The claim
Signing the petition repeals the tax
“Sign the petition and the tax goes away.”
Seen: Petition drives and organizing posts, August 2026.
A real question the record cannot yet answer.
A referendum on a property tax rate is legally available, and one ran in a Utah city as recently as last autumn. But the resolution a petition was organized against was repealed on August 18 and replaced, and the signature test is two thresholds rather than one.
The numbers
What’s true
Utah Code § 20A-7-613 exists for exactly this situation. Five sponsors file a notarized application with the resolution attached; the city's budget officer must then produce an unbiased fiscal and legal impact statement within days; then signatures are gathered against a statutory threshold.
What isn't settled
Nothing about it is automatic, and two things are unsettled. The first is what a petition aimed at the August 6 resolution does now that the resolution has been repealed and a smaller increase adopted in its place: that turns on what was filed and when, and the city recorder is the authority on it, not this page. The second is the threshold itself.
More detail
For a city of the second class it is 8.25% of active voters citywide and 8.25% within at least 75% of the city's voter participation areas. Both must be met, and the second is what decides these. It is the one almost nobody organizing a petition budgets for.
Whether Eagle Mountain is second class yet is itself open. The statutory line is 65,000 residents, the first statewide subcounty estimates put the city at 65,409 in 2025, and the class changes on the lieutenant governor's certificate rather than on the estimate. If that certificate has not issued, the thresholds are 10% rather than 8.25%.
Where this comes from
Every finding here is drawn from an open-meeting recording or a published document. Check it yourself.
Read more on this site
More checks on how it was decided
- Unsupported by the recordThe tax was rushed through in secret
- Overtaken by eventsA 220 percent property tax increase
- Accurate, but incompleteEvery dollar of the increase goes to public safety
- Not accurateThe money pays for a city police department
Checked August 19, 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