The claim
The vote was pushed to August to keep turnout low
“These delay tactics to push us into an August election that very few voters will turn out for shows your true colors.”
Seen: Referendum organizing post, Eagle Mountain Facebook group, October 2026. First seen October 7, 2026.
A real question the record cannot yet answer.
The August date is real: the petition the city issued names a special election on August 10, 2027. Whether the law allows it is open, and one statute reads against it: a city may call a special election on a tax question only in November. Why the city chose August is not something the record shows.
The numbers
What’s true
The petition the city issued refers R-62-2026 to “a special election to be held on August 10, 2027.” That is the date of the 2027 municipal primary (§ 20A-9-404). The statutory form for a referendum petition reads “at the regular/municipal general election to be held on” a date (§ 20A-7-603(2)); the city's version names a special election instead. On September 15 the mayor said the vote would come “at the appropriate time with the next election,” and city staff at the dais said the intent was to call a special election if the petition qualifies.
What isn't settled
Three statutes pull in different directions, and nobody with the authority to decide has applied them to this petition. § 20A-7-607(7)(a): a referendum on a decision made after April 15 cannot go on a ballot until an election the following year, unless the city recorder, the county clerk and the city attorney agree in writing on an earlier one. R-62-2026 passed on August 18, so 2027 is the default. § 20A-7-613(7): a property tax referendum goes on the earlier of the next regular general or municipal general election “unless a special election is called.” § 20A-1-204(1)(d): a local government “may only call a special election for a ballot proposition related to a bond, debt, leeway, levy, or tax on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November,” and § 20A-1-203(5) routes a city's special election on a referendum through that section. No official has said how an August special election squares with it. The November dates it allows are November 3, 2026, whose ballot is already printed without this question, and November 2, 2027.
More detail
The motive in the claim, delay, can't be read off a document, and this page has not checked turnout figures for August elections. What the record does show is that the date was printed on the petition before any signatures existed, and that the sponsors say they are asking a court to order corrected packets, which could settle the date too.
The date matters beyond turnout. Bills at the new rate go out in November 2026, and neither the statute nor the city's impact statement says what happens to money already paid if the vote comes in 2027.
Where this comes from
Every finding here is drawn from an open-meeting recording or a published document. Check it yourself.
“There's no way to get it on the ballot because we don't have the signatures yet, and it's already required to be into the county right now.”
Read more on this site
More checks on how it was decided
- Unsupported by the recordThe tax was rushed through in secret
- Accurate, but incompleteSigning the petition repeals the tax
- Not accurateThe mayor's pamphlet argument was filed late
- Accurate, but incompleteThe city published sponsors' home addresses
Checked October 7, 2026. Nothing goes on the fact-check list unless an open-meeting recording or a published document can settle it: the rules. Spot a mistake? civicrollcall@gmail.com