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Originally Posted by Atlas
Yeah I agree with that except Huntsman being governor again would have been good for SLC, despite being LDS and a Republican. Instead we got small-town bald guy #127. In fairness to Cox, we did get some good funding for FrontRunner double tracking this year.
SLC would surely be a bigger force in the legislature if it had more residents. Anyone know the history on why SLC didn't annex places like Millcreek, South Salt Lake, and WVC when it had the chance? With just those three cities in tow, SLC would have a population of 420,000 people right now.
Anyway, here's hoping the Tech Lake City initiative can challenge the Silicon Slopes for some of these tech companies going forward.
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Annexation has always been a contentious issue. When Salt Lake City tried annexing the Millcreek area, as well as Holladay, Cottonwood, and parts of current Sandy (before incorporation), the locals voted it down and incorporated into their own cities. Quality of services and higher costs from a distant city, like Salt Lake, were the issues the voters cared about. Also, water rights and local utilities came into play. Murray and Sandy were also trying to annex those unincorporated areas, so it got real interesting for a while there. Salt Lake County was dancing around the mix too.
Pride in the local neighborhood played a hand too.
At the end of the day, the majority cared most about how much their utilities would cost, what kind of service they would receive, and keeping historic names around.
Enjoy a couple articles on the subject from back in the day:
https://www.deseret.com/1999/6/4/194...f-other-cities
https://www.deseret.com/1999/2/11/19...reas-near-them
You should look at a map of all the islands of unincorporation scattered throughout the valley. Sandy has over a dozen! These are families (in some cases only 2 houses) that wanted to continue to receive services and utilities from the Salt Lake County. "White City" is the largest island.
Check out the reddit thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SaltLakeCit...t_lake_county/
West Valley had a history of poor services and no infrastructure. They were the destination for every developer's multi-unit dream. Curb and gutters were missing from a lot of subdivisions. No zoning regulation.
There were concerns that annexation by Salt Lake City would result in more of the same.
They had a failed vote for incorporation in 1978. The repeat ballot in 1980 was successful. The new city tossed around the idea for a better name several times, such as "Granger-Hunter" and other unwieldy names, and the voters always fell back on "West Valley City".