Editor’s note: In February, officials from Utah’s School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA) began working with Salt Lake City-based attorney Bruce Baird on a petition to disconnect over 9,500 acres of land from Bluff Town limits.
The Canyon Echo obtained nearly 600 pages of public records from SITLA, and we are releasing the emails in full here, minus duplicate documents. An article describing the major findings from the records will be published prior to the August 15 hearing on the disconnect request.
[PART ONE: SITLA Disconnect Records: Jan. – Feb. 2023]
March 17, 2023 – Baird and SITLA staff work on legal description of disconnection properties.
April 11 – Keli Beard, SITLA’s senior legal counsel, sends hand-drawn draft map to the group that proposes disconnecting all SITLA land from Bluff Town boundaries, including land near Comb Ridge and land west of Cottonwood Wash. The map also appears to propose disconnecting Bluff Dwellings Resort, Cow Canyon Trading Post, the Davis Farm and other private land. The map creates a clear peninsula and is later modified.
March 31 to May 4 – In this email chain, Baird and SITLA staff revise maps of proposed disconnect. Baird pushes to disconnect a significantly larger amount of land than the 9,514 acres that were included in final petition. On May 2, Beard tells Baird, “We’d like to avoid including anyone other than SITLA and your client [Eric Acton/Judy Lyman].” The final map includes SITLA land, BLM land, St. Christopher’s Mission, and the Lyman property.
Both Baird and SITLA express concerns about the “peninsula” created by the draft map.
April 21 – Beard states that the Pennsylvania-based Bluff Bench Solar LLC, the solar company that leased 999 acres of SITLA land in northeast Bluff, is supportive of disconnect. “Our solar lessee,” Beard wrote, “is very interested in pushing the disconnection through as quickly as possible. I’m around today to discuss.”
April 28 – After maps are revised to include only the 9,514-acre area in northeast Bluff, Beard writes to group, “We will be picking up some of the federal lands within the boundaries, as redrawn, but I think the shape of the town is logical in its redrawn form and we don’t cut any parties out of the town
than the Lyman party, ourselves and the feds. I think this configuration has the highest likelihood of succeeding before the Town of Bluff.”
Torgerson acknowledges that Bears Ears land swap may affect the disconnect as SITLA picks up new land between central Bluff and the San Juan River and the BLM picks up land in disconnect area.
Canyon Echo 