The claim
The lower rate was negotiated in private
“When a mayor individually approaches citizens challenging a tax increase through a referendum, and a state senator helps negotiate a compromise with that group, which then withdraws its referendum, the public deserves to know how those negotiations occurred and whose interests were represented.”
Seen: Referendum organizing posts, Eagle Mountain Facebook group, October 2026. First seen October 8, 2026.
Built on a real figure, used to say something the figure does not support.
The mayor and some councilmembers did meet privately with sponsors of the first referendum before August 18, and one of those sponsors said so at the meeting. But the record shows no rate settled there: it was argued out and voted on in the open meeting. And the first petition wasn't withdrawn as part of a deal. State law voided it the moment the rate it targeted was repealed.
The numbers
What’s true
The meetings happened. At the August 18 hearing, one of the residents who co-sponsored the first referendum told the council that the mayor and several councilmembers had sat down with her and her husband the week before, and thanked them for it. Another resident said she had heard “a group of residents met and the city negotiated a new rate again.” Those conversations were not public meetings, and there is no record of what was said in them.
Where it goes wrong
The record does not show a rate agreed in private. The resolution in the published agenda packet left the rate, the percentage and the dollar amount blank, which a resident complained about from the podium. From the chair, the mayor said he had “no idea where this is going to land” and that “everything's on the table from 0 to 0.0017.” Councilmembers then argued for 0.0009, for 0.0011 and for keeping 0.0015, in front of the audience, before Councilmember Melissa Clark moved 0.000900, which passed 4 to 1. The co-sponsor who described the private meeting said in the same comment that she didn't know what the right number was. And the first referendum had nothing to withdraw: Utah Code § 20A-7-611(7) says that when a council repeals a law challenged by referendum, “the referendum petition is void and no further action on the referendum petition is required.” R-57-2026 was repealed that night.
More detail
The post says a state senator helped negotiate the compromise. Nothing in the public record shows what part, if any, Senator Emily Buss played in talks between the city and the first group of sponsors, so this page can't confirm it or rule it out.
A private conversation between an official and residents is not, by itself, a breach of Utah's open meetings law, which applies when a quorum of the council convenes (Utah Code § 52-4-103). Nothing on the record says a quorum of councilmembers met with the sponsors at once.
The second referendum, against the 0.000900 rate, is the one in progress now. See the referendum page for where it stands.
Where this comes from
Every finding here is drawn from an open-meeting recording or a published document. Check it yourself.
“I want to make note that multiple members of the council and Mayor Gray himself took the time to sit with us and talk with us and respond to the things that my husband and I had to say and questions that we had.”
“I downloaded the agenda packet and I pulled the resolution, and there were blank spaces for the new tax rate and the percentage amount and the dollar amount.”
“I can tell you sitting right here, I have no idea where this is going to land. So anybody leaves here and says this was predetermined, I don't even know.”
“Our finance department sent this out to us earlier in an email and it just has a bunch of different rates to consider. That's it. So it doesn't say, here's the one you should pick. It doesn't say, here's the one you've decided.”
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 8, 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