying to make your opponent look bad and much more self promotion and sharing of plans and ideas. This is better for everyone involved. The tenor of national politics has no place in the local elections!

Now, let’s discuss what those opposed to ranked choice voting are saying:

• The instructions are confusing

  • Like anything new and a little different, there is going to be a learning curve. I understand that the instructions may be confusing or understanding the process of how the votes have been counted can be confusing, but like anything new, it takes some time to understand. We live in a day where people are changing the engine in their car by watching YouTube videos. If you are interested in doing it right, the resources are there to walk you through it.

• Undervotes are votes that are not counted

  • This is probably this biggest misunderstanding and what has caused the greatest contention in the last two meetings. Mayor Franco kept reiterating in her comments during the meeting that, “55% of votes cast in the last election didn’t count,” and this is just not true. I directly called her out on the comment in the meeting on March 4th, and went as far to ask why she was lying to the public. In her comments on the 18th, she reiterated the comment about the 55% of votes being thrown out and cited state code which stated that if you missed 2 rounds on your ballot and then voted again, that vote would not count. This is just stating that you must vote in all rounds if you desire all of the rounds you vote in to count toward your total. The term undervote is only meant to describe ballots that did not vote in a round. I personally voted for 8 of the 11 candidates. That means that if we went to rounds 9,10, and 11 my ballot would have been counted as an undervote for that round. It does not mean that my votes were thrown out or that my ballot did not count, but that I did not vote in those later rounds. If someone only voted for 3 candidates, the same thing is true for their ballot – it would have been counted as an undervote for the last 8 rounds, but their first three choice candidates received their votes, and it was added to those individuals’ total vote count. I know for a fact that we only had a minimal number of ballots that did not count in the last election and they were disqualified for blatant reasons and each voter was given the opportunity to rectify their ballot if they chose to do so.

• I just want to vote for the candidate I want, not all of them

  • Again, you can vote for as many or as few as you would like.

The last election was publicly ratified as accurate in a public meeting shortly after the election, and the document was signed by all members of the council and the Mayor. The city recorder and staff have to answer to the state in providing fair and honest elections and even after there were complaints raised by members of the Heber City community, these allegations were dismissed as inaccurate. We have had two successful rounds of Ranked Choice Voting in our Heber City elections and I am ready for a third. We are still taking comments and considering the topic – please email me or the council at citycouncil@heberut.gov to allow your opinion and voice to be heard. On our March 18th meeting, we discussed sending out a survey to collect data and decided against it, as advised by our public information officer, due to the lack of time in collecting actionable data. We are still open to comments, and no vote is actually decided until it is decided, so if you have strong feelings one way or the other, please contact us.

The city website that discussed ranked choice voting is found here:

Rank Choice Voting

UVU study concerning Ranked Choice Voting his here:

UVU-ranked-choice-voting.pdf

Download PDF • 211KB

UVU survey results and conclusions pertaining to Ranked Choice Voting:

UVU_an_evaluation_of_the_rcv_pilot_in_utah.pdf

Download PDF • 991KB

With Spring now upon us, it reminds me again of new beginnings. Let’s rise above the fray and do better in our discourse and listening to each other. It’s important to see all points of view for what they are: an individual's earnest attempt to do something good with what they have been given. Let’s focus on attacking policies with which we don’t agree instead of attacking people. We are a community of great people who all ended up in this magical place together – let's continue to remind ourselves that there is more good in our neighbors than we give them credit for and we definitely have more in common than the contrary!

Thank you, friends and neighbors, and happy Spring!

Sincerely, 

D. Scott Phillips

Heber City Council