CHALLENGING MIDA'S CONSTITUTIONALITY

In 2026, the Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA) and the Box Elder County Commission approved a project area agreement for the Stratos Project, a massive AI data center campus proposed for tens of thousands of acres in Hansel Valley, Box Elder County, backed by celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary.

MIDA is a special, unelected state entity with authority to oversee the use of taxpayer funds and development decisions within designated project areas. Once local officials confirm a MIDA project area, that consent cannot be reversed, cutting off residents’ ability to challenge the decision through a citizen referendum.

Alliance for a Better Utah, Saline Now, Inc., another Utah nonprofit, and a handful of individual Box Elder County residents have joined in the lawsuit, claiming that the project area places decisions about land use, public health, taxation and development under the control of unelected officials, violating constitutional principles, since MIDA would hold permanent, irrevocable control across tens of thousands of acres of Box Elder County, with no voter recourse. Box Elder County’s own commissioners have said their approval vote was involuntary rather than voluntary, writing that a “no” vote would not have stopped the project from moving forward regardless.

The structure also placed two sitting state senators, Senate President J. Stuart Adams and Senator Jerry Stevenson, on the MIDA board that approved the project, despite allegations that Adams and Stevenson were unconstitutionally appointed to the MIDA Board, as the Utah Constitution bars lawmakers from holding more than one office simultaneously. 

The lawsuit argues that the Utah Constitution gives Utah citizens legislative power through ballot initiatives and referendums, and that MIDA’s framework unconstitutionally extinguishes that power once a county signs on to a project area. As the complaint puts it, the state legislature has only a limited power to regulate the means by which citizens exercise their rights of direct democracy, and cannot use a statute like the MIDA act to extinguish those pre-existing rights entirely. It further argues that the MIDA Board approved the Stratos Project Area Plan without adequate evidence of landowner consent or required feasibility and public health studies, and that Adams’ and Stevenson’s dual roles as legislators and MIDA board members violate Utah’s constitutional ban on holding more than one office of public trust at a time. 

We are asking the court to declare MIDA’s approval of the Stratos Project unconstitutional and void, to permanently block MIDA and the Box Elder County Commission from further implementing or administering the project, and to remove Adams and Stevenson from the MIDA board as unconstitutionally seated members.