MIDA Lawsuit

This lawsuit asks one fundamental question: Do Utah residents have the right to be governed by elected officials who are accountable to them? MIDA is an unelected body exercising powers the Utah Constitution never authorized. Under the Stratos plan, it would hold permanent, irrevocable control over public health, safety, taxation, and land use across tens of thousands of acres of Box Elder County, with no voter recourse.

Furthermore, Senators Adams and Stevenson’s presence on the MIDA board as active legislators appears to violate the prohibition on holding more than one office of public trust simultaneously and should render the Stratos approval null and void. Additionally, Adams accepted $135,000 as a PAC donation from MIDA contractors days after the county greenlit the project, a direct breach of his fiduciary duty to be a non-conflicted MIDA board member.

The Box Elder County commissioners themselves said their vote was more involuntary than voluntary. They wrote in an op-ed that voting no “would not have stopped the project.” If the elected officials who approved this felt they had no real choice, the residents of Box Elder County certainly didn’t either.

Backroom deals and pay-to-play have no place in Utah government, and Box Elder County residents deserve a voice in what happens to their community. We’re going to court to make sure they get one. And we believe that Utah law and Utah’s constitution are on our side.