Townships prepare for vote Marriott-Slaterville City ? Residents on both sides of combination proposal step up campaigns By CHARLES F. TRENTELMAN Standard-Examiner staff OGDEN - With a week to go, Gerald Bischoff, Slaterville, is "trying to stop this uncontrolled train called incorporation." By his own admission, he may not succeed, "but there's a few people that are against it, and we're carrying on an information campaign." Voters in Marriott and Slaterville townships will go to the polls on Tuesday to vote on whether to incorporate into one city. The combined population of the two townships is 1,508. Proponents say the change will allow local residents to protect land from annexation into Ogden City and stop unwanted types of development. In addition to voting on incorporation, voters will be asked to decide what type of government they want. A Weber County feasibility study showed all but about $50,000 in revenues that the city would need for yearly operations are already raised in the proposed city area. The new city would have to find a way to make up the difference. The same study showed that start-up costs, such as purchasing a city hall, would add another $300,000 during the next five years. The source of those funds have not yet been determined. Proponents say savings can be made that would eliminate any tax increase from incorporation. Armed with stacks of leaflets, Bischoff and a few others have been fighting the proposal. Bischoff said he's just worried that people aren't looking at the question critically enough. Standard-Examiner "My problems with it are, first of all, it's going to raise taxes and it's going to increase local interference with your local property rights," he said. "The people seeking incorporation cannot describe what it will do for us," he said. "You see what's happening in the (Washington) Terrace and other small governments where they're having feuds, and I just wonder what it's going to do to us." Keith Butler, one of the proponents of incorporation, said he sees mostly good coming from the measure. The land in Marriott and Slaterville is in danger of being annexed into Ogden and developed, he said. If the process continues, the areas will lose their historic identity. The two areas formed as townships two years ago to give themselves a measure of self-protection. They lost that when the Legislature took away m6st of the powers of the townships last year, making them little more than planning advisory boards for the county government. Forming a city, Butler and other proponents say, is now the only way to keep developers from annexing land from their towns into neighboring Ogden City. Most of the services of a city - police, fire, water - will be purchased from Weber County or provided by existing special service districts, paid for with already-levied taxes. Butler said there are unknowns, but he thinks they can be dealt with. As a city, he said, "We may make mistakes, but if we do we can correct them ourselves rather than have anybody else do them." July 29, 1998 124